Instagram is the visual travel library of the internet.
Many professionals in the travel industry have expressed the need for specific Instagram tips for travel agents. This posts is designed to help the travel agent who is an Instagram newbie get started while providing great ideas for travel agents that have been at it for awhile as well.Most noteworthy of all - travel agents and agencies that have cracked the Instagram code report that 30 - 50 percent of their business comes directly from their Instagram accounts!
Your Customers are Using Instagram
There are more than 1 billion Instagram accounts globally and over 120 million in the US alone.ย Did you know that 48% of all Instagram users depend on posts from other Instagram accounts to help them select their travel destinations? As a result, at least 57.6 million people in the US alone use Instagram to help plan their next vacation! In case you aren't convinced yet that Instagram is for travel agents, 60% of people say they discover new products on Instagram and 200 Million+ Instagrammers visit at least one Business Profile daily.Think Instagram is just for the kids? Think again! @baddiewinkle has 3.8 million followers and growing!
We estimate the number of users by age-demographic by the end of 2019 will be:
Ages 13โ17: 77 million (7%)
Ages 18โ24: 352 million (32%)
Ages 25โ34: 352 million (32%)
Ages 35โ44: 165 million (15%)
Ages 45โ54: 88 million (8%)
Ages 55โ64: 33 million (3%)
Ages 65+: 22 million (2%)
Obviously the largest and most active group of users is in the 18-34 age. It is also important to know that 21% of Americans between 50-64 and 10% of Americans 65+ are actively using Instagram. Furthermore, all ethnic groups are active users. The Pew Research study on Instagram users found that 42% of black Americans were using Instagram, followed by 38% of Hispanics and finally 32% of white respondents.
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Instagram Tips for Travel Agents
Just the Basics: Image Size and Video Requirements
Here are some key Instagram tips for travel agents straight from the horse's (aka Instagram) mouth!
Make sure to upload it at the best quality resolution possible (up to a width of 1080 pixels) when you share a photo on Instagram.
Photos with a width between 320 and 1080 pixels will be kept at that original resolutions, as long as the photo aspect ratio is between 1.91:1 and 4:5. Images with a height between 566 and 1350 pixels can have a width of 1080 pixels.
The Instagram app on your phone will crop your photo to fit a supported ratio if needed. Therefore lower resolution images will be enlarged to a width of 320 pixels and higher resolution images will be sized down to 1080 pixels.
Instagram will enlarge it to a width of 320 pixels if you share a photo at a lower resolution and will size higher resolution photos down to a width of 1080 pixels.
Videos can be between 3 seconds and 60 seconds and with IGTV (more in a future article!), videos can be up to 10 minutes.
Other Instagram Tips
Update to the most recent version of the Instagram app.
If you are using photos you have taken with your phone - make sure your phone has a high-quality camera as different phones have cameras of varying qualities.
Many of the top accounts are using high quality cameras to capture amazing images.
Upload a photo with a width of at least 1080 pixels with an aspect ratio between 1.91:1 and 4:5.
Focus on Your Travel Niche
Travel agents and agencies should focus on finding and sharing high quality travel content regarding the travel destinations in your travel niche. Each Instagram post and image can truly help your clients understand the beauty, culture, nightlife, cuisine and other experiences that will be a part of travel to each destination. Most of all, you should determine your travel niche and boundaries before investing a lot of time in your Instagram account.
If you have not defined your travel niche already, take some time to do that now. For further assistance, click here for a great article and worksheet on travel agent niches.
Demographic
Once you create a business account on Instagram, you will start to get demographic data so you can see if your posts are hitting the mark with your target demographic. Here is an example of demographic data from an instagram business account focused on providing services to travelers:
Once you get your account established and decide to boost some of your posts to attract new followers. You will be able to slice and dice the market that you target for those boosted posts using all the demographic targeting capability offered by Facebook.
Type of Travel
Focus your Instagram account the type of travel relevant to your travel niche and to stick to that theme as closely as you can. Instagram account that provide followers a consistent look and feel in their feed (topics, locations, filters, genre, etc.) tend to grow faster than those without consistency.
@lovely_travelplaces focuses on adventure travel, and has done a great job creating a beautiful IG feed that is very consistent with the adventure travel theme.
View this post on InstagramGiant Hands Raise Bridge in the @nature โฐ Da Nang, Vietnam. Photo by @smashpop
Destination
Focus your account on the travel destinations according to your travel niche. You can truly help your clients understand this destination while at the same time save time and effort from your focused research and posting.
@belizephotos maintains a very consistent focus on posting only photos from Belize, helping potential travelers and real estate investors get a feel for life in this tropical paradise in the Caribbean.
Use Instagram to Showcase your Travel Expertise
Show your followers and clients through your posts what a particular destination has to offer.
Give your clients "visual assurance" so they have confidence in the travel advice and destinations you may be recommending.
Create posts that highlight unique destinations, views and selfie opps in the destinations they are considering traveling to.
For example the Golden Gate Bridge is the favorite Instagram location in San Francisco. Therefore, you might consider creating an Instagram Post of the bridge that lists the top 10 Instagram locations in San Francisco.
Using Hashtags
NOTE: If you are new to Instagram and have been using Facebook for your social media marketing - definitely take some time to research and understand how the best IGers are using hashtags to grow their account.
First of all, hashtags will help Instagram better understand your post and is used in their search algorithm. Users can also follow hashtags now, in addition to following users. In addition, the effective use of hashtags will help you get more:
New followers
Likes
Comments
Sales
An Instagram hashtag is a word or series of words (no space in between) with the hash (#) at the beginning of the word/phrase, and once again with no space.
Instagram Hashtags Rules & Suggestions
Instagram has an absolute limit of 30 hashtags per post, it will ignore any additional hashtags you use after 30.
Many experts recommend you use approximately 10, but you will need to experiment to see what works best for your account and travel niche.
Definitely do not use hashtags that are not relevant to your particular photo or caption.
It can be very hard for a new account to get any attention if they only use the most popular hashtags. Instead target hashtags where there is less competition and you have a better chance and being heard.
Hashtag Pro Tips
PRO TIP: Combine popular hashtags with location names. A travel post in Italy becomes #travelgramitalia with 94K posts for instead of #travelgram and its 80M other posts. A traveler in London might use #travelerinlondon (39K posts) instead of #traveler (336M posts).
PRO TIP: Use a combination of the most popular, medium, and very targeted hashtags to find the right mix that works best to grow your account in your travel niche.
PRO TIP: Don't forget to use hashtags based on the location of the post such as #duororiver or #belize. (This is different from the geo-tagging where Instagram asks you to name the "Location" of the photo. Hashtags are placed in the caption whereas geo-tagging occurs under the caption box and the Tag People box when you are posting a picture.)
PRO TIP: Instagram users are accustomed to a very clean user experience. Place 5 periods below your main caption and then add your hashtags. Also, you can keep the hashtags out of your caption completely. Just finish your post and then add your hashtags in the comments section of your post.
PRO TIP: Save your top hashtags in a Notes document on your phone. Once you have identified some hashtags you are going to use with most of your posts, you can save them along with the 5 periods in a Notes document on your phone. Each time you create a new post, simply open up the note and copy and paste the hashtags into you caption. Then make any further edits needed to make your post really stand out!
Some of the top travel hashtags are:
#travel - 336 million posts
#holiday - 111m posts
#vacation - 89m posts
#wanderlust - 83m posts
#travelgram - 80m posts
#instatravel - 72m posts
#adventure - 72m posts
#explore - 61m posts
#traveling - 53m posts
#traveler - 27m posts
#neverstopexploring - 20m posts
Don't Do This Tips for Travel Agents
First of all, don't obsess too much over your number of followers, especially in the beginning. It is much better to have a quality feed and 100 followers that engage with your account regularly than to have 10,000 followers that don't engage with your content at all.
While you definitely need to make money from your Instagram investment, don't be too pushy or "salesy" with your posts. Definitely do ask followers to click on the link in your bio to go to your website or to message you with travel questions.
Don't forget to engage with your followers and other accounts. Respond to comments people make about your posts. Comment on other accounts posts. Like photos that fit your travel niche. Build up your Instagram Karma.
Don't post too often or too little. Establish a rhythm that works for you and your travel niche - you might consider 1-2 posts a day while you are traveling and 3-5 times a week otherwise.
Don't use poor quality images. This includes images that are blurry, poor lighting, not consistent with your accounts aesthetic, etc. Do use pictures of you at different travel destinations - just make sure the photos show you in a flattering way and follow the other guidelines previously discussed. People love to connect in a real way with their travel agents. This also helps to validate your experience and ability to provide good travel advice and services.
Don't forget to credit others when you repost their photos. Traditionally people will use one of the following methods to credit the account you are reposting from:
photo credit: @thedduxor
๐ท: @theddux
Finally, look closely to make sure you are giving the correct account credit - many popular posts get reposted several times.
Follow Top Accounts
Most of all, make sure you are following the right accounts to grow your business. You should consider follower your customer accounts, top Travel accounts and other travel agent and travel agency accounts.
Clients
You should definitely follow back any of your customers that follow your Instagram account. If they don't want others to follow them they will have made their account "Private". If they don't want you to follow them on their Private account, they will either decline your request or ignore it.
Top Travel Instagram Accounts
Travel posts are among the most popular types of posts on Instagram. Therefore, we have curated 19 Instagram travel accounts to follow in 2019 that highlight what the most popular and effective travel accounts are doing on Instagram. Click here to check out those accounts.
Leading Travel agent and Travel Agency Instagram Accounts
Finally, don't forget to check out what leading travel agent and travel agency IG accounts are doing and how they are using Instagram to grow their business.
One Elite Adventure specializes in all-inclusive, tours, cruises and more. Their Instagram account oneeliteadventure consistently posts amazing photos from beaches and other tropical paradise-like destinations.
Luxury World Traveler is a luxury travel agency and concierge that creates custom tailored luxury travel experiences and books hotels, villas, yachts, private jets. luxwtconcierge
Brianna Glenn brands herself a "Travel Designer" on her Instagram account @briannaglenn and even declares her travel niche: "Sweet spot is where luxury meets authentic."
Australia is the official business account of Australia's tourist organization and has a large following of 3.1 million.ย Posts on this account can easily get more than 100,000 likes since they only post high quality content.
STA Travel is the largest travel agency for student and young travelers and they use their own unique hashtag: '#StartTheAdventure'.ย The travel agency encourages other Instagrammers to use this hashtag and they then repost those images on their account.ย As a result, they have a constant stream of great content to pick from their own customers!
4. Airbnb posts photographs of travelers staying at their properties or enjoying their travel experience. Airbnb always includes a geo-tag on their posts since those posts get 79% higher engagement than those without.