How To Keep Your Instagram Audience Engaged When You Travel

How to keep your audience engaged when you travel and your instagram account shifts from your main focus. 

Many bloggers and instagramers have very specific niches and curate their posts and photos on instagram down to these particular topics and, therefore, fear straying. Many bloggers even fear or have seen the loss of followers when they veer from these topics, even briefly. Therefore making niche bloggers afraid to post about their travels for fear of losing their niche followers.But what do you do when travel is a major aspect of your life?I have a very craft focused instagram account and I know this is why my followers are here because when I post a craft related photo I get tons of comments and likes and community interaction. If I post a personal photo that does not relate or appears out of the blue, engagement plummets. But! I travel very often and blog about travel, a lot. For a while I went back and forth about whether my instagram account should become solely craft focused, but decided that is not what I wanted, therefore my followers would have to get on board.This has been an ongoing process to shift more towards an even balance of lifestyle/travel photos to craft photos, but with some work and planning I have been able to shift my focus to be more evenly split and still keep engagement. Which, in the long-term has enabled me to further solidify my brand and be able to post my travel photos while on trips without losing followers and while still maintaining engagement. Below is how + my best tips for you.

How To Make Your Instagram Account Curated, But Inclusive Of All Your Interests:

1. Curate: Some accounts may be so curated there is absolutely zero wiggle room, such as an account of only flower photos. This will be a harder account to balance and may be one where two accounts are necessary, but if you are a more general blogger or brand you should be able to integrate more than one type of photo. My tagline I use everywhere is Adventure. Crafting. Storytelling. and this helps me limit and choose which photos go on instagram. Photos of life that help me tell a story, travel photos or craft photos. I keep them pretty tight within those categories and stay away from random photos of friday nights out with random friends or grainy photos of my dinner. I try to balance the posting by not sharing 10 craft photos in a row or else that is what people will begin to expect and doesn't tell the full story when you look at my feed as a whole. This gets people used to seeing photos other than crafts, so when a travel adventure begins it is not a brand new concept.
2. Prepare your followers: If you are going on a big trip, you will be gone for a while and the travel portion of your photos will be a little out of the normal balance, prepare them! Start posting photos of you packing or of your packing list. Make your comments about how you can wait to go, etc. This will get them excited for your trip, prepares them for a shift in focus for a bit and assures them that your ore niched photos will be back eventually.
3. Integrate your interests: When I travel I always take a journal and washi tape and make a little book as I go. I share photos of this and it integrates the two: travel + crafting. I also share tips, ideas and plans as I go such as 'photos like these will go great in a scrapbook' etc. Let your followers know you haven't forgotten about what they love too see and shows how your interests influence one another.
4. Have back up photos: I always have a about 5-10 photos saved on my phone ready to be shared when I either need to promote something or feel that the travel images are getting a bit too overwhelming. As a blogger, there is always something I worked on 6 months ago that is releasing this month and, of course, while I'm on vacation. So I prep promo photos, etc to share while I'm travelling. I also keep a few photos of fun crafts to pull people back in if I feel like I am losing them.
5. Use a posting formula: I have a formula I use that keeps my content from looking too bland and getting way too far off course. You will need to develop one that works for you and your following, but you're welcome to borrow from mine below!

My Formula For Posting Interesting Photos On Instagram While I Travel: 

Details + People + The Big Picture

Details: Fun shots of your feet, close-ups of food or patterns. The little things around you that you observe as beautiful and help tell your story as a whole. These shots usually fill the frame and even spill out a bit.People: This is MY account, so I obviously need to be on it every once in a while. People make the story interesting and relatable!The Big Picture: These are your beautiful, scenic shots of the cathedrals and rolling hills you visit.

Tips For Making Your Travel Photos Engaging:

1. Tell a story. Let your followers go along on your trip with you. Tell a story as your caption about how you narrowly escaped missing a train or about getting lost and finding yourself terrified but then you found an amazing cafe! This is where you will see so much engagement!
2. Ask what your followers want to see. People are curious! So involve them and answer their questions or take their suggestions. This may even lead you to your favorite places or photos or encourage you to document something you would not have even thought to snap a photo of.
3. Share a profile of a person. When I was in Russia I asked my followers what they wanted to see and they wanted to know more about the people. So I started sharing a photo + story about the people we met along the way and now I value those photos and stories above all the others.
4. Educate them. There will be so many fun facts and names of things you learn along the way, so document them for yourself so you will remember later and use that as a way to educate your followers about your destination. People LOVE quirky facts!
5. Make it personal. As much as I love the beautiful photos that are in National Geographic or some of the amazing travel accounts I follow, they are not personal. Share what you love and how a place affects you, instead of always posting the perfect sweeping landscape shots.
6. Share travel tips. Share a shot of your favorite brand of luggage and tell why or a packing tip. Share a travel tip or a local restaurant recommendation. These are gold! And you can get travels tips from locals or others who have been there before. Win-Win.
7. Limit your sharing to 3 a day. Dont overwhelm people, that is what gets you unfollowed. Post morning, noon and night so you hit all the time zones. If you don't have internet, then you will need to be really selective in how you share when you do find it. Maybe put one different photo on facebook, instagram and twitter. Spread it out.
8. Do a series. Hashtags are taking over the world. So use them! Create a hashtag and do a series on street food or profiles of people you meet or street art or where I stand shots. The sky is the limit and they get people excited to see your collection grow.

What are your best instagram tips for when travelling? Let me know! And follow along for our next big trip (Saturday!) to New Zealand! @laurenlikesblogRelated: How to use instagram to plan your scrapbooks//Must Take Travel Photos