Wall Street Journal
BUSINESS
Coronavirus Disrupts Travel Influencer’s Picture-Perfect Business Model
Christine Ka’aloa’s posts on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook were hot before the pandemic. Now, she has turned to Patreon and Zoom to keep things going.
By Dave Sebastian
May 7, 2020
Travel blogger Christine Ka’aloa has posted a couple of new videos in recent weeks to her YouTube channel, which has been starved for content.
Instead of seeing her take an Arctic road trip or show how to use a squat toilet, her 151,000 subscribers got a download on what it’s like to be a globe-trotting influencer during lockdowns.
“All of the videos that I worked tirelessly on last year and this year I’ve had to put on pause due to the coronavirus,” she said in a roughly 18-minute clip posted Sunday. It has been viewed about 2,500 times—fewer than her typical “GRRRL Traveler” posts from solo travels all over the world.
Ms. Ka’aloa, currently living in Hawaii, went on to document everyday tasks like taking her dog, Tinker, to the veterinarian. She pointed viewers to crowdfunding platform Patreon Inc., which allows people to sell monthly subscriptions in exchange for perks or other benefits.
“I’ve not felt comfortable,” Ms. Ka’aloa said when explaining why she had gone a bit silent starting in early March. “Some people out there watch my videos and mistakenly think that I’m still traveling.”
Ms. Ka’aloa has been mindful of travel restrictions during the pandemic, and encourages people to stay at home. She decided to post new videos recently, however, “just so I can move beyond it.”
She started her most recent video by showing off a collection of safety masks she’s collected over the years during trips to India and Japan, and while living in South Korea.
Laying low has hit Ms. Ka’aloa’s pocketbook.
Patreon, which she had set up to engage with some followers before the pandemic, has grown in importance to Ms. Ka’aloa. She collects between $5 and $100 a month per Patreon membership.
Subscribers get an inside look into content creation, “rants of behind-the-scenes life” and access to some of the travel-video backlog waiting to be released. For instance, when Covid-19 cases in Italy shot up, she held off posting her shots from some of the Italian cities she recently visited.
The roughly 40 Patreon subscribers Ms. Ka’aloa has aren’t enough to lift revenue to pre-Covid-19 levels. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that much,” Ms. Ka’aloa said.
The business model of her GRRRL Traveler business, started in 2008, hinges on advertising. About 60% of its 2019 income came from ads viewed on her YouTube and Facebook posts, she said.
In 2018, a YouTube video she created about a quirky Tokyo capsule hotel went viral, amassing more than two million views. Facebook Inc. also invited her to test a video-advertising program, and prominent brands like memory-card maker SanDisk approached her to feature products in her videos.
Last year, GRRRL Traveler’s sponsorships and partnerships had grown large enough to allow Ms. Ka’aloa to make it her primary career. It demands about 60 hours a week of work. She hits the road about five times a year to gather footage and tips on flights, lodging, food and other aspects of traveling alone.
But with companies slashing budgets, Facebook and YouTube advertising now only makes up a fifth of her income.
Content partnerships like the SanDisk deal and so-called affiliate arrangements are more important as ads dry up. But those opportunities are also dwindling.
“I’d be lucky if I get, like, maybe $200,” she said of the commissions she expects to get from affiliate partnerships. Under terms of these deals, she links to pages of a brand on her blog posts.
Amazon.com Inc., one of her affiliates, has cut commission rates. The e-commerce giant’s rates for health and personal-care product promotion, for example, were slashed to 1% from 4.5% of sales driven by visitors’ clicks.
Outside Patreon, Ms. Ka’aloa has hosted three “GRRRL’S Nite” Zoom gatherings she promoted through her various social-media channels. The gatherings were centered on must-try meals from around the world, traveling in Japan and solo-travel trips.
She will host the second part of her solo-travel discussion on May 17. Ms. Ka’aloa said attendees of the Zoom meetings, which she limits to between seven and nine participants each, mostly paid about $10 to $15, above her suggested minimum donation of $5.
“It makes me question what I’ve developed or what I’ve worked all these years to develop in terms of my demographics, my audience and my past business plan,” Ms. Ka’aloa said.
Write to Dave Sebastian at dave.sebastian@wsj.com
BUSINESS
Coronavirus Disrupts Travel Influencer’s Picture-Perfect Business Model
Christine Ka’aloa’s posts on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook were hot before the pandemic. Now, she has turned to Patreon and Zoom to keep things going.
 |
Christine Ka'aloa tries on masks in a YouTube post published Sunday. Here, the travel influencer shows off her "very first sick mask” she got while living in Korea. It has a puppy and the words "love story" embroidered on it.PHOTO: CHRISTINE KA'ALOA |
May 7, 2020
Travel blogger Christine Ka’aloa has posted a couple of new videos in recent weeks to her YouTube channel, which has been starved for content.
Instead of seeing her take an Arctic road trip or show how to use a squat toilet, her 151,000 subscribers got a download on what it’s like to be a globe-trotting influencer during lockdowns.
“All of the videos that I worked tirelessly on last year and this year I’ve had to put on pause due to the coronavirus,” she said in a roughly 18-minute clip posted Sunday. It has been viewed about 2,500 times—fewer than her typical “GRRRL Traveler” posts from solo travels all over the world.
Ms. Ka’aloa, currently living in Hawaii, went on to document everyday tasks like taking her dog, Tinker, to the veterinarian. She pointed viewers to crowdfunding platform Patreon Inc., which allows people to sell monthly subscriptions in exchange for perks or other benefits.
“I’ve not felt comfortable,” Ms. Ka’aloa said when explaining why she had gone a bit silent starting in early March. “Some people out there watch my videos and mistakenly think that I’m still traveling.”
Ms. Ka’aloa has been mindful of travel restrictions during the pandemic, and encourages people to stay at home. She decided to post new videos recently, however, “just so I can move beyond it.”
She started her most recent video by showing off a collection of safety masks she’s collected over the years during trips to India and Japan, and while living in South Korea.
Laying low has hit Ms. Ka’aloa’s pocketbook.
Patreon, which she had set up to engage with some followers before the pandemic, has grown in importance to Ms. Ka’aloa. She collects between $5 and $100 a month per Patreon membership.
Subscribers get an inside look into content creation, “rants of behind-the-scenes life” and access to some of the travel-video backlog waiting to be released. For instance, when Covid-19 cases in Italy shot up, she held off posting her shots from some of the Italian cities she recently visited.
The roughly 40 Patreon subscribers Ms. Ka’aloa has aren’t enough to lift revenue to pre-Covid-19 levels. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that much,” Ms. Ka’aloa said.
The business model of her GRRRL Traveler business, started in 2008, hinges on advertising. About 60% of its 2019 income came from ads viewed on her YouTube and Facebook posts, she said.
In 2018, a YouTube video she created about a quirky Tokyo capsule hotel went viral, amassing more than two million views. Facebook Inc. also invited her to test a video-advertising program, and prominent brands like memory-card maker SanDisk approached her to feature products in her videos.
Last year, GRRRL Traveler’s sponsorships and partnerships had grown large enough to allow Ms. Ka’aloa to make it her primary career. It demands about 60 hours a week of work. She hits the road about five times a year to gather footage and tips on flights, lodging, food and other aspects of traveling alone.
But with companies slashing budgets, Facebook and YouTube advertising now only makes up a fifth of her income.
Content partnerships like the SanDisk deal and so-called affiliate arrangements are more important as ads dry up. But those opportunities are also dwindling.
“I’d be lucky if I get, like, maybe $200,” she said of the commissions she expects to get from affiliate partnerships. Under terms of these deals, she links to pages of a brand on her blog posts.
Amazon.com Inc., one of her affiliates, has cut commission rates. The e-commerce giant’s rates for health and personal-care product promotion, for example, were slashed to 1% from 4.5% of sales driven by visitors’ clicks.
Outside Patreon, Ms. Ka’aloa has hosted three “GRRRL’S Nite” Zoom gatherings she promoted through her various social-media channels. The gatherings were centered on must-try meals from around the world, traveling in Japan and solo-travel trips.
She will host the second part of her solo-travel discussion on May 17. Ms. Ka’aloa said attendees of the Zoom meetings, which she limits to between seven and nine participants each, mostly paid about $10 to $15, above her suggested minimum donation of $5.
“It makes me question what I’ve developed or what I’ve worked all these years to develop in terms of my demographics, my audience and my past business plan,” Ms. Ka’aloa said.
Write to Dave Sebastian at dave.sebastian@wsj.com
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