The recent Campground Owners Expo included one session that not only explained how influencers work, but gave campground owners an opportunity to meet with half a dozen people who actively work as influencers in the travel and tourism industries.
During the Dec. 4 session, Mindy Smith, senior PR manager for GoRVing, and Andrew Nussbaum, regional tourism specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, explain how influencers, bloggers, and content creators can help park operators reach new audiences.
Influencers participating in the session included Green Bay Packer Hall of Famer Donald Driver, who is also a New York Times best-selling author and content creator and his son, Christian Driver, a football player and content creator for the Minnesota Golden Gophers and his fiance, Maggie Golder, an influencer and college lacrosse player who has over 300,000 followers on TikTok. Other influencers include Sara Broers, a cofounder of the Midwest Travel Network who also has her own travel blog at TravelWithSara.com; Dannelle Gay, a travel writer, podcast host, publisher, and producer of “The Traveling Cheesehead”; Brandy Gleason, publisher of Gleason Family Adventure; Lori Helke, a Wisconsin-based author and travel writer with a blog titled “Lori Loves Adventure“; Dorsey Levens, a retired Green Bay Packers Superbowl champion and current CEO of The ReMind School of Life where he provides mindset training; Eugene Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist and associate editor, and current MSNBC commentator and contributor to other outlets, including The Atlantic; and Mark Rose, an Emmy Award-winning CEO at Discover MediaWorks who can market parks under three brands, including Discover Wisconsin, Boondock Nation, and Into the Outdoors.
Sara Broers of the Midwest Travel Network noted that many people have misconceptions about what influencers do. “People think we’re out here for free trips and free camping. If you get the right person there, your income goes up. Your revenue goes up. They can help put your park on the map,” she said.
Granted, there are people who pose as influencers. There are also influencers who are relatively unknown or have small followings because they are just beginning to work as influencers. But you can find out who really are and where they are at in their influencer career by researching their posts, examining the post content, and the depth of their interaction with their followers.
“Vet the people that you are working with,” Broers said. “Ask them for a media kit. If they don’t have a media kit, that’s a red flag.”
A media kit should include statistics indicating how many followers the influencer has on Facebook, Instagram, X and other social media channels as well as links to examples of the influencer’s work and a written description of the how the influencer works and gets compensated.
Influencers at COE also offered these suggestions:
— Partner with an influencer who truly shares passion for your park and your brand: Influencers, for their part, lose credibility and authenticity unless they are truly passionate about whatever it is they are promoting. “As an influencer, you have to be true to who you are,” Donald Driver said. “I wouldn’t promote something that I do not truly love,” Maggie said. “Be honest and true.”
— Use your intuition in selecting an influencer to promote your park: Dorsey Levens said he can feel if the connection is right. “With me, it’s truly a vibe I get from people,” he said. “If there’s a connection mentally, it will happen naturally. For me, the biggest thing is trust your instincts and your intuition about people.”
— Look for influencers who have the audience your lacking or want to get more of: Influencers have specific types of followers. They can complement the audiences you reach with your other media outreach or advertising efforts. “Look for the person who has the audience that you’re lacking,” Maggie said.
— Keep your videos short: Quick videos on entertaining activities help capture younger viewers’ attention, Cristian Driver said. “More people are more engaged if they are shorter videos. Doing those short cut videos really helps,” he said.
Donald Driver was even more specific. He recommends that videos be less than two minutes. “The key is not to do a two-minute video,” he said, adding, “Most people are not going to watch it unless it is really engaging.”
It’s also worthwhile to keep viewers wanting more. “Leave them hanging so they await another post, so they want to see part two,” Driver said.
— Make sure you have a clear call to action with the people you target with your videos: Use “you,” Eugene Robinson said. “(By saying) ‘You’ should do this, it puts them in the story. ‘You’ need to be here.”
— Share your videos across multiple platforms:
“I think everything should be repurposed and reused,” Brandy Gleason said.
