This Is What I Hated About Being An Influencer

I never asked for it but at some point it becomes inevitable.

The internet has bastardized what it means to write from the heart, and instead, most people write for numbers and money.

Back in the golden days of blogging, being an “influencer” wasn’t a thing. Most of us started our prehistoric blogs as a means of putting down the pen and diary and getting our thoughts out into the real world.

Nowadays, it seems people launch online spaces with the sole intent of becoming influencers.

If you write long enough and do it within a tight enough niche, inevitably, you’ll start influencing the decisions and actions of your followers, even if you don’t realize it’s happening.

Whether you have millions of followers or even just thousands, if they’re devoted enough, they look to you for what’s next.

What will you promote today?

Where will you be going?

What will you be eating?

What new thing are you trying that all the followers should try?

How did you suddenly become the Pied Piper?

Influencing people is such a sheep mentality.

Luckily for the blogger, sheep are easy to lead. But sheep also have minds of their own and before you realize it, they’re subconsciously leading you.

My blogging odyssey was based on travel. I lived my best life through travel and loved sharing my journey with others who might enjoy it and find some amusement in it.

From the very beginning, I tried to be an educator. I felt compelled to help others get the most out of their journeys, and I did it pretty much the same way I do life—with flair, humour and plenty of mishaps. 😁

Even a rum flask was a social media moment 😁

It gave me great personal satisfaction to screw up and learn the hard way and then tell others how not to screw up the way I did. I was perfectly willing to take one for the team because it would save them money, time, and aggravation in the long run.

What I didn’t know was that readers would eat my content up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I accidentally became an influencer very quickly in my niche, which propelled me to keep doing it.

I admit, the notoriety was fun for a very long time…until it wasn’t. Although the shift was slow, it was a very distinct shift.

First, let me be clear—I LOVED experiencing life and travel and writing about it, but eventually, it became more about capturing the perfect picture and the perfect story. I constantly toiled over how to present my experiences to the world.

Rather than having an incredible travel day and going to bed fulfilled, I’d stay up late and craft the story, edit the photos, put together the videos, and—let’s not forget—optimize the SEO.

Readers all knew where I was (they LITERALLY knew where I was and sometimes showed up on my doorstep), and they waited for a story every step of the way.

So, who was this really for, anyway?

Even though travel blogging was one of the most rewarding periods of my life, there’s also a robust list of things that wanna-be influencers may never consider.

My inbox overflowed.

When you’ve got knowledge others want, they don’t hold back. They’re all up in your business asking for it.

Last week, I read a beautiful piece by

Deanna Thomas

about friendships and where the lines are drawn. It resonated SO HARD with me because, before I learned how to capitalize on my knowledge, it felt like readers wanted my intel but never considered how much time and effort it took to answer them thoughtfully.

Here’s a quote from Deanna’s heartfelt story:

“Greetings, Deanna! We are coming from Kingston to Portland; do you have a recommendation for a place we can stay?”

“Hello, Deanna! I want to stay in Jamaica for two months this year and I’m so excited. I have some questions about how to deal with my cell phone while I’m there. Can you give me a call please?”

My eyes squinted from the blue light, and I leaned back on my pillow, sighing loudly to myself, or maybe to the dog, too. When did I sign up to be a Portland travel agent? I wondered. While I pined to have my friends come and visit me to no avail, here I sat fielding messages from people I barely knew who met me once or maybe twice, were inspired by my story, and now apparently saw me as their personal link here on the island.

Even my quiet, beautiful times had to be staged if I wanted to capture the moment.

When I was in Deanna’s position in the very same country, at first, it wasn’t a big deal when one or two people emailed asking for advice. But it became a huge deal — and a colossal time waster — when thirty people emailed me asking for the island on a silver platter.

I didn’t mind giving occasional guidance, but it became overwhelming when their emails began asking for advice about long-distance relationships, how to move to Jamaica or how to marry a local.

I couldn’t have cared less about that stuff. I was a travel writer, not a relationship counsellor or a visa specialist.

But once you’re an influencer, you can’t just tell your readers to f**k off and respect your boundaries. Believe me, that would spread faster than your latest SEO-driven story. 😆

It would damage your reputation and everything you’ve been working toward.

The people wanted to be where I was.

Let me clarify: I met many of my readers over the years, and several of them turned into lifelong friends and “family.” It was a genuine trade perk, and I don’t regret meeting them for one minute.

But I couldn’t do it for everyone, not if I wanted to keep a schedule or my bank account intact. I was not on vacation in Jamaica. I had work to do and a budget to live with. So then it turned into a trail of rejections I had to dish out.

There was one of me and hundreds of them. Jaunting around to meet them all was not sustainable.

Having said that, here’s an incredible story about organically meeting some of my readers, and I wouldn’t trade these moments for anything!

The village idiots.

Believe me, there were many. It bewildered me how many people didn’t realize they were reading a personal blog, not a business or corporate website.

If I wrote about accommodations, I received reservation requests in my inbox.

If I wrote about a tourist attraction, I’d get emails inquiring about group rates.

If I wrote about a retail shopping experience, I’d get resumes sent to my inbox. RESUMES!!?? 😆

And the list goes on.

I used to die laughing over the resumes, though. If the applicant wasn’t smart enough to realize that a personal travel blog isn’t a corporate website, how on earth are they smart enough to get a job?

The freeloaders.

By far, these were the most aggravating to deal with. The ones who wanted free advertising, free publicity, and free promotion….for nothing in return.

I wrote a shit-ton of reviews on my blog. Most were business arrangements, meaning we made mutually beneficial agreements.

I never once promoted a business I hadn’t personally experienced. I didn’t see it as ethical and I never wanted to steer my readers wrong.

Enter: The freeloaders. They’re the hundreds upon hundreds of emails I received asking for promotional posts, social media shoutouts, and referrals to services I’d never used before.

I’m all for supporting the little guy but how many tour guide and taxi drivers’ phone numbers can I shout out? And what was in it for me besides extra work?

I intensely disliked piggybackers who want to ride on the coattails of someone else’s hard work without offering anything in return.

As I scroll to the top and read back over this a hundred times in a row, I feel like it makes me sound more bitchy and bitter than incredibly grateful for my experiences as an (unintentional) influencer.

That is certainly not the case.

The freedom, perks, eventual income, and learning aspects far outweighed the downsides. It was a super-fantastical existence for ten years, but I’d do it differently now.

These are the hidden pieces of influencing most won’t tell you about, probably because they’re too busy flaunting their perfect lives all over the internet. I know this because I did it, too. Then I’d cry off-camera or get drunk with my neighbor because he was also an expat, and we both understood how lonely it can be living in a different country.

Unless you’re a six-figure blogger with an administrative staff, there’s a LOT more behind-the-scenes work (and chaos) than I ever intended to deal with way back in the beginning.

I had no clue back then.

The tagline for my long-running blog was:

“If you need a map, you’re doing it wrong.”

In the greater sense of that tagline, maybe I was doing influencing wrong. Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I DID need a map. I’ll never claim to know what goes on behind the scenes for other influencers.

Clearly, some of them love the limelight more than I ever did. I was just there to share my passion with the world, not my “status.”

Have you ever found yourself in a position of influence, even though you never intentionally set out to become an influencer?