Social media has taken over the internet and our lives. Constant vibrations and notifications fill our phones and with a few clicks, we can be updated on the lives of our friends and others from all over the world. Travelers have begun to fill our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter feed with astonishing photos of places we have only dreamed of going.

The merge between social media and traveling has opened a whole new set of opportunities for travelers. Travel influencers focus their social media and blog posts on tourism, traveling, and the people, places, and culture they have encountered. They paint the picture of the perfect vacations and lives that people at home want to experience and this inspires others to engage in traveling.

In a study conducted by Airbnb and Gfk, millennials in the United States, United Kingdom, and China were asked to rank their priorities for the next five years. They were asked to rank savings and investment funds, buying a car, purchasing a home, and travel, among others. Millennials in the United States ranked traveling and buying a car equally and above purchasing a home.

As travel becomes easier to do and plan, millennials have come to prioritize travel in their lives. Today, young people tend to be more interested in creating local experiences as opposed to being a run of the mill tourist. Of the Generation Z participants, 92% of them claimed that they were interested in specific locations after viewing “user-generated content”. Travel influencers play a huge role as they have the power to influence and encourage their followers to visit your destination, stay at your local bed and breakfast, or fly on your airline.

After influencers build a following on their social media profiles, business opportunities can arise. Many businesses, large and small, use these influencers to show their products, services, or destinations to a new audience. The inspiration and awe that influencers share with their followers will hopefully encourage them to use the same products and services that they advertise.

What to consider when choosing a travel influencer:

Relevance is key!

Even if an influencer has a large following if the followers are not interested in your products or services you will be targeting the wrong audiences. It is important to find an influencer who represents the brand you want to display. If you are targeting the wrong audiences you will be wasting money and time on an influencer who is not helping to expand your brand.

Do followers matter?

Of course, they do! But there is a line to be drawn when you are choosing influencers purely because of their following. Without a following, having an influencer will not bring you the customers you are looking for, but having too large of a following can produce the same negative result not to mention a much pricier check. As the pool of followers increases, the people who may actually be interested in your product or service decreases. The key is to find a middle ground. The optimal influencer will have a large enough following to market your product, but a small enough following that most of the followers will be interested in your product.

The best tools for influencers and companies:

Onalytica

Onalytica is an influencer marketing platform that helps connect and manage relationships between influencers and companies within the same industry. This software platform will allow companies and influencers with similar interests to find and work with each other. Onalytica also offers data analytics for companies to see the impact that an influencer is having on their company. With a five-step process of discover, map, listen, engage, and measure, Onalytica makes relationships between companies and influencers easy and profitable.

Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a social media monitoring company that works to monitor numerous web platforms to collect data. Social media monitoring is the monitoring of online platforms to record what is being said. Despite the name, social media monitoring is not solely focused on social media platforms.

Brandwatch and other similar companies will scan the internet and will have large sums of data that can be easily searched through. With sophisticated software like Brandwatch companies can search for specific words, sentences, or even brands and will be able to see when and where these words appear. This helps companies determine how well their brand is performing and on what platforms it is receiving the most attention.

Socialbakers

Socialbakers is a social media marketing company powered by AI. With AI all companies have to do is connect their data to the platform and Socialbakers will automatically connect you with the best influencers for your company. Different criteria allow you to find the influencer who will best represent your company. Socialbakers also allows you to monitor all of your influencers in one program and gives you the data analytics for each individual. These analytics will allow you to see how influential each social media page is to your company.