Social Media & Influencers Explained

What Is Social Media & Who Are Travel Influencers?

In almost all of my posts, I discuss social media and social media influencers. Before diving into how travel influencers use social media to impact consumers’ travel decisions, it’s important to understand what social media is and who social media influencers are.

According to the webster dictionary, social media is a from of “electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)” (Webster Dictionary, 2018). Social media is essentially a tool for people to create a squad online.

So, one can assume that a social media influencer is someone online who has been able to effectively form an online community, or in other words, has been able to form an online squad. Specifically, a social media travel influencer is a person who has been able to create a a squad by sharing their ideas, messages, etc about travel.

Social media influencers have many positive impacts on the travel industry. For example, the article "5 Reasons Influencers Absolutely Impact Your Business Growth", suggests that influencers are great because they "know how to mobilize their audience and get key messages in front of your target customers. The most successful influencers have found a specific, niche audience, and they communicate with them in order to get them to take some kind of action" (Miachon, 2016, para. 4).

This implies that travel companies could benefit greatly from hiring popular social media travel influencers; the travel company would be able to effectively communicate with their audience through the travel influencers. Better communication with one's targeted audience would be a positive for the travel industry.

To further prove their point, the article goes onto say that "In a 2015 McKinsey report, social recommendations induced an average of 26 percent of purchases across all product categories, which is much higher than initially thought by many marketers (only 10-15%). Clearly, there’s a substantial impact when an influencer makes an opinion or recommendation to purchase a product" (Miachon, 2016, para. 4).

It's clear that the travel influencers found on social media can have a profound positive impact on the travel industry; however, it's important to note that travel influencers can also have some negative effects.

The article "Instagrammers are sucking the life and soul out of travel" suggests that travel influencers are actually having a negative impact on the travel industry. The author of the article references a train ride she took from a village called Ella to Kandy, the capital of Sri Lanka. The author states that the train ride is "widely regarded to be one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world, it traverses verdant mountain passes, waterfalls, and tea plantations. But many of the passengers under 35 were interested only in obtaining the same photograph – lifted right from Instagram – of themselves hanging barefoot out of the open doors of the train, with significant risk to life and limb"(Cosslett, 2018, para 5).

Thus, travel influencers are destroying the nature of travel. Instead of encouraging people to explore new places, marvel at the world's beauty, and find new adventures on their own, they are encouraging people to replicate another's travel experience. This is the opposite of what traveling should be about. Travel should be authentic, not some lame attempt to look cool and fit in with what everyone else is doing.

The article "Instagram's Wannabe-Stars Are Driving Luxury Hotels Crazy" states that "an onslaught of lesser-known wannabes has left hotels scrambling to deal with a deluge of requests for all-expense-paid vacations in exchange for some social media posts" (Lorenz, 2018, para 2).

This suggests that the thousands of people who are trying to 'make it' as a social media influencer are continuously contacting travel companies and brands to try to get a free vacation. One can assume that it's hard for travel companies and brands to 'break through the clutter' in order to decipher which travel influencer is actually worth investing their time and money into. As the article title suggests, travel influencers may be creating one massive headache for the travel industry.

Overall, travel influencers and their use of social media can have both positive and negative impacts on the travel industry. Personally I feel that the positive effects of social media influencers outweigh the negatives. In addition, social media and travel influencers seem like they are here to stay, so it will be interesting to see how they continue to influence the travel industry, and it will be interesting to see wether the continue to produce more positive or more negative effects.

Sources

Cosslett, R. (2018, January 7). Instagrammers are sucking the life and soul out of travel. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/17/instagrammers-travel-sri-lanka-tourists-peachy-backsides-social-media-obsessed

Lorenz, T. (2018, June 13). Instagram’s Wannabe-Stars Are Driving Luxury Hotels Crazy. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/06/instagram-influencers-are-driving-luxury-hotels-crazy/562679/

Miachon, N, (2016, September 8). 5 Reasons Influencers Absolutely Impact Your Business Growth. Retrieved from https://upfluence.com/influencer-marketing/5-reasons-influencers-absolutely-impact-business-growth

Webster Dictionary (2018). Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media