4 Tips to Succeed as a Travel Influencer

Tune in or read the blog version below!

Hi everyone. Welcome back to The Wanderlover Podcast. I am your host Danielle Hu, I am currently still in Hawaii, and I’m just so excited to be recording this episode because so much has happened!

Travel Influencer Handbook Launch

First and foremost, The Travel Influencer Handbook has launched today! It is edition number four.

I cannot believe it’s been four years since I watched the first edition, but obviously I’ve updated this version to include everything pandemic related, all new platforms, growth strategies, and whew, it’s a labor of love, but honestly, guys, I am so excited to be sharing this treasure trove of knowledge with you.

What I love the most about this edition is it is no longer travel centric and it has the tactics that can withstand a pandemic.

The Wanderlover has grown and flourished through coronavirus, which is insane to say because travel and travel blogging and working with travel brands was the core of what we did, but having multiple streams of income, having the systems in place to still be able to travel and work remotely, it is pandemic proof.

I’ve taken on so many new clients and all of them have been taught the strategies inside this Handbook. So I know that it works.

And last but not least, it has a really pretty branding revamp thanks to Fern Colab.

🤩 Download The Travel Influencer Handbook

Passion Planner Gift Box

Which brings me to my second update, which is honestly, just as exciting as the first. You guys have heard me rave about Passion Planner.

It’s this journal that I’ve been using for the past four years, I first got it in 2017 and it’s like a life coach in journal form. And what it does is in the beginning, you list out what you want to accomplish in your lifetime in three years in one year and three months.

This format was a reason why I was able to quit my corporate job, I knew that I needed to sustain myself, wanted to move to a different country and just all of these new goals, like I wanted to learn conversational Chinese and I wanted to learn Spanish.

All of these goals came to fruition because of the Passion Planner.

This past week I get an email from a PR agency who I had worked with in the past. And they emailed me saying that they’re doing a collaboration with Passion Planner at a hotel in Oahu.

And they want me to be their core influencer promoting the giveaway. Literally shook almost cried of happiness because I was like, is this real life? I’m getting paid to do this. I’m getting a hotel stay like, what is my life?

Honestly, the Law of Attraction at its finest, there’s really no other way to explain this. Other than you telling the Universe, what you are passionate about and what you want in your life. And it’s somehow just trickles.

It goes through people, it goes through things you can’t even feel or see. And these opportunities get presented to you as a reward for your hard work for all of the time and energy, you put into one direction.

As listening through this episode, and maybe you’re feeling a little stuck on your influencer journey, or you’re feeling stuck in your online business journey and you think, no, one’s noticing you think it’s all going to waste, really trust the process and know that great things are happening because the universe works in ways that you can not comprehend.

My intention with this episode, because you are listening because you are placing your energy in travel in the influencer space. My intention is to attract new collaborations, your way, new opportunities, your way, and give you the tools you need to make all of these beautiful opportunities and collaborations happen for yourself.

Disclaimer

So four tips to succeed as a travel influencer in 2021. And the huge disclaimer, if you’ve been following my page, if you’ve been following behind the scenes, travel influencing does not mean posting pretty photos like that is literally the tip of an iceberg.

If you are listening to this episode and you want to learn editing tips or posing tips like that is in the handbook, but I’m going to give you concrete business tips so that you can grow your income.

Video Is King

The first tip is video is king in 2021 And if you’re not optimizing your videos and learning how to produce videos consistently, you are falling behind the curve.

So videos in this day and age, it looks like TikTok. It looks like reels, and it looks like YouTube. So get familiar with this new format.

I actually had a call with an Instagram Reels expert, so they’re spending a lot of time and resources giving creators one-on-one guidance from their own personal consultant team.

The lady was literally known as Instagram or reels expert, and I could ask her whatever I wanted. It was a one-on-one session, so you can really see how much they’re really pushing Instagram reels to compete against TikTok.

I’m going to share with you a few tips that she’s holding me, but if you don’t have Instagram reels, as part of your content strategy, Instagram is not going to favor your account.

They’re actively pushing creators who have a consistent, reel posting schedule. Now is the perfect time for you to get comfortable.

Even if you have 100, 1000, 10,000 followers, start incorporating videos into your content strategy. In The Travel Influencer Handbook, I actually included screenshots from Instagram’s PDFs and masterclasses that they sent me credited them, but not entirely sure if that is open for distribution, but I think it’s so valuable.

Instagram and reels is really the key to growing your account.

🤩 Download The Travel Influencer Handbook

Share Authentically and Be Transparent

The second tip to succeeding as a travel influencer in 2021 stems from the fact that travel isn’t going anywhere. People are always going to love to travel and people are going to travel as soon as they are able to.

I’m on the Board of Advisors for Trove Tourism, and we know that countries have really big budgets. They want to promote tourism post pandemic, and they’re just waiting for people to give them their money because they know that people have itchy feet and they’re dying to travel again.

So during the pandemic and during lockdown, when travel was not an option, what I noticed the difference between successful travel influencers and the ones that weren’t successful, was authenticity. And just sharing from a place of lifestyle.

Sharing how they’re spending quarantine, still continuing the content creation process, even when it’s not about travel. And because a lot of people have kind of like rebranded away from travel personally, I didn’t feel comfortable promoting travel, so I shared about other aspects of my life.

When you can talk to your audience from a place of genuine concern, genuine care and genuine entertainment, and you’re not posing for pretty photos and no one can see your face, this has been the biggest shift I’ve noticed.

I think it is here to stay when borders open up again and everyone’s traveling, I don’t think heavily edited, curated photos and videos are going to reach as many people as photos and videos of normal people, having a good time and really talking highly about the location.

From a travel influencer perspective, you really have to know your brand and what you stand for. You really have to know how you can create content, even when travel is not a part of it. Because if people are only following you for the travel aspect, then it’s kind of sad to say that if that goes away, your brand goes away, right?

So we’re going to distinguish ourselves. We’re going to be the successful travel influencers who have a personal brand, even without the travel part.

And the longer you stay consistent with sharing your day-to-day life, still creating content, despite a pandemic, when travel comes back in full force, stronger than ever, you are going to be ahead of the game.

If you need help branding yourself, finding your brand values, your mission with your online presence, I also go through this step-by-step.

I call The Travel Influencer Handbook a step-by-step guide because it literally is step-by-step what you need to be asking yourself and what you need to be sharing on a consistent way basis with your audience.

🤩 Download The Travel Influencer Handbook

Expand To Other Platforms

Next, the third tip to succeed as a travel influencer in 2021 is to expand to other platforms. It’s no longer, only about Instagram and you are going to fall behind if you just choose to focus on Instagram.

Remember we never want to have all our eggs in one basket. And if you’re thinking about what other platform you should expand into, think about what you’re most comfortable with.

Do you enjoy talking? Podcasting for me is a lot easier than YouTube because I’m not constantly looking at myself, so that works for me.

But if you really enjoy being in front of them camera, think about YouTube, think about TikTok and find a balance between getting outside your comfort zone, and really being able to create new content consistently.

An Email List Is A MUST

Going off of this, on top of platforms, you’ve really want to have an email list. Running an influencer business is a business.

And if you’re not retaining all of your clients, if you’re not retaining your audience members, you’re going to lose out. Even when Instagram goes down, even when all of your other platforms goes down, all of these audience members are still interested in what you have to say.

If you have a blog, if you have a website, if you have anywhere that you can start incorporating and getting people onto your email list, that will also be invaluable.

If you want to learn more about email lists or even the content strategy that I use, so I can post consistently on multiple platforms every single week, all of these strategies are in the newest edition of The Travel Influencer Handbook.

I also want to mention I’ve recently started getting collaboration requests for TikTok because when it first came out, I went through a 30 day TikTok challenge, where I wanted to post every day for 30 days.

So inevitably my following grew and a year later, I’m now getting contacted to be making videos. If you listen to our interview with Daniel Toni Jais, he is a huge influencer.

And even he said, it was daunting at first to tap into TikTok. So everyone starts from somewhere and you just need a push through that first step. I promise you, it will get easier.

🤩 Download The Travel Influencer Handbook

Establish Relationships With Marketing Agencies

My last tip for you is to make connections and keep your relationships. This is especially so important because as the influencer market is getting more and more saturated, you really want to stand out and you want to have a great relationship with the PR and Marketing people because they will recommend you.

And they will remember you. And because of all the behind the scenes, networking and connections, like, honestly, this has been the reason why I get contacted with new opportunities, because I’m basically friends with the people I work with.

I think my clients can attest to this too, but I feel like everyone’s just a person, right? Like, no, one’s more important than the other. You should treat everyone fairly. And in my case, like, I just want to be friends with everyone.

So why not, you know, establish that rapport and taking it one step further?

You’re there to help their Marketing grow. You’re there to help them increase their return on investment. And so having the professionalism to represent yourself as a travel influencer, that is so important.

If you want to see exactly how I’ve reach out and communicate to brands, if you want to see my email templates and my voice in doing so, I have my exact pitching template and contract sample in The Travel Influencer Handbook, feel free to just insert, you know, your credentials and change it up to be your voice.

Ultimately being a travel influencer is a full-time job and you are running your own business, so really get into that mindset that you have the power to grow and scale it to infinity and beyond like work with whatever hotel, expand to any digital product or service suite, get collaborations with your dream clients.

You guys know how much I love my job, how I love my life that I personally designed and helping other people do the same. I made an entire business out of helping other people.

So this resource, the Handbook is just so invaluable in it. I also include everything that got me to where I am today and everything that I think would help you.

The list of apps, a whole section on monetizing, best affiliate networks, resources, library, marketing, and optimizing, and step-by-step guides, so it’s really comprehensive.

If you guys are even thinking about starting as a travel influencer, I want to be the first to support you through it.

So whether you’re just getting started on your journey or whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur and influencer, just looking for tips, I hope that these four tips really help you this year. I’ve been studying trends.

I’m really on top of things. And these were the main things that I’ve noticed, and if you have them under your belt, I know that you’re going to be successful.

🤩 Download The Travel Influencer Handbook

Final Thoughts

You are capable of anything that you set your mind to.

Thank you so much for tuning in. Get your copy today, and I cannot wait to hear how it has impacted you and what you’ve learned from it.

My DMS are always open and have the most amazing week guys!

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, it would mean so much if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This helps us spread The Wanderlover mission to those who need a dose of inspiration today, thank you!

🤩 Download The Travel Influencer Handbook

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