How to Rock a Travel Snapchat Account

I am an old person.

I realized this back when I was teaching adults in New York City, and I had a hip young Turkish student whose phone was surgically attached to her hand. I gave up trying to admonish her and instead resorted to indulging her desire to snap through class, even if that meant she was taking pictures of the board. After she took a snap of us in class one day, I admitted that I was generally clueless about Snapchat.

“Oh, you should use it! It’s so much fun.”

“Nope,” I replied. “I’ve crossed the social media event horizon. This one belongs to your generation.”

Oh, little did I know…

Just a few months later, I had tentatively downloaded Snapchat. This was the middle of 2015 – in truth, not that long ago, but ages in the era of weekly app updates. We had only the ‘classic’ arsenal of emojis, and many major cities didn’t have any geofilters. I was shy at first, only getting in front of the camera when I was alone, inside, sequestered from judging eyes, treating it more like Instagram than a totally new social media. But, after several months of playing around, learning from others, watching dozens of Snapchats, reading up on strategies, and just being generally addicted to it, I found my travel Snapchat groove. It is my favorite of the social medias (currently) out there.

And I think Snapchat is a fantastic tool for travel bloggers – or just the casual user who wants to show a kick-a story for their vacation. You have the opportunity to show off a destination, candidly share your travels, inspire and educate others.

The biggest problem is that it’s tough to find new people to follow. I actively seek out newer and mid-level Snapchatters because the same ten names get thrown up on every single “Travel Snapchats to Follow” list. But while I was researching my post about under-the-radar travel Snapchats, I struggled. It was hard to find Snapchats I connected to – that I was excited to check in with at the end of the day. It’s a new medium, everyone’s excited to jump in, but there’s not that much guidance about how to grow your audience.

So I started writing down what did and didn’t work for me – both as a viewer and a producer. If you’re interested in starting a travel Snapchat, here are a few tips I’ve picked up along the way that could help kick your travel Snapchat up to the next level.

Snapchat is its own thing. It’s not Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. It has its own rules and tricks. Too many accounts just show rapid fire pictures, with the occasional video. If people want photos, they go to Instagram, where the quality is a hundred times better. To have a successful Snapchat, you need to exploit the platform’s design.

Get yourself in front of the camera. Yes, travel Snapchatting is about bringing your audience into a new destination – but with you, not on their own. If you’re not comfortable talking to the camera yet, take baby steps. First take selfies, then videos somewhere private, then standing in touristy spots, and then walking. But don’t try to Snap and walk down stairs. That’s problematic.

I leveled up in “shameless public Snapchatting” when I hosted the TravelFacts account. I wanted to give viewers a mini-glimpse into Belgrade while also hosting the account, so I had to fake some confidence as I strutted around town, talking to my camera at arm’s length. If you want a model to follow, expatedna is a pro at effortlessly ‘hosting’ her Snapchat out in public.

Personality wins. My favorite Snapchatters are the ones I’d love to hang out with any day of the week. People who are genuine, enthusiastic, and funny. They are the Snapchats I prioritize and that I’ll spare during my occasional Snapchat cutbacks. Personality is a huge relief to travel Snapchatters, I think, because it alleviates the pressure to always be doing something crazy and exciting. Even when they’re not traveling, I’ll always check out souvenirfinder and laurenvfitz because I find them hilarious.

Keep it short. You know your friend who talks nonstop and never lets you say anything more than ‘um’ or ‘uhuh’? That’s how I feel when I watch six or seven snaps of a talking head. Sure, some stories are longer than 10 seconds, but try to keep your monologue to three snaps or less. Pictures rarely need to be longer than 5 seconds, unless there’s a lot of information in the snap.

Depending on the situation, stories in general don’t need to be super long. Viewers don’t need endless snaps of your bus trip in Guatemala to get the feeling that you’re uncomfortably squashed between your seatmate and your backpack. I’m not going to give a max time limit on your stories (personally, even with my friends I start to click through after 2-3 minutes), but make sure it’s interesting! Your story can be ten minutes as long as you don’t let it drag.

Be excited about your life. One time I clicked into a story to hear the travel blogger say with zero expression, “Well, that was mildly exciting…” I cringed and swiped out. If you can’t get into what you’re doing, why should I? Enthusiasm translates. Be dynamic! Carlyhulls is one of the shiniest, happiest people I’ve ever seen on Snapchat. And if the situation isn’t positive, spin that too!

Vary the content. Mix up photos and video. And throw in your face every once in a while. If I’m traveling and seeing lots of new places, I like to introduce it to the camera before I start taking pictures and video.

Continually set the context. Where are you? What’s going on? Who are you? I watch a lot of Snapchats, and if I’m new to yours I’ll need constant reminders before I’ll be able to pick you out from my rolodex. This is easy to remember at the beginning of the day, but remember to keep doing it throughout your story as well. Since snaps expire, some viewers will miss the first half of your day trip to Mount Arenal, and little context clues go a long way.

Think of mini-stories within your story. One great tip I heard was to think of your overall story in 3-5 snap chunks. Having mini-stories keeps your feed from dragging. On my day trip to Transylvania, we had three stops. It was easy to break the whole day in mini-stories, which kept my whole story dynamic and better paced.

Create content regularly. Regardless of the platform, followers start to drop off when you stop creating content and engaging. Snapchat is a fast-moving stream of constant content. Stay silent for too long, and you might get swept away.

Not doing anything exciting? There are lots of solutions for that. Retell a story creatively, act out a scenario, do a Q&A or other audience participation activity, give a glimpse of ‘boring life,’ do a tutorial, show off souvenirs, share your favorite bloggers, take us on a tour of your hometown, give a teaser for your next blog post. It may not be a very long story, but as long as you pop up in your followers’ story list you’ll keep yourself fresh in their minds for when you do go on your exciting hitchhiking adventure in Morocco.

Use the textbox liberally. It’s a great way to set the context. And many people watch snaps without sound, so if you’re only narrating and not providing visuals, they’ll miss a lot.

In fact, use all the bells and whistles. Play around with filters, draw all over the screen, create soundtracks, design your own geofilter. Show off your creativity! …Appropriately. No need for the bee-voice filter when you’re talking about the history of Normandy. Cailinoneil is a pro at using funky features to up the travel Snapchat game. And on that vein…

Judiciously use color filters on pictures and videos. Honestly, I’ve never seen sepia make a picture better. And that blue?? On the flip side, the glow filter works great when you want to hide how tired/disheveled/unmade up you are.

Get us behind the scenes. Step away from the professional equipment and careful editing of Instagram and Facebook and get real and raw with your followers. I’ll never forget when janetnewenham took us around Korea with her as she tried to find her hostel – that didn’t exist.

Remember it’s social. Engage your audience! Ask them questions. Tell them to snap at you. Take polls using screenshots. Solicit opinions, advice, reactions. And, on the hand, interact with the accounts you follow! The best connections I have in the blogging community started on Snapchat, not in Facebook groups or through blog comments. These are genuine people who I would be thrilled to meet up with for a coffee if our paths ever crossed in our real life travels. And these friends are the best thing to come from Snapchat.

If I had to give only one tip about how to level up your travel Snapchat, it’d be this. It’s nothing without you. All the pictures of Thai beaches, the guided brewery tours, the shots out the airplane window – without your personality and creativity it gets stale fast. So pick out your favorite filter, find your geofilter, and come join us in the crazy travel Snapchat fun!

Ready to up your game even further? Check out more Snapchat tips from Snapchat rock star Will from The Broke Backpacker.

I’m on the look out for more ‘under-the-radar’ travel Snapchatters! If you have around 150 views per snap or less, let me know in the comments! Or share YOUR travel Snapchat tips below!