Social Media Tips for New Travel Instagram Influencers
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If you've decided to become a travel influencer, one of the first things you've probably thought to do is create a travel Instagram account.
Instagram is one of the top social media platforms for picture and video content. It's where a lot of avid travelers and travel enthusiasts go to scroll for hours looking at pictures of cool places and reels with travel tips and destinations to add to their bucket list (bonus: this is an important part of your marketing strategy — showing up where your audience consumes content).
If Instagram is part of your travel influencer strategy, then you need to check out these...
Social Media Tips for New Travel Instagram Influencers
Create your new account as a Creator Instagram Account
When you're first starting out, create you new travel Instagram account as a creator account, which is a business account. By doing this, you get the following benefits:
- metrics - you'll be able to see more metrics than you would with a personal account that way you learn what people are interested in and continue to create more content like it
- category - Instagram allows creator accounts to pick a category like blogger or digital creator
- algorithm - it helps the algorithm understand what your profile and content is about, which will help push it out to the right people
Optimize Your Instagram Profile
There are many things you can do to optimize your Instagram profile, including:
- Create a travel-related username: likely the first thing that comes to mind will already be taken, so brainstorm some ideas and start to check them out. This may help you come up with other ideas.
- For example, I came up with the username @nomadicallyashley — I can't remember the original idea I had but it was already taken. And as I searched for travel terms, I knew I wanted to keep my focus (or niche) around the digital nomad aspect.
- Utilize the name field: don't just put your first name and last name as your name. Use this space to add 1-2 relevant terms that people would search to find you. For example, my website and core travel name is "Nomadically Ashley" but in this field, I instead used "Ashley | Solo Female Traveler & Digital Nomad"
- Write a well thought-out bio: You have 150 characters to sum up who you are, why people should care, and provide a call to action. Sounds a lot like trying to write social posts for Twitter, but you can pack a lot into a little, in this part of your Instagram profile.
- Maximize the link in bio feature: now that Instagram has rolled out the ability to link to 4 external sites, you can link out to multiple high-value places, like your blog, website, YouTube, a free guide (used as a lead magnet), a free or paid course, or even a link in bio tool where you can house even more links.
Use a Variety of Instagram Post Formats
While it may be tempting to just post reel after reel after reel, you should incorporate other types of content into the mix. Try sharing a single image every now and then. Or you can share several pictures at the same time using a carousel, which encourages people to stop and swipe to the end of the carousel.
And don't be afraid to go live on Instagram — whether you schedule it in advance or on a whim. People love people, and they want to hear you on camera!
Leverage Instagram Reels to Expand Your Reach
One of the best ways to expand your reach is to create and share Instagram Reels. Reels are short video clips that are currently social media GOLD. When creating your Reels, keep these tips in mind:
- Use a hook to capture people's attention, then provide them with value that keeps them watching
- The Instagram algorithm prefers Reels created in-app, so add your on-screen text and captions in Instagram versus using a third-party tool like CapCut.
- The Instagram algorithm does not like TikTok videos with watermarks.
- Utilize looping videos and sounds to keep people watching beyond the first play
- Test out different length Reels, varying from 3-4 seconds to really as long as you want or as long as the corresponding audio lasts
- Test out using one clip and multiple clips stitched together.
- If you utilize trends, put your own spin on it. Don't just copy everything that everyone else is doing the exact same way that they are. Make it your own. Make it tailored to your audience and niche.
- Be a trend-setter. Create content so good for your audience that others want to copy it!
Work towards reaching Instagram's achievements
In your professional dashboard, you will find an achievements section where Instagram has identified different types of goals to reach. As you reach them, they will raise the amount so that you can reach it by creating or posting more. Try to focus on reaching many of those.
Spend time building an engaged travel community
All too often, people leave the social out of social media, but it's one piece that really shouldn't be ignored. It's not enough just to post content on Instagram, especially if your goal is to grow a loyal and engaged social following in the travel industry.
Budget in some time to:
- Like, follow, and engage with fellow small/new travel influencer accounts — it's a win for both of you, because you're likely someone they want to follow and engage with too.
- Like, follow, and engage with larger travel influencer accounts — they've already built large followings in the travel industry, so this puts your name/account in front of an audience you want to be in front of.
- Pro tip: try to be one of the first comments on their new posts; I did this early on and ended up with over 575 likes on a single comment on someone else's post, and that number is continuing to grow almost a month later.
- Spend time scrolling through the Reels portion of the app to find and follow new related accounts, and comment on the Reels you like. This is a spot where you'll find content that won't be in your news feed YET. And the more you engage with relevant content here, the more your news feed will transform into content from your niche, and the easier it will become to continue engaging with the accounts you want to engage with.
Using these strategies, your Instagram account will begin to grow with a community of loyal followers.
