Trying To Entertain A Bored Influencer Is A Frustrating Assignment
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Travel Blogger
Sometimes, I exchange my blogger hat for my Public Relations hat – I have several years of experience working for PR agencies, companies, at events and as an independent contractor – to pitch stories and help journalists get stories.
In this case, I was asked by a tourism board to escort a visiting traveling journalist through PubClub.com’s World Headquarters town of Hermosa Beach on the Southern California coast. So I did the organization a favor, while the tourism board took other journalists on a separate excursion.
My plan was to get a read of the journalist, what she wanted to potentially write about, and point out a little of the history, culture (beach volleyball and surfing!), spots where the movie La La Land was filmed, local restaurants, bars and Happy Hours.
The journalist was a 20-something girl. We set out on foot down The Strand, the bike and running path that runs through Hermosa along the beach (and for 20 miles from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to the Santa Monica Pier).
Quickly into our half-mile walk along the beach, she got bored. She complained about the fact the sun wan’t out that day. “I came here because I wanted sunshine!,” she remarked.
When we got to the pier and I pointed out “this is where they filmed the dancing scene in the movie,” she briefly came to life and then filmed a couple of Instagram stories.
She asked me to take her photo and it took forever because she was forever flipping her hair trying to get it just so, tho the wind was blowing it back to where she kept moving it from, and she would not be still until it was perfect.
That is when I realized that I was not dealing with a journalist but – gasp – an Instagrammer!
Oh geez. I’ve seen these people before; somehow they get 100K or so followers, become an “influencer” and get free trips from tourism boards. They even get paid to post certain things for companies.
An Instagrammer is different from an Instagrammer, in that the latter are indeed influencers, they worked hard to get their following, they are respectful of trips they earn and perks they get, and are friendly and attentive to others.
The Instragrammers, tho, are in a different world.
They are constantly bored, looking around everywhere but except what is right in front of them as if something is going to suddenly leap out and catch their attention. Cvery now and then, they pick up their phone and position it for a selfe. Before snapping the photo, tho, they flip their hair over and over again, put on a big smile (or the one I hate, stick out the lips) and take a “wow, look where I am and how much fun I’m having SUCKERS” photo.
Then they go back to being bored.
In this case, nothing I said, suggested or pointed out elicited any positive response. Stand-up paddleboarding? Nope. I suggested several restaurants for lunch. “I’m not hungry,” she curtly replied.
“How about shopping, how about going to Manhattan Beach. How about going into Tower 12 and drowning yourself in alcohol so I can ditch you and go back to enjoying my day?”
Actually, I did not say that last part but that’s what I was thinking.
Finally, she offered a suggestion.
“I want to go to downtown,” she said. Downtown, as in downtown LA!? That’s an hour from here in traffic! “I can Uber.”
That idea nixed, she came up with another one.
“I want to go to the Getty.” The Getty, as in the Getty Museum? That’s an hour north of here! “I can Uber.”
Frustrated, I sat her down on a bench while she called the tourism PR representative. “What can I do,?” she pleaded. I guarantee nothing could make this woman happy.
Finally, after I suggested every possible entertainment option in the South Bay and even some in Los Angeles, I pulled the ripcord.
The Instagrammers I’ve encountered have no appreciation of where they are, that they are being comped travel, get to experience the best a place has to offer – including great restaurants – and all they do is act bored and complain when the sun is not shining.
Not me. I appreciate every moment of being on a press trip (and even when not, like walking through some rich guy’s painting collections at a museum in Switzerland, I at least pretend to appreciate it) and thank all the people who have hosted me.
So the day was pretty much a complete bust for me. I just wish the tourism board would have given me an expense account so I could have drowned myself in alcohol at Tower 12.
Cheers!
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