We are often asked about our plans for making money while we travel. Thanks to Jake, I was able to start working on my dream career last year. Now I make a living by creating branded social media content for start-up businesses and selling my work online, giving me the freedom to work at home and on my own schedule.

   Social media platforms function together to reach a larger and more defined audience than ever before. For example, there are only about 150k #skoolie posts on Instagram, which in the grand scope of Instagram, isn’t a lot. If you were in the skoolie business, you would be able to market directly to people who follow it on their IG and capture their interest.

   Then came the social media influencers; the people who have climbed the ranks to instafame and use their fan base to make their money. By capturing their followers’ hearts and trust, these online celebrities influence millions of followers everyday to use their favorite brand of makeup, protein powder, or essential oils. Millions of products are sold everyday thanks to the sponsorship of the influencer and the strategy put in place by the company that’s paying them.

   Not every influencer does what they do for money; sometimes influencers just want to provide their opinion or advice to the people who are seeking it. We have seen the best and the worst of people spreading their opinion around the internet, especially in the last couple of years.

   It really makes you think about how effective social media works to sway the opinions and aspirations of its users and I have started to reflect on how our little space on the internet works to inspire the people who follow us.

   The business person in me was thinking that I should probably create some professional content to post on our page and make it feel like the brands that I work for on a daily basis.

   I thought about what I would design and after a while, I was just uninspired… until I remembered about influence.

   We started our IG page to document our bus conversion and travel for the friends and family we moved away from. Over time, we’ve gained many new followers and we get asked for advice by other aspiring bus-lifers all the time. We want to continue to use our page to send a message of hope to the people out there who are like us. If you are a hard worker who never feels like they get to reap the benefits of their effort, know that once you redirect that energy into yourself, the outcome is happiness. If you are just as disappointed with the realities of the American dream and want to escape the cycle of working 50 hours a week just to survive, know that there are opportunities around every corner for you to break away and create your own path.

   We don’t want to sell anything to anyone except for the idea that you don’t have to remain where you are. If our IG page becomes popular enough to influence someone, we hope that it inspires them to take a leap of faith and to put their happiness and peace of mind first. We wish to influence others to live more simply and mindfully, to make conscious efforts to consider the feelings and experiences of the people around them, and to love without prejudice. If we are ever considered influencers, we hope that we inspire you to explore new thoughts and ideas, to contemplate thought-provoking questions, and to take a moment to see things from a perspective other than your own.

   If you could be a social media influencer, would you prefer to convince your followers that they need material objects to be happy or would you try to help them succeed by giving them the tools to create their own happiness?