Convergence of Fashion and Travel Leads to Rise of Micro-Influencers on Instagram
Skift Take
Larger influencers are still important to channeling a brand's messaging and casting a wide net, though localized micro-influencers with more niche followings often do better jobs at inspiring conversations among communities that travelers can more easily identify with.
Many travelers look to social media influencers that travel brands flaunt for trip inspiration and advice. But increasingly, they also view themselves as influencers within their own groups of friends and followers and seek this recognition from brands.
Research from Chute, a social media marketing company helping travel brands, found that fashion is fueling this trend. It's playing out most aggressively in social media communities with affinities for both fashion and travel, particularly on Instagram. Some 1.3 million of the 56.8 million travel related Instagram photos shared from June 2015 to March 2016 include hashtags related to fashion and travel, according to Chute's analysis.
Fashion and travel accounted for hundreds of thousands of more photos than food and travel-related photos, for example, with the latter accounting for fewer than 900,000 photos shared during that period.
Of those photos, the highest percentage, 13 percent, included #fashionblogger which Monica Watson, Chute's marketing manager, said is indicative of how these travelers want to be perceived as influential to both their followers and travel brands. Her team's research also found that the convergence of fashion and travel is one of the most popular conversations on Instagram and that Instagram users view fashion as one of the biggest gateways to gaining more attention.
Watson said #blogger and #travelblogger were a
