Reflections - Attempting Social Media
How It Started
Before embarking on our 13-month journey, Jackson and I discussed how to best document our travels. We primarily wanted to create an archive of sorts for ourselves, as well as for friends and family. As such, we decided to launch our blog for detailed and visual accounts of our travels, as well as a space to share any learnings we may have. Prior to even leaving on our first one-way ticket, we decided to add social media to the mix. Coming from a social media career background, I decided to take the reins on content creation on a more regular basis than the blog. That way, our friends and family could stay tuned into our trip in real time…or at least only a few days removed.
I had created an ‘influencer’ account for Instagram in 2020 as a sort of Covid-boredom project. The account had fizzled out in the months and years since life began to go back to normal, but I decided I could breathe new life into it by keeping my (rather small) follower base and updating my handle to what you know us as today: 2tickets2everywhere. As for the type of content, I wanted to create the said archive while tapping into trending formats and music where we could to reach a wider audience who might have an interest in our journey, or simply our content. Having worked in the influencer space and led strategy on a multitude of campaigns, I knew that video was king. Additionally, IG Stories were a great space for more in-the-moment content that offered a sign of life to our followers and others who might be exploring our grid. And finally, seeing as I’m a passionate photographer and had just been gifted the famous Fujifilm X100V, I didn’t want to miss out on sharing my high-quality images. I decided that uploading my camera photos to my laptop on a daily basis would allow me to share them on Stories, and later, share them as a gallery of favorites in Carousels.
Little did we know that social media would become a more rewarding, frustrating, and time-consuming challenge than expected…
How It’s Going
Over the past (nearly) 13 months, social media has simultaneously become an incredibly valuable asset and a burden. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?
Given our packed schedule and frequent lack of solid Internet connection, it has been tricky to post and share more robust content regularly. I have found that it is impossible to share anything and everything we get up to in a day, as it’s usually so much that our brains can barely process it. Sharing allll of that in Stories can be overwhelming for our viewers. Over the course of the last year, we’ve gone from sharing endless Stories, to photo collages (to condense the number of frames), to live documented content, and somehow back to a dump of photos and videos every few days. We really cracked it, hah! The issue with photo collages was that I felt like my photography wasn’t getting a moment to shine when 4+ photos were being shared in a single frame. As for live documented content, it was great to share things as they were happening, but it constantly kept us thinking in a social media mind-set without enjoying the here and now. Additionally, it felt as if my camera photos were late to the party, as I would usually share them at the end of the day. And finally, while our current system of dumping content every few days isn’t ideal, it does offer a mix of videos, photos, and music to guide the story.
Posting content is typically quite time-consuming. The time spent on this begins with preparing the photos, as I usually upload my camera photos to iPhoto to sort, edit, and favorite them ahead of posting. Once this process is complete, I Airdrop them to my phone and post them to Stories one by one. This posting process requires me to think about the storyline, add text to add context, and choose the best music to match the visuals. Typically, this can take 1-2 hours, but frequently I find myself postponing content to the next day, as it’s already so late in the day or we have better things to do.
The other qualm we’ve discovered with running an Instagram account has been the constant reminder to shoot content, both video and photo, with a social media mindset. This means that photos and videos are typically vertical, instead of horizontal, and that videos tend to be shorter so they can be edited together later on. While this still offers great documentation, I have found myself forgetting to take the same photo or video horizontally, to gain a bigger picture of the scene or location.
Last, but most impactfully, being on top of social commitments has left us feeling less connected to the here-and-now. Many times, we’ve found it tricky to really absorb a moment, let it sink in, when our thoughts are more focused on how we can snap a pic or a quick video for later. That said, despite this difficulty, we have had reflective moments deeper into this trip, where it’s been incredible to watch back all of our content – to see our year unravel before our eyes in the matter of a few seconds at a time. This is why, despite some challenges, I believe keeping an audio-visual diary can be incredibly valuable, especially when you find a balance between capturing and enjoying the present.
While our content has primarily been for family, friends, and fellow travelers we’ve met along the way, it’s tough to deny the thrill of having a video go viral. In January, we shared a Reel highlighting Gillespies Beach campsite in New Zealand. Shockingly, this clip wnt viral and has acquired 531k views, most of which accumulated in the month after posting. It was so exciting to see the video climb in views, likes, comments, and shares, knowing that people resonated with and enjoyed our content. Due to the success of this video, our other content saw a spike in activity and gave us another adrenaline boost. Since then, our content has arguably improved in quality and trend-worthiness, but no other Reels have seen as great a success. It has been rather disappointing to feel like our content isn’t as popular or as well-made, when really, it comes down to the algorithm, time of day, seasonality, and dozens of other factors that can make or break its visibility. So, while we’ve felt discouraged at times, we won’t let the numbers bring us down!
How It’ll Continue
Here we are, 12 months in, just one to go. It’s a scary thought! As for our content, we want to share our journey until the very last second, until we’re sitting on the plane home and heading back to ‘reality’. Beyond our great adventure, content may look a little different. Posts in Stories and in-feed may be less frequent and contextually, content may be more locally focused. We’re looking to return to Phoenix and we’re already planning to settle into a fresh start. Finding, decorating, and furnishing a new home will offer new opportunities for a different avenue of content. Cooking homemade meals again and exploring places or activities close to home will also open new content doors. Of course, these won’t truly be travel-focused, but thankfully we live a pretty international life. With Jackson’s family in the US, mine in Europe, and friends all over the world, we’re always on the road and planning our next trip. Alongside our wide-spread network, we also have a hunger for travel and find ourselves forgetting that we actually have a home! So, needless to say that we won’t stop documenting our jet-set, busy life when we get back to our ‘reality’. Things may look different, but our archive will keep on growing for us and all those who are happy to tune in.