The influence of #hashtag "Influencers"

[Quickstatus]

A friend of mine runs an iconic hotel

She got this the other day:

Good afternoon ******* Hotel!

I hope this email finds you well.

My name is xx_XX, I am a travel blogger and content creator based in Sydney’s *********. I have a total of 522,000 followers on my Instagram platforms through the accounts @xx_ and @xx_. I co-own the account @xx_X with my mother, aka the successful @xx_X on Instagram.

Fortunately because of the success of our social media platforms we have been blessed to travel the world often and in style, we are certainly no ordinary family! One of our biggest passions to pursue while travelling is snowboarding. I have been lucky enough to visit some of the world’s best places to snowboard including the French Alps, Japan and hopefully Austria at the end of this year! xx_xx_xx_X

I was researching accommodation in ******** for a trip my partner and I are planning on doing early ********. Of course I know of the iconic ******** hotel and instantly knew this is the place to stay! I would like to reach out to you today to offer a collaboration between our two brands.

Please see the below proposal:

Proposal

In exchange for:

- 5 nights accommodation from 5th - 9th ******* (dates are flexible)
- 5 x breakfast
- 5 x gourmet dinners

I will provide ******** hotel:

- 5 x Instagram stories on @xx_XX tagging @*********hotel hashtagging #**********hotel
- 5 x Instagram stories on @xx_XX tagging @********hotel & hashtagging #********hotel
- 1 x Instagram post on @xx_X tagging @********hotel & hashtagging #*********hotel
- 1 x live Instagram video on @xx_XX stating that we are staying at *******hotel and our experience of it!

Thank you for your time - I look forward to hearing back from you as I am wanting to book this trip ASAP. Please forward this email to your PR or marketing manager if need be.

I have attached my media kit for you to review.

Have a lovely evening,

Kind regards,

xx_xxLUXURY TRAVEL INFLUENCER

........

Lots of people are jumping on the hashtag/ travel influenced bandwagon as a way to get freebies and free holidays.

Travel influencers who do freebies for comment are not sources I would consider as unbiased information.. Add to this journalists who do the free qantas travel for comment.

 

[Denali]

Insta-famous, kill them with fire.

 

[Forg]

They may be both special & pointless to those with an IQ over room temperature, but if they’ve really got over 500k followers then that’s a helluva lot of potential customers with a low ability to make sensible choices without being told what to do ... a lot of money to be made if you can leverage stupid.

 

[drron]

Has been happening for a while.
Hotel Calls Out "Influencer" For Asking For Free Stay, Bans All Bloggers - One Mile at a Time

But she,the influencer,really thinks she's special.
Influencer Hits Back at Hotel With New Video After Being Shamed for Asking for Free Stay - Who Is Elle Darby? White Moose Cafe Influencer Fight

 

[dk4]

If a key market segment for your friend's hotel is "millennial snowboarders", then it might be worth pursuing further investigation about the individual, otherwise IMO no.

Beware though - half a million might not be that many, especially if they have been farming fake followers!

Generally for successful social media marketing, your friend should probably be proactively (re)searching out the partners she wants to come to her hotel, and not go with a "cold call" from (what could be) an experienced freebies hack!

A good current case study is QF's first PER-LHR flight IMO, they ended up with some great exposure across cyber-space, and the pièce de résistance a "two-parter" from Richard Quest at CNN. amazeballs!

 

[Quickstatus]

An influencer who wants freebies will tend to have followers who also want freebies.

Millennial snowboarders then to not stay in places like this iconic on snow hotel

 

[Daver6]

The number of followers is a pointless metric in Instagram. Of those, how many are real accounts. Of the real ones, how many are actually active users.

I use Instagram and have about 350 followers. I reckon about 25% at least would have to be a combination of commercial accounts, spam accounts or accounts that just collate images based on a them.

Finally, I'd suggest the Instagram audience is not really the ones who will be paying for luxury hotels or expensive meals (big generalisation, but the percentage of followers who would is probably in the single digits).

 

[Quickstatus]

when an influencer gets a freebie, their Instagram posts is just a signal to other influencers to also hit up same business for freebies

 

[Quickstatus]

the pièce de résistance a "two-parter" from Richard Quest at CNN. amazeballs!

Dicky is not someone I regard as a good travel journalist. I did not learn anything substantial or new from his 2 parter


As an aside Luckily for Dicky he remained a dicky even after his Central Park antics

 

[Robert K]

a lot of money to be made if you can leverage stupid.

see religion

 

[dajop]

I’d be asking for demographics, and is not a multi night freebie a bit over the top?

Has been happening for a while.
Hotel Calls Out "Influencer" For Asking For Free Stay, Bans All Bloggers - One Mile at a Time

But she,the influencer,really thinks she's special.
Influencer Hits Back at Hotel With New Video After Being Shamed for Asking for Free Stay - Who Is Elle Darby? White Moose Cafe Influencer Fight

Quite hilarious, but quite vicious/offensive take down of the “influencer” here ...

 

[Ausbt]

The independence of the reviewer is the most important issue for me. I always go to the end of the article first, to see who paid. I don't have 'Insta' and generally think these people are twits. That said, no one loves a freebie like I do - I'll do and say anything.

Unrelated but a division in my company have a standing instruction to 'like' and 'share' as many LinkedIn articles about my company as they possibly can. Emails are sent around 'please log in and hit like'. LinkedIn has become completely unusable for me due to "the same article ...shared 5 times by colleagues from the company ...every, single, day". I've called them on it and told them they are actually destroying our brand. But they are salespeople most so just look at me, nod and smile and say 'have a wonderful day!'.

 

[Himeno]

hashtags are annoying. I've seen posts with a longer hastag section then there is content.

 

[Happy Dude]

This is tantamount to a scam. Your friend could have a little fun, but not as much as that one in drron's links, by offering to reimburse this deluded Narcissus their costs when a certain number of her 522k followers who identify themselves as such, beat a path to his hotel door.

Two possible outcomes, both good:

1. Your friend's hotel makes money
2. The blogger has spent her own money to realise that she's not that influential and perhaps a new career is in order.

No odds whatsoever on the latter.

Also, why is the owner of this over-inflated sense of self importance privileged information?

 

[Happy Dude]

The independence of the reviewer is the most important issue for me. I always go to the end of the article first, to see who paid. I don't have 'Insta' and generally think these people are twits. That said, no one loves a freebie like I do - I'll do and say anything.

Unrelated but a division in my company have a standing instruction to 'like' and 'share' as many LinkedIn articles about my company as they possibly can. Emails are sent around 'please log in and hit like'. LinkedIn has become completely unusable for me due to "the same article ...shared 5 times by colleagues from the company ...every, single, day". I've called them on it and told them they are actually destroying our brand. But they are salespeople most so just look at me, nod and smile and say 'have a wonderful day!'.

We have a standing order for likes/shares on LinkedIn too. I have seen my colleagues doing this for our competitors posts!! I do not link with my competitors and block connections who move to competitor companies. Amazingly, IMO, there are lots of people who connect with their competitors AND clients/contacts with the same account. May as well tell your competitors who to call.

 

[RB]

Discussion of "influencers" and "followers" leads me to recall an episode of How Green Was My Cactus-the episode had a pensioner thanking Alan Jones (radio broadcaster) for opinions as the pensioner was too poor to have their own opinions

 

[muppet]

I honestly have no idea why anybody cares.
It's a business, what wrong with trying to sell your business (in this case, fake positive reviews in exchange for free stays).

How is it any different to Getaway or the travel section in your newspaper.... nobody seriously thinks they pay for their flights and hotels do they?

 

[JohnK]

Instagram and influencers. I feel like I am missing out.

 

[Forg]

Instagram and influencers. I feel like I am missing out.

I could be wrong, but are you also missing out on Tide pods & sticking a sharp skewer up your nose?
Oh wait ... the latter is a given as that’s an Instagram user.

 

[RooFlyer]

Dicky is not someone I regard as a good travel journalist. I did not learn anything substantial or new from his 2 parter


As an aside Luckily for Dicky he remained a dicky even after his Central Park antics

Ah! It's they where the references to 'snowboarding' are coming from?