Influence on social networks, notoriety, recognition, animating your community, paid partnerships, the good life... Being an influencer has become a dream for most of you, especially young people, who see it as an excellent way to have a stress-free life doing what you love and without too many difficulties. Indeed, if you succeed, this profession can offer many advantages.
Yet it's not that easy to succeed as an influencer, especially in the travel sector, and make a comfortable living from it. 500,000 - that's the number of active influencers on the platform that is Instagram, all over the world!
So out of almost 8 billion inhabitants, that's relatively few. So much competition for an app that was originally just for photo sharing!
Influencers in beauty, sport, finance, health... To join this elite circle of influencers, and above all to succeed, you need to take several factors into account. While many of us have passionate travel profiles, becoming a travel influencer is unfortunately not within everyone's reach.
Nevertheless, the travel market can prove to be a niche ripe with opportunities. Discover our 10 tips for success as a travel influencer!
Be active on social networks
Although instinctive, this first piece of advice is worth remembering all the same. Staying active on social networks not only gives you public visibility but above all opens up opportunities to create, expand and build loyalty among a community likely to appreciate what you do, and what you post.
Have an Instagram first, and then you can expand the social media on which you want to be connected such as TikTok, Facebook, Twitter or even Youtube. This will diversify your audience and therefore achieve better results.
How do I get subscribers?
Whatever social network you choose to become a travel influencer, subscribers are your key to success. You need to have them, especially those who will engage with your content. But how do you go about gaining them?
The first step is to pay attention to the content you want to post, but above all, find an editorial line that reflects you as a travel influencer.
Color, publication rhythm, photo posts, images or more video posts... You need to find the little thing that will make you stand out from other travel influencers, your particularity.
It's this detail that will give people, who come across your content thanks to hashtags or shares in stories, to follow you and become a subscriber.
Don't hesitate to educate yourself on the subject of good Internet community management, so that you'll have all the keys you need to win a large number of subscribers! Building a solid, interested audience can take time and effort.
Solid networking
Many people succeed as travel influencers without having any basic networking, but having a good network of contacts can help you climb certain rungs of the ladder more easily than if you had none at all.
Expanding your professional contacts not only gives you access to partnerships with brands but above all reinforces your legitimacy as a travel influencer.
However, let's face it, networking will be more interesting when you already have a good subscriber base and a good rate of engagement, as this will reassure the future brand that wants to work with you that this partnership is also a win-win for them in terms of marketing opportunities: this tip is worth keeping in mind.
Where to network as a travel influencer?
We strongly advise you to use Shapr, which is a great way to get in touch with thousands of professionals from all walks of life, all over the world: a great way to network!
By targeting the right people, you'll have a good chance of getting a response from at least one of your targets, so start making contacts.
Find your travel style
Glamorous traveler, eco-traveler, minimalist traveler, committed traveler, sporty traveler... It's important to find your style as a travel influencer, because as we said above, it's the most important thing to distinguish yourself from other travel influencers, but also to specialize so you don't get lost when you animate your social media.
This will help you target the right audience for your content. As you experiment, you'll get better at targeting your style and it will become natural for you.
Don't hesitate to take a look at what's already being done on Instagram or Pinterest, to find out what kind of traveler's style you are, and what kind of products you could showcase. After all, influence goes hand in hand with marketing. It's up to you to find your niche.
Be original
Instagram posts with a particular take? Offbeat communication style? Atypical video editing? A particular color featured more prominently in your photo posts?
If you want to become a travel influencer, and above all make a living from it, you need to be original in this business. You need to have that special something that makes all the difference. If you want to have a chance of succeeding one day, it's more like a passion job.
You'll have to be curious, daring and observant to find that little original detail. It doesn't have to be original, but it will be much easier to gain notoriety easily, and users will be sensitive to this.
Stay up-to-date
As a travel influencer, you need to keep abreast of all the latest trends in terms of fashionable destinations, travel tips and tricks... As you can see, it's almost essential to keep abreast of everything that's going on in the world of tourism, since your content, which will appear on your social networks, depends on it.
So how do you keep up to date with the latest news in the world of travel?
We advise you to consult Google Trends, Tiktok, Facebook and Twitter. By doing the right targeted research, and following the right accounts, you'll always have the best information as sources of inspiration to feed your accounts!
Join travel groups
Facebook, discord... Getting informed about travel also means being part of groups where you could interact with other people who are also passionate about travel.
If you're in a situation where you want to become a travel influencer, you must show that you appreciate your specific field of escapades.
Tips, news, advice... You'll find it all in the groups, and it will also help you improve your network and contacts.
Be inspired by those who have succeeded
Becoming a travel influencer, especially if you're a novice and don't know where to start, isn't always easy. It's easy to get lost! So the other tip, which is a little expected and almost automatic when you don't know where to start, is to draw inspiration from what's already being done.
Don't hesitate to take some time to browse the YouTube channels of influencers who make vlogs about destinations, Pinterest to see what people like in terms of visual content and of course Instagram, spending time on travel-specific hashtags. This will give you a better idea of what your audience and different users are looking for.
Becoming a travel influencer means showing curiosity
You need to be curious, but also patient, because taking in information and sorting it according to your travel profile to keep only the relevant ones is not something you can do quickly and haphazardly.
Stay organized
Editorial planning, publication rhythm, mindmap... Managing an account on a social network focused on promoting yourself and your activity as a travel influencer requires serious organization.
Good community management means having visibility over time of the actions you want to implement, the expected results and the reported results. We strongly recommend using applications designed for community management.
Be bold
Although paid partnerships come directly to the door of the travel influencer when he or she has a good base in terms of subscribers but also engagement rates, when you start at your small level don't expect to receive a large number of offers.
You may never receive any at all!
When to use audacity?
Our advice is to make cold approaches to small local or national brands. This way, you'll have a slightly better chance of already receiving a response or even travel proposals.
Being bold as a travel influencer also means making offbeat video posts on TikTok or as a real person on Instagram to attract clicks and visits to your account, or even financing a partnership with a travel YouTuber for more visibility and exposure...
However, audacity doesn't mean trying anything and everything. Many influencers accept just about any partnership they can get their hands on, without bothering about the quality of the products. This damages your image and can play tricks on you in the long term. So remember: the keyword is quality!
There are many ways to dare when you're starting as a travel influencer: it opens up even more beneficial opportunities! In any case, make sure you stay professional and don't overstep your bounds.
Create a travel blog
Becoming a travel influencer - and, above all, thriving at it - means always ensuring that as many people as possible consult your content, whether written or visual: the basics of blogging. The other alternative we suggest is to create a blog, as this is an excellent way of attracting other traffic that will find you via search engines!
Writing SEO-optimized articles is your best weapon. However, don't forget the visual aspect of images when writing your articles.
Now, for this tip, you need to have a minimum desire to write about travel and, above all, to be fairly assiduous for the first 6 months so that Google can understand that you're active and that you want to provide blogger content with real added value.
And yes, blogging isn't for everyone! What's more, with all the bloggers on the market, you're going to have to be very good at standing out from the crowd, whether it's in article writing, branding or SEO.
It's all a bit technical since you need to have a basic knowledge of natural referencing, but if you get it right, you're likely to become an Internet reference as a travel blogger.
Travel influencer: how much can you expect to earn?
What you need to know is that remuneration for your activity as a travel influencer depends on many things. Number of followers, rate of engagement, seniority, level of notoriety... The more followers, the more you're worth!
Secondly, compensation systems vary from one partnership to another. You'll have somewhere you're paid per post on the social network, per sponsored publication, the value of followers (their engagement rate because if it's very high, there's a good chance they'll buy the product promoted by you, the travel influencer).
It all depends on the different types of trips too (country, duration, then adjust according to the influencer's reputation).
The average price varies greatly but will be between €50 and €500 for a promotional publication and between €150 and even several thousand euros depending on the impressions produced by a sponsored publication. Your various past experiences will play in your favor to negotiate the best deals for you.
Travel influencer salaries: statistics
There's a statistic about the remuneration of French influencers. According to a study by Reech, 93% of them earn less than €20,000/year for their work.
Only 6% earn more than €20,000/year. Nevertheless, between 2019 and 2022, average earnings have risen by 8%.
So, if you want to start as a professional, you're in for a very variable income. And yes, there can't be only advantages! Managing your money well is therefore a priority.
Percentage-based remuneration
There's another way to get paid, too. For example, a percentage of the total number of sales from followers who decide to go ahead with a purchase after viewing the ad in question, or a percentage discount on a purchase that will be offered to you if you decide to place an order on the partnership site concerned.
Gifts, the other way to earn from a partnership
Free products, free services... These are just some of the ways you can compensate an influencer for a partnership with a brand. But this shouldn't be your main source of motivation, because only passion will ensure longevity in this job.
