The word “influencer” has become a trendy word passed around like a bottle of beer in the midst of an Oktoberfest revelry. Young people are dreaming of becoming one thus replacing childhood ambitions of becoming doctors, pilots, scientists and the likes. One can vouch for the emergence of the influence culture as a sign of our rapidly changing world. For one, it shines a positive light at affording ordinary individuals a platform to express their voices, opinions and even preference in everything related to lifestyle choices such as in fashion, travel, music, food and so on.
The Influencer Culture is now a Billion-Dollar Industry
When beforehand, we only have pop-culture icons consisting of famous celebrities who can impact other people’s choices, today we have the so-called “influencers” who came from a diverse background who managed to create a forceful presence in the online world.
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| Isa Rodriguez is a popular Technology influencer in the Philippines. She reviews all the latest gadgets on her YouTube Channel Isa Does Tech |
Of course, those who do so have achieved this height of popularity gaining massive followers through their creation of great content. Because quality and engaging content attracts attention, it came as no surprise when brands and companies started tapping into the "Influencer" culture to market products, ideas and trends.
A recent study conducted by the AI-powered platform HypeAuditor has revealed Instagram Influencer marketing will become a $7 billion industry in 2021. What does this say about Instagram Influencers? It is clearly obvious that influencers using the popular photo-sharing platform entices followers and commands power in shaping people’s choices.
What does being an “Influencer” does to a Travel Blogger?
The influencer phenomenon isn’t only limited to Instagram. A growing number of bloggers and vloggers are also becoming influencers in their own right. As a travel blogger myself who doesn’t belong in the upper tiers of popular travel bloggers, I still feel the need to be one—for the sake of instilling positive messages to my few readers.
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| Vlogger Nas Daily is one of the most popular travel influencers who promote responsible traveling while featuring the different cultures around the world |
This is where our collective role as travel bloggers would come in. We can hype up or promote a tourist destination for all we can. But if we won’t impart the importance of sustainable travel to our readers, then the places that wowed us and inspired us to write engaging narratives and capture mesmerizing photographs, might become one of those ruined by irresponsible mass tourism.
As the value of the Influencer-driven marketing rise to billion-dollar levels, the demand to be ambassadors of positive change as an Influencer must also catch up in terms of quality of content, constructive message and most of all, to help our readers to discover more about our beautiful world.
Being an influencer in the travel blogging community should not only cover being advocates of responsible traveling. Rather, one should also help ignite diverse passions to others.
Take for example Daniela Titiun. We all know about the fashion influencer, the travel influencer, the foodie influencer and so on. But Daniela, who is also a certified "Tea Sommelier", is widely known as one of the leading Tea and Coffee influencers in the world.
By using her website Tea Cachai, where she writes tea reviews, shares tea-based recipes and more, Daniela has managed to bring into attention, the fine experience of tea-drinking—aside from its health benefits—to her many followers and readers.
Recently profiled by Intellifluence, the leading influencer marketing platform used by brands, Daniela shares why she is passionate about writing about tea. " really like getting people into tea. The thing is tea is such a passionate thing. For us tea lovers, we love bringing people into tea because it’s something that you can share with friends and family and other tea drinkers"
Are
Influencers a Good Thing?
Yes of course. As long as influencers continue to come up with content that will not only tickle the wonders and imaginations of the public but also introduce new concepts, trends and positive values in the world of fashion, travel, food, health, fitness, politics, technology, business, education and more, then the rise of influencers and its impact to the global marketing industry shall always be a great thing.
