Trover, a photo sharing app by Expedia, prides itself on its strong community of travel enthusiasts. Users upload photos as “discoveries” and can curate those discoveries into lists organized by specific themes and destinations.

HMI arranged for 6 diverse influencers to be ambassadors for Trover throughout 2019. The goals were to boost brand awareness and positive engagement of the platform. Each ambassador was tasked with promoting Trover on various social media channels throughout the year while also utilizing and engaging on the Trover platform.

In addition to publishing a set number of monthly deliverables, a $25,000 USD Trover Ambassador Grant (TAG) was exclusively available to them to pitch ideas to incorporate Trover into upcoming travel. Throughout the year, the TAG program funded 8 creative campaigns and the funds were used in full.

Image by @photojbartlett

Objectives

After vetting and selecting six diverse influencers to partner with throughout the year, HMI worked closely as a conduit between Trover and each ambassador to deliver feedback, negotiate TAG campaign concepts, facilitate collaboration between each ambassador, and provide monthly progress reports.

The intention for the year was to:

  • Use consistent mentions of Trover by the ambassadors throughout a whole year to encourage their audience to sign up and use the app.
  • Showcase Trover as a useful tool for travelers by continued use by trusted travel influencers.
  • Encourage creativity with the ambassadors to integrate Trover into their travel plans via the TAG campaign.
  • Support more quality uploads to the Trover app by having the ambassadors engage with the Trover community.
  • Show how the use of trusted brand ambassadors offer more effective brand messaging than short-term influencer partnerships.

Image by @dontforget2move

Ambassadors

Content Samples

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Ambassador Program Results

The consistent and organic way that the ambassadors weaved Trover into their content during the year led to impressive results including increased engagement and a 32% surge in active users on the app. Together, the ambassadors uploaded nearly 1,000 discoveries to Trover and curated over 85 lists.

Throughout the year, the 6 ambassadors promoted Trover on their channels including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and in blog posts. Their social posts promoted their Trover discoveries, lists and unique finds using the “nearby” feature, as well as helped to promote monthly Trover contests.

Results Summary:

  • 4.3 million+ total organic reach via influencer channels.
  • 204,000+ total engagement on influencer channels.
  • 17,000+ click throughs to Trover channels.

Instagram: Over 70 posts generated 112 thousand+ engagements.
Instagram Stories: 535 stories generated nearly 1 million views.

YouTube: 18 videos garnered nearly 400 thousand views.

Facebook: 160 posts reached 1.2 million and attracted 72 thousand+ engagements.

Twitter: 222 tweets reached nearly 700 thousand, and received 15.6 thousand+ engagements.

Blogs: 14 unique posts attracted 5 thousand+ visitors and 8 thousand+ pageviews.

Image by @fearlessandfar

2018 Comparison

Rather than using ambassadors in the previous year, Trover engaged with a variety of influencers on a short-term (monthly) basis.

Adjusting to 6 ambassadors for the entire year of 2019 was quite different but it offers a great comparison between the two years and respective strategies. When comparing the ambassador’s efforts in 2019 with the shorter-term strategy in 2018, there is a remarkable increase in overall reach, engagement, and click-through rates across all channels from 2018 to 2019 for only a 55% spend increase.

2018 vs 2019 Results Summary:

  • Facebook Reach Improved By 260%.
  • Instagram Reach Increased By Nearly 800%.
  • Facebook Click-Throughs Tripled From 5,515 in 2018 to 15,060 in 2019.

This works as a pertinent example of how an ambassador program can work as a more effective influencer marketing strategy than one-off influencer partnerships. The relevant and trusted travel influencers who were recruited as ambassadors for Trover provided substantially improved results with notable growth in reach and engagement. The continued promotion of Trover-related content by the ambassadors led to the growth of trust and respect in the app among the influencer’s audiences.

Image by @oneikatraveller