Our PR team got to know Scotland’s up and coming budget travel guru
We caught up with fast-growing social media travel guru, Marisa Vogiatzi to find out her thoughts on travel, influencing and everything in between.
Marisa has so far been featured in Visit Scotland, Forbes and Visit California, as well as collaborated with brands such as FirstBus, Mozilla Firefox and Tinder. After publishing her first e-book: “How to travel Aberdeenshire by bus”, Marisa is now on her latest travelling adventure around the world which you can follow on her Instagram account.
Read on to find out more…
1. What is your job?
I love to keep myself busy, which is why I wear many hats! I am an online content creator and I share tips about travelling solo on a budget. I also love sharing new sustainable and plant-based food and lifestyle options to my followers.
In addition, I also teach business English online and often guest lecture for the International Tourism Management course at Robert Gordon University.
2. What is your favourite social media channel and why? – and who’s content are you enjoying recently?
I love watching other people’s travelling experiences through their photos and videos, so Instagram is definitely my current favourite social media channel at the moment.
3. When did you decide to start your Solo Budget Travel Instagram account and why?
I started posting more travel content on Instagram in 2017 during my semester abroad in Finland. However, after I really got into it during my year-long internship in California, which is when I did my first big collaboration.
From there, I realised how much I loved creating travel content for brands and my audience and my account turned from a hobby into my job – which I absolutely love.
4. How has the world of influencing changed in 2021?
With travel restrictions and lockdowns, most people have to stay home and do staycations, and therefore more influencers have started creating more relatable content such as in their home, or showing more of their own country rather than traveling internationally.
More and more influencers have been supporting small local businesses as well. Another big change has been reels. Short video creation has really taken over and that has helped a lot of influencers grow in their accounts and share with their audiences in a different way.
5. What is your source of inspiration?
I take a lot of inspiration from other travel bloggers on Instagram and lately, my favourites are travel bloggers are:
6. What makes a good collaboration? What advice would you give PRs for approaching you / working with you? Do you prefer emails or DMs for example?
Making expectations clear from the beginning definitely helps so there is no misunderstanding. It needs to be a win-win situation where both parties are gaining from the collaboration. I don’t mind if the brand emails me or DMs me.
7. What’s the best campaign you’ve worked on?
I have been very fortunate to work with some amazing brands but one of my favourite campaigns was working with Visit Aberdeenshire and the Scottish Government to promote visits to Aberdeenshire this summer and to support local businesses.
During the campaign, I had the opportunity to visit the beautiful Crathes Castle, the town of Banchory, the Cairngorms National Park and the stunning Ballater town as well as some amazing food places.
8. What content is your favourite to produce?
I love taking photos and videos about my travels whether that’s a day trip or a restaurant visit or a month-long trip. I particularly enjoy using my content to show the whole experience on Instagram stories.
9. What keeps you going when things get tough?
I am lucky to have an incredible community on Instagram with people who have now become my online family. I am also very grateful to get support from my mum.
10. What is your definition of success?
My definition has definitely changed over the years, but I now believe that success is doing whatever makes you happy and motivates you to get out of bed in the morning. For me, creating content and travelling is a dream come true and I feel very grateful for that.
For more information about Marisa, visit: https://www.marisavogiatzi.com/
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