We’ve all imagined it. Being paid to travel the world, try exotic foods and stay in waterfront villas.
Why not you?
As a travel influencer that has survived the pandemic, I want to teach you how to attract travel collaborations in a way that aligns with your brand and values. Ultimately, helping you create incredible and soul-aligned opportunities for yourself.
However if you’re looking for a guide on how to take picture and pose well, you won’t find it here. This is a concrete guide on how to run a business as a travel influencer and grow your income.
And if you’re ready to get started right now, download The Travel Influencer Handbook
1. Video is King
The popularity of short form vertical video is no longer a secret. With every social media platform introducing various versions of video feeds, your brand needs to be visible in video form to stay relevant on Social Media platforms.
My top tips for creating scroll stopping videos:
- Start with a hook that gets viewers attention. This can be an interesting piece of footage, attention grabbing text, or both.
- Provide value to your audience. Whether that be to entertain, educate or inspire, your video needs to provide some sort of value to the viewer.
- Keep it simple. Most of us aren’t professional video editors and especially if you’re new to creating video, the easier the video is, the more enjoyable it is to create content. Ultimately helping you to stay more consistent. Keeping it simple also helps the video be authentic and we are seeing a huge upwards trend in raw and ‘real’ content on social media.
Once you have created your video, re-purpose it across different video platforms. Just be aware if the original video is created in TikTok, use a website to remove the watermark before uploading elsewhere!
2. Staying Authentic
With the pandemic came a huge shift in the travel influencer world. Despite travel being impossible, many influencers remained successful and relevant. The secret? Authenticity.
The influencers who didn’t just share pretty pictures but also shared other aspects of their life were able to remain relevant because they talked to their audience from a place of genuine concern and care.
So we’re going to distinguish ourselves. We’re going to be the successful travel influencers who have a personal brand. The longer you stay consistent with sharing your day-to-day lifestyle alongside travel, the more multi-faceted your brand and the less susceptible you are to changes in the travel space.
If you need help branding yourself, finding your brand values and your mission with your online presence, I go through this in The Travel Influencer Handboook. It is a step-by-step guide to what you need to be asking yourself and what you need to be sharing on a consistent basis with your audience.
3. Be omni-present
Long gone are the days where you could be just an instagram influencer. You need your brand to be present on many platforms. Both owned and unowned (I will explain this more shortly). This doesn’t have to mean you are on every platform possible. Just think about what you’re most comfortable with and good at, then go from there.
You can also choose to have one platform that is your focus, and repurpose the content from there onto others. For example if your focus and your main audience is on Instagram, a reel can be repurposed onto TikTok and converted into horizontal video for youtube.
I previously mentioned owned and unowned platforms. An owned platform is something that is entirely yours and not reliant on another business. (You always explain this so much better so please change it. I don’t like using the word business because the reality is with a website you are relying on the hosting provider etc). For example a website and an email list. Unowned platforms are all the social medias. Whilst the account is yours, you do not have any power within the platform itself. You cannot control where your content is seen nor can you control if your account is incorrectly banned or if the platform fails one day. To be a successful influencer in business, you need to be able to have control over your brand and your audience through owned platforms.
If you want to learn more about email lists or the content strategy that I use to be able to post consistently on multiple platforms every single week, you can find these in The Travel Influencer Handbook.
4. Networking
This is not just for corporates and start-ups. Making connections and maintaining relationships in the influencer industry is becoming increasingly important as the market becomes more saturated.
You want the people in charge of influencer campaigns (either at PR and Marketing agencies or within brands themselves) to think of you before others. Establishing rapport and creating professional friendships is a great way to achieve this and be front of mind for your dream brand’s next incredible campaign.
If you’re looking for some direction on how to reach out to agencies and brands, I include the exact email and pitch template that I use, in The Travel Influencer Handbook. I also include contract samples and how to pitch in your own unique brand voice.
5. Treat it like a business
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. You CAN work with whatever hotel, expand to any digital product or service suite and get collaborations with your dream clients.
I love my job and the life that I personally designed for myself through my business. I also love helping other people do the same. The Travel Influencer Handbook includes everything that got me to where I am today and everything that I think would help you create a business as a travel influencer.
It is really comprehensive and includes lists of all the apps I use, a whole section on monetizing, best affiliate networks, resources, marketing and optimizing as well as step-by-step guides. Whether you’re starting as a travel influencer or you’re a seasoned influencer in need of the latest trends, the handbook has it all and is updated regularly.
I can’t wait to see you achieve your dreams as a travel influencer. DM me on Instagram with your success stories or any questions. I can’t want watch you SHINE! ✨
