Notes From The Roads: 16 Ways To Become A Travel Influencer

The Internet has changed the way we have been living so far, and most importantly, it has also been of great help to people who have made the Internet a source of their income. 

Now how are people making money by using the internet? 

Do you know how many travel influencers are there worldwide or even in the country? 

The world is full of influencers, some of them are popular, and some of them are on the verge of getting popular, while there are some who have just started. 

Now the real question is how to become a travel influencer or how to even start doing it. 

If you love travelling and have a knack for creating creative and exciting content, then you, my friend, are perfect for the job. It’s time you become a travel influencer and get paid doing what you love. 

Let me tell you a few tips on how to become a travel influencer. 

1. Figure Out A Niche

The first step to becoming a travel influencer is to decide on a niche. You need to figure out a niche on which your content will be based. 

If you don’t do that, and follow the same old trend that the other travel influencers have been following, then you will be just a part of the crowd. 

For your blog or vlog to stand out, you need to stand out from the crowd as well. For that, you need to decide what exactly you will be talking about while you start your career as a travel content creator or a travel influencer. 

2. Know What You Want

For a thing to work out, no matter what it is, you have to know what is it that you want, because those who don’t know what they want, end up in a mess, and I am sure you don’t want that. 

So give yourself a day or two to figure out what you want and why do you want to do it? Is it only for money, or for travelling for free, or is it about your undying passion for travel and creating content? 

Find that first before you make a move. 

3. Charity Begins At Home

To become a travel content creator, it is not necessarily important that you travel immediately as you start your journey. 

If charity begins at home, so should your content. What I am trying to say is that there are plenty of things in your own city, so why not explore your city and see for yourself the content that can be made? 

It can be the famous food of your city, a historical monument, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, or unusual laws that are followed in your city or in your country. 

So explore your city and see what you can find out that the people may find interesting, and eventually, start following your page. 

4. Make Use Of Social Media

Now this is the most important step to become a travel influencer because social media is your bridge that makes your content reach the public for them to decide whether they like it or not. 

You may already have a social media account because that’s a given, but for your content, you need a separate account. Your face is not going to sell your content unless you are showing makeup tutorials. No offence, though! 

Make a social media account and start posting your content there. If you want to become a travel influencer on Instagram, then make a profile there, as well as on youtube. 

Suggested Read: How To Start A Travel Youtube Channel?

5. Get Your Friends Involved

What is the point of even having friends if they don’t support you while you try to build your career as a travel influencer? 

Get your friends to follow your new social media account and ask them to spread the word, put it on their Instagram story and posts, and share in direct messages with their other friends and acquaintances so that you can become a travel influencer on Instagram or whichever platform’s influencer you would like to become. 

Friends have friends, and they have other friends, just like Salman Khan said, instead of saying thank you to anyone, help three people and ask them to help three others, you do the same. Ask your friends to tell at least more than three friends about your social media account and your content, and ask them to spread the word to as many people as possible. 

6. Be A Little Smart

If it has been a long time since you started posting on your social media page and you are not seeing any significant progress when it comes to followers or your reach, whereas on the other hand, your personal social media account has more followers, then it’s best to play a little cool. 

What I am about to share is actually a hack, so keep it to yourself because this may not be the direct way but it’s something you can try to boost your reach. 

Since your personal social media page has a number of followers, change the name of your page, which means instead of your name put the name of your other page that you started for your travel-related content. 

Delete your personal pictures, and instead, start posting your content. 

This trick will only be helpful if your content is super unique and something which people like, otherwise you will just see a bunch of unfollows. 

It will help you make your content reach your friends and family added to your personal account, and who knows, if your content is actually good, you may become the influencer of the year. 

7. Invest In Tools

Since you are planning to make a career out of your love for travel, it’s important that you invest in tools. 

If you have decided that you are going to be a travel influencer, you should buy a good camera from where you can get high-quality pictures. 

Keep in mind that a picture is worth a thousand words, and no matter how much they ask others to not judge a book by its cover, everyone does that. So your pictures have to speak for themselves to sell your content. 

8. Create Engaging Content

Now this goes unsaid because if your content isn’t engaging, no one is even going to put a like on it. 

For your content to be engaging, you need to make sure that you have thorough information about the place or whatever your topic is. 

Ensure that the information you are putting is correct and not some random thing you posted by reading one bad article. 

So post only the correct information because the wrong information is all over the internet, but like I said, you don’t have to be part of the crowd, you have to be the leader of it. 

To make your content engaging, you can go for giveaways for Quizzes you post online, or you can give a trip in exchange if you have enough money for that. As a beginner, it may be a little difficult to sponsor a trip, so its best that you go for a giveaway. 

It may sound like you are spending a lot of money but it is just an investment, and every business needs investment for it to thrive at some point. 

9. Increase Your Reach

You can be creating the most interesting content in the world and still not have enough followers to be even called a travel influencer. 

It’s important to increase your reach. How can you do that?

You know word of mouth may be a traditional tool, but it is still the most powerful one. 

Interact with people outside social media, which requires you to be extra bold and reach out to people who you think might listen to you. 

To grow virtually, remember a few things you have to post at least two to three posts during the initial stages of your career as a travel influencer. 

Use a minimum of 5-7 hashtags in all your posts, make sure your hashtags are trending. If you don’t use trending hashtags, then your content is not going to reach most people. 

Keep your profile picture attractive, and post the same content on other social media platforms as well. 

Suppose you post your content on Instagram, then ensure that you also post the same content on Youtube, Facebook, and all other social media platforms for your content to reach great heights. 

Collaborate with other influencers with good reach. Collaborating has proven to be a good way to increase the reach of your content. Quality content always gets better reach when collaborating with other influencers. 

Make a weekly content calendar. Creating a content calendar with everything decided beforehand helps you in staying organized with your content. For example, on Monday, you will be posting travel News, on Tuesday travel facts, and so on. 

This will help you maintain consistency in posting your content. 

10. Don’t Make It Controversial

Just because you have to stand out from the crowd, don’t try to make your content controversial. Ensure that it is only for the purpose of spreading authentic information and doesn’t hurt any sentiments.

It should not be religion based because that may make it controversial because anyone can get hurt. 

So if you actually want your career as a travel content creator to go somewhere, avoid bringing religious and cultural beliefs into it. 

11. Interact With The Public

If you have gotten a few followers who like your content and comment on your posts, then it’s important that you make them feel heard. 

You should not be ignorant towards them. 

Ensure that you reply to all comments, interact with your followers over direct messages as well and make them feel important. 

Go on live videos to take honest feedback from your viewers. 

Suggested Read: TV Tourism: From Reel Life To Real Life Adventure

12. Listen To What Your Followers Have To Say

Critics and praise are what make the content better. It’s important to take feedback from your viewers and see what they think about your content. 

Now you may find people who follow you but are very critical. Don’t take it to your heart, instead take it as an opportunity to make improvements. 

You have no idea how these critics can actually make your content better. Listen to your followers and make amendments likewise. 

If you give attention to all these details, and make amendments, even your critics will become one of those people who will start praising it. 

Let’s face it, they are ready to criticise your content, but they are not ready to unfollow you, which means they still have hope in your content. So don’t disappoint the critics and improve. 

13. Reach Out To Potential Customers

Once you have followers of more than 5k, you can reach out to potential customers who may be interested in promotional content from you. 

You can get in touch with them through the mail, or if you can find their contact number, then that would also be great. 

Search for brands who collaborate with influencers who are beginning and have got a good number of followers on their page. 

Sometimes these brands pay you to post promotional content. These are mostly start-ups, who are also trying to get a better reach for their products and the promotion of their company. 

Once you become popular, several brands may contact you on their own. Hotels may also contact you for a shoutout and in return may give you free stays for a day or two. 

Becoming a travel influencer comes with a lot of perks, one of which is free stays in super cool hotels. 

14. Stay Up To Date

Once your page has taken off, it’s time that you strive to keep it that way. 

It often happens that once you have tasted fame, you become lazy and may feel the need to stop putting in effort. Now that is the biggest mistake influencers make. They become popular because of a meme or a reel, and then they stop putting in effort as if they will be in the trend forever with that one reel. 

This is a complete No, No. Stay consistent with your efforts and watch yourself become the best travel influencer there is. 

Keep upskilling your work. If you see the changing trends, change with it. Because if you don’t, you would perish from social media just like Dinosaurs perished from the World. 

Again, no offence. 

Suggested Read: 14 Photo Editing Apps For Travel Photographers

15. Humour Them

Whether you believe it or not, when your content is funny, people tend to like it. So try adding a little humour to your content, so even if your content is not that good, your little comedy can do wonders, and you never know what the public may find funny and make it viral.

16. Never Give Up

It may often happen that when you are starting your journey as a travel influencer, you may feel disappointed when things don’t go as planned. This is the most crucial time when you have to be patient and keep thriving.

If you give up then you will regret that for life. Never give up, work with the same pace, put in all your efforts, and everything will fall in place. 

Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)