Year: 2016

Travel Instagram Strategies to Take Your Profile to the Next Level

For those who don't know me, you should know that I am an engineer as well as a travel blogger- which at times is a very dangerous combination. When I try out something new to help my brand grow, I put together a test and log everything so I can get to the real reason for why something works. (We then write about it in our Blog Your Trip series to share it with you).

Over the past year I've been conducting many successful Instagram tests, and they've been picking up in popularity thanks to this social network's continued rise in prominence.

As I've had some time to reflect on our most recent tests (find the one on Instagram hash-tags and the one on gaining targeted Instagram followers here), I need to tweak some of the recommendations I wrote about in those posts to form our game plan moving forward.

So, before reading any further, I highly recommend you read through both of those first. Finished? Good, let's recap.

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Churrascaria Palace Review – An Authentic Brazilian Spot in Rio

Despite being an infamously picky eater, there is one food type I never shy away from, and that is meat. I often spend my time daydreaming about that perfect steak, succulent pork, or flame grilled chicken.

When I am home in North America I love to frequent the Brazilian barbecue houses and load my plate, so naturally I couldn't pass up the opportunity to eat at an authentic churrascaria while in Rio de Janeiro.

I set my sights (and my appetite) on Churrascaria Palace downtown in Copacabana. Founded in 1951 and still going strong, coupled with the high praise on review sites, I figured it was a good bet.

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Test Results for How to Get More Instagram Followers and Likes

It is a sad day in the world of social media and social media advertising when brand credibility and effectiveness is measured by the number of followers you have and not the type of niche website content you publish and who it is going to.

This phenomenon is especially true on Instagram because the service is so locked down that you really can only measure two things when sharing your account: the number of followers you have and the number of likes you receive on any given photo (which is highly dependent on the amount of followers you have in the first place).

In not being able to effectively measure who makes up your blog traffic, there is a veritable arms race to get more Instagram followers and likes at any cost.

For many years we stayed away from Instagram for reasons similar to this, but it wasn't until we really put social media as a primary focus with our sites that we decided to open an account.  That was in 2013, and over the subsequent year-and-a-half we grew to a decently sized 1,800 followers with a long period of stagnated growth.  We knew we had to take a step back and find out what we were missing, and a test for our Blog Your Trip series was born.

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Buenos Aires Zoo – Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

When I went to Thailand a couple years ago, we went and saw the tigers. While we enjoyed being around “wild” animals, we despaired over the fact that they were quite likely drugged. Or at least the adults were. Yet we went anyway.

When in Buenos Aires, I was again faced with the ethical dilemma of visiting a zoo that possibly drugged its animals. The TripAdvisor reviews were mixed. About 20% claimed that it was unethical and the animals must be drugged. The rest made no mention of the fact. The website claimed it raised the big cats with dogs and domesticated them.

In the end, curiosity won out and I went. And I am glad I did.

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