HOW TO CREATE TRAVEL CONTENT

So you love to travel. You love capturing moments of yourself and your friends, and you want to step this up to the next level. Well you’ve come to the right place! This post will tell you everything you need to know to step up your travel content, and make posts that stand out!

What Equipment do I need?

The best equipment is whatever you have. Don’t put off starting your travel content journey because you’re waiting to buy the perfect camera or newest phone. A lot of travel content creators use their phones for 90% of their posts. When you’re on the move, it’s much easier to whip out your phone and get a shot than to mess around with lenses and camera settings! As well as this, phones at the moment have incredibly impressive cameras. Focus more on how you shoot, rather than what you’re shooting with.

How to Shoot Reels and TikToks

When creating travel reels, focus on telling a story, on sharing valuable information, and getting unique and interesting shots. It’s also important to understand what your equipment is capable of. For example, with a GoPro you can shoot underwater which will give you a completely new perspective! Get comfortable with your equipment settings and experiment with things such as slow motion, timelapses, and cinematic settings on your device.

If you’re creating content specifically for Instagram Reels and TikToks, be sure to shoot in 9x16 so that your videos will fill the whole screen. Instagram and Tiktok will punish you for leaving valuable space blank in your videos!

Practice, not Perfection

The best way to master creating Reels and TikTok’s is to practice! You don’t have to be going on epic adventures everyday to get some great shots. Head down to your local park or café and get some practice playing around with your camera settings and different shooting modes. The more your practice shooting and editing, the better your content will become.

Export settings for Reels and TikToks

I export all of my content in 4K, 30FPS (frames per second) using inshot. This is one of the best applications for editing your videos, and exporting in 4K 30FPS will ensure your Reels and TikToks are high quality and crisp. No matter where you created your content, you can import it to InShot and download it with the right settings!

I also find that if you’re posting a really high quality video to your stories, particularly drone videos, you’ll need to export this at 720 FPS. This will ensure that the quality on stories remains good.

Editing Software on a Budget

Editing software can be really expensive, and when you’re just starting out all of these costs can add up! If you’re editing on a budget, Lightroom mobile is free and will really help to improve your photos. Find a photographer whose style you admire, and see if they’re selling presets. Presets will let you get a great understanding of their editing process and will help you to find your own style.

If you’d prefer to edit videos on your laptop rather than on your phone, you should check out Da Vinci resolve. This is a free editing software that you can use on desktops. You’ll find plenty of tutorials on YouTube which can take you from beginner to pro. For TikToks and Reels, make sure to change your project settings to 9x16 ratio (or 1080 x 1920) to fit the full vertical screen.

Don’t Follow Trends

Okay, take this one with a pinch of salt. If you find a trend you love, that can fit into your niche, absolutely do follow it! Create something interesting and funny and put your own spin on it! But don’t rely on chasing trends.

If you want to stand out you need to be your own trend setter. I can’t emphasise enough the importance of posting engaging, informative content that is helpful and shareable. You want people to think, this is so funny/informative, I have to share it with my friends! The aim is to have some content that when people see it, they immediately associate it with you.

Finding Ideas for Reels and Tiktoks

Take note of what you’re researching before you visit a new location. Whether it’s the best things to do, where to eat or hidden gems in the area, keep this in mind and note it as a great idea for valuable content. If you’re searching for this, there’s a high chance other people are too!

If you’re running out of ideas, I have the perfect thing for you. On TikTok, search for a hashtag that is related to your content. Then filter the results to posts in the past month, and order by most liked. This way you can see what type of content users are engaging with, and you can add your own take on it.

How to Create Viral Content

There’s no guarantee that content will go viral, and there’s no secret sauce to getting views. Be consistent, and focus on providing value to your audience. This being said, there’s a few things that will really help.

Trending Sounds

When creating Instagram Reels and TikToks, always use trending sounds. To find these, I like to scroll on Instagram/TikTok for a few minutes and see which sounds keep coming up again and again. This isn’t mindless scrolling… it’s research! Using trending sounds will really help your content to reach more people.

Don’t Share Reels to Feed

Only use this tip if you have a smaller following (less than 1,000) and your views are low! If you don’t share the content to your feed, it will be shared out to a new pool of users rather than your usual followers. You’ll have a great opportunity to reach a new audience and get some new eyes on your content!

Start with a Hook

We hear this everywhere. Start with a hook, something that grabs your viewer’s attention and captures their interest. Your energy in a video is also super important. Try and make your viewers as excited about this video as you are! Talking in front of the camera is nerve wracking, but if you make mistakes, take pauses, or say a lot of ummmms, make sure to crop these out to keep your audience’s attention. Be yourself, and let people really see your personality.

NIAMH x