We all know the couples story. Victoria and David Beckham, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and now Olivia Palermo and Johannes Huebl. As a couple, you can work with brands in way that you cannot as an individual. This has inspired many travel blogger couples to go public on Instagram, leveraging their power not alone, but together.
Case in point: Scott and Collette Stohler, experts in luxury and adventure travel, are the husband and wife duo behind the travel brand Roamaroo.
As journalists, content creators, and on-camera hosts, they’ve appeared on The Travel Channel and worked on campaigns with brands such as Land Rover, GoPro, Bose, The Ritz Carlton, Fairmont Hotels, Visit Florida, and Delta. The traveling duo has traveled to over 70 countries, but calls Hermosa Beach, California home. These business savvy thought leaders are regularly featured on BBC, NPR, and The Huffington Post.
You are the duo behind the travel website and social media experience, Roamaroo. How and why did you both decide to give up your careers to become travel influencers?
We didn’t quit our jobs to become travel influencers. Rather, we quit our jobs to take a grown-up half-gap year and explore the world together. While we were traveling, we started a blog and social media channels in order to keep our friends and family updated. We were born storytellers and enjoyed the process of creating video, photo, and written content. As our brand started to gain momentum and grow, we decided that we wanted to pursue travel full-time.
Petra by night | Roamaroo
Couple accounts are getting more and more popular on Instagram, and for working with brands in general. Can you provide 5 key tips for aspiring “couple bloggers/Instagrammers” on how to get ahead and establish relationships with brands? What are brands looking for?
- Be yourself. The beautiful thing about being an influencer is that we are all our own unique brand. Stick to your own voice and don’t try to emulate anyone else.
- Work for free. Travel blogging and content creation is becoming a very crowded space and it can be difficult to differentiate yourself. If you really want to work with a brand, ask to work for free. Think of it as an internship and a way to prove your worth to future brands. You’ll gain experience, add content to your portfolio, and make great connections.
- Focus on the content, not the numbers. So many people get caught up in growing their following and they neglect the actual content. Work at bettering your craft and the numbers will follow.
- Don’t do it for the money. This is not investment banking or hedge funds, it’s content creation. It takes passion and a love for telling stories.
- Find your niche: Do you love road trips? Are you avid snowboarders? Find your niche and be an expert at it.
You work with numerous tourism boards to promote destination content. What exactly do the tourism boards expect from you? How do you get in touch with them? How much can aspiring bloggers expect to get paid for campaigns done for tourism boards
Pink and blue houses | Roamaroo
Tourism boards hire us to produce destination content in the form of videos, photos, written content, and social media. Tourism boards expect global press coverage across our blog and social media platforms. Sometimes tourism boards request photos and videos that they can use in their marketing and advertising materials. Generally, we’re hired to provide a package deal that includes a wide variety of content and distribution.
We connect with tourism boards in two different ways – either the tourism board reaches out to us directly with a job or we approach their marketing / PR team. There is no clear “expectation” of payment with tourism boards as some work on earned media and others work on paid media. Payment is always up to negotiation and is usually determined on a case-by-case basis.
All in all, your life looks so glamorous. What does it really take to travel blog full-time? What are some of the myths that aspiring travel bloggers should know about before they give up their full-time jobs?
There is a hustle and a grind that occurs behind the scenes that many would not expect. Since so many people view travel bloggers and content creators through rose-colored filters, most don’t understand the work that goes on to create the finished product. We’ll tell you firsthand that there is no filter on the hustle. We generally work seven days a week and we’re constantly trying to think of ways to better ourselves and our work. We’re web designers, writers, producers, videographers, editors, sales people, and art directors.
If you’re thinking about quitting your full-time job to become a travel blogger, have a plan. While we didn’t initially set out to be in the positions we are today, we were saving for a second home so we were in a financially sound position to take a risk. Also, expect to hear a lot of “no’s,” but don’t let that discourage you!
Read Roamaroo’s “Roamaroo.com” blog and follow them on @roamaroo on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter and on YouTube.
Digital Marketing & Social Media Internship Seminar in Madrid, Spain