How to become a travel influencer

Welcome to our Instagram Academy. If you want to know how to become a travel influencer, you are in the right place.

In earlier lessons (you will find them all in our Instagram Academy) we covered plenty of Instagram subjects: how to improve your Instagram profile, how to grow your followers, when to post, how often to post, how Instagram for business works, and we also covered Instagram for the fashion industry and much more.

But let’s get to what brought you to this page.

You sometimes hear people ask how to become a travel blogger on Instagram. That description isn’t quite right, because a travel blogger is someone who bases their travel promotion on a blog, using the blog rather than Instagram as their main way of reaching people.

It is also true, though, that travel bloggers can use Instagram as a channel for acquiring readers and sending them to the blog.

If you don’t have a blog but want to use Instagram for travel, then the right description is that you want to become a travel influencer and make money on Instagram with a travel profile.

With that necessary distinction made, we now want to help with simple advice and strategies for building an Instagram travel account that lets you grow on Instagram — whether you have a blog or not.

Shall we start?

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What is a travel influencer?

Or perhaps better: who is a travel influencer?

What a travel influencer is: someone who, through content posted on social media, above all Instagram, shapes people’s choices about where to travel.

If you can build a successful travel profile on Instagram you can think about working with tour operators to sell trips and excursions, start plenty of collaborations and make money on Instagram in travel.

Instagram has transformed tourism. Instagram is now a container of emotional experiences, increasingly able to draw people into their own trips, showing them landscapes and monuments and letting them live the cities and places where they spend time.

That has let people become “ambassadors” of their own travels and activities. Research on Instagram in the travel sector found that Instagram is used in 48% of cases to learn about and choose destinations, while 35% consult it to discover new places to visit.

Food for thought, isn’t it?

You can see how Instagram for tourism is the trend of the moment and that, at this point in time, travel choices are made on social media. So let’s look at what it takes to become a travel influencer on Instagram.

Screenshot of @mformarica

Instagram influencers genuinely can shape what people buy, which is why brands increasingly seek out this kind of collaboration to sell their product or service.

The same happens in travel on Instagram. Every tourist spot or attraction is a potential Instagram photo, and people working in tourism make heavy use of Instagram’s potential for content to spread.

So we have established that Instagram and travel are a perfect match — and the industry has worked that out too, seeking travel influencers on Instagram more and more often.

Does this field appeal to you but you don’t know how to become a travel influencer?

Here are the basic steps to start with — read on.

Screenshot of @markomorciano

Travel influencer: how do you become one?

If you have chosen this niche to work in, we should say up front that it can be enjoyable but is not exactly simple.

Becoming a travel influencer requires something influencers in other fields don’t have to do: travelling. That is a plus, because everyone likes travelling and discovering new places, but it also means a large investment on your part. Travelling is wonderful but it isn’t cheap. So the idea of leaving your job to devote yourself entirely to travel may frighten you — yet if this is the road you want to take and you can afford it, start planning your trips around the world.

Becoming a successful travel influencer takes real passion and plenty of courage, because before you get free hotel stays you will be working alone for a while.

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Want to become a travel influencer? You have to invest

If you want to become a travel influencer you have to invest. If you decide to take this path, that is fundamental and should not scare you. So you need reasonable financial resources.

To work with Instagram in travel and become an Instagram influencer in the travel sector the financial effort will not be small. We are not only talking about the cost of the trips themselves, but also about buying all the equipment needed to become a successful travel influencer. To take on this “career” effectively you will need a GoPro, drones and a professional camera — and you will also have to know how to use them. You will probably need courses in Photoshop or video editing software, and once you have your Instagram travel account you will have to invest in Instagram promotion.

If that introduction hasn’t frightened you off, you are ready to go further and understand how to become a successful travel influencer.

Study the influencers who succeeded

If you want to get more followers on Instagram and make your travel profile known, the first thing to do is study the travel influencers closest to you and to what you want to become.

It matters to understand how they structure their profile, what they do daily, what worked and what didn’t in their travel feed.

Learn from your favourite influencers’ successes and work out how you can move.

One of the first things you will notice is that these major travel influencers have a strong personality on Instagram (go to the official site).

Screenshot of @manuelavituli

Find what sets you apart

Exactly so — have you looked at other influencers’ profiles? They all appear with distinctive traits, coherent profiles, each having built their own trademark.

That matters for you too, as you work out how to become a travel influencer.

Find a niche within travel and focus on it: if hiking is your passion, focus on hiking and show that to your audience.

Build a kind of brand out of yourself and make it distinctive and different.

Always surprise your audience

Are you a travel influencer on Instagram? Then be ready to surprise your followers. Followers never tire of following someone who takes them out of their usual routine.

Don’t shut yourself in the hotel posting selfies from your room — you would wear people out. On the contrary, when you travel, get out of your comfort zone and give your followers a sense of escape from everyday monotony.

Surprise them; make everything you do interesting, stimulating, something that stirs an emotion.

That is what makes the difference and one day lets you make money on Instagram in travel.

Engage your audience even when you are not travelling

Obviously when you are travelling you will publish content about the places you are visiting (very useful for working with tour operators too).

But you could also play the tourist in your own city and involve your followers. When you come home, show content from your city and let your followers see where you come from. When you are not exploring the world, connect with restaurants and venues in your city, with places to stay, and explore and share your own city with everyone — and this time at a modest cost.

These are the main pointers on setting a strategy for working with Instagram in travel. If you want to go into specifics and understand when, how much and what to publish, how to grow followers on your profile and everything about how to improve your Instagram profile, read the other lessons of our Instagram Academy.

Conclusion

To close: one of the most searched phrases around Instagram is how to become a travel blogger on Instagram. The first thing we did was tidy that up, focusing instead on how to become a travel influencer on Instagram.

Instagram and tourism are connected today. Through their content, Instagram influencers lead their followers to choose the destinations they have visited, so “Insta-tourism” is talked about more and more.

We have made some important points, and we hope they help you start your path as a travel influencer on Instagram.

Good luck with your travel Instagram profile.

We will see you in the next lessons, where we will go deeper into other Instagram subjects you are sure to find interesting. Stay tuned and keep following your favourite Instagram Academy.

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