“Travel is great in general for all sexes, races, cultures and religions as it teaches acceptance”. These are the words of the first Australian professional Instagrammer, Lauren Bath.
From professional Chef to professional Instagrammer, Lauren Elizabeth Pirie Bath has changed how people look at Instagram. This social media has been a source of inspiration for people to take pictures. It has turned into an inspiration for travellers from all over the world because of her.
Lauren started her own business called Lauren Bath Services and attained the title of Australia’s first professional Instagrammer. Miss Bath has had success in every job she set out to do – first as a chef, a photographer, a travel photographer and finally as a businesswoman.
“Travelling as a profession has its own set of challenges, but I can’t think of a better job in the world. One of the downsides is that it is work, but the work I do is great. I have the luxury of choosing who I work with and dictating most of the terms of my trips. I have now done over 160 individual travel campaigns for clients, and I know the ins and outs of my work. I consider myself an authority on it. For this reason, I am able to convince clients to try things my way” says Lauren Bath.
Lauren Bath was born and raised at Gold Coast, Australia. Her family having been tightly knit to food, it did not surprise her that she chose to travel the same path. She graduated with a bachelor of science in food and nutrition from Griffith University. Lauren took up the post of a chef at Cairns, far North Queensland. She was happy with the job but craved for something more in life than just being a chef. She wanted to see the world and share her experiences with people.
When asked about her favourite destination, Miss Bath answer was, “Australia is my favourite destination and luckily my home country. I have been incredibly fortunate to travel extensively in Australia for work, and I have loved every place that I have discovered. Outside of Australia, it would be too hard to pick”. She had more than 2,00,000 followers (early 2013) on Instagram, even while being a chef. Instagram had only come into the market in 2010 and has numerous followers at that time was a big deal. This turned out to be the pivotal turning point in Miss Bath’s life.
She had job offers to travel capture it on her camera and post them on Instagram. She was handsomely paid for capturing different locations, food, culture, and posting them on Instagram.
The decision that changed her life was the one she took on 2012’s new year eve. She had her fair share of travelling and photography; however, the yearning to make it a step forward was the reason for the formulation of the company Lauren Bath Services. Through her company, Lauren has been hosting various Instagram campaigns and workshops in social media on photography. She believes in providing content of value and accountability to her clients and followers while following her pure instincts of photography.
“In general, I think that social media is great as long as people are in control of how long they spend online. Remember that the experience is more important than capturing the experience. There are times that I put my camera and phone away to appreciate the world around me, and I would encourage everyone to do that. For marketers, it is a challenging time because social media is not as easy to measure as traditional media, and it’s much harder to get a definitive return on investment value. On the plus side, a quality social media strategy and working with influencers can be an amazing value. The content created is so much more organic and relatable to consumers” said Lauren Bath
Bath earns her income not only from travelling but also from public speaking, education and consultancy. “I have a huge business that covers multiple social media services. I make money from various revenue streams including workshops and education, campaign management, image sales, commercial photography and my conference ‘The Travel Bootcamp'” says Miss Bath. She avidly speaks on her journey as a professional Instagrammer, the role of Instagram in the travel and tourism industry, working with influencers and much more. She gives educational workshops on how to use Instagram for marketing, an introduction DSLR photography and Instagram photography.
Lauren likes to bask in anything that has travel, photography or social media as these are the things that excite her. She has successfully organised one hundred and twenty social media travel campaigns so far.
She is a co-founder of the Travel Bootcamp along with two other travellers Georgia Rickard and Liz Carlson. They schedule events to help give back the society what they gained by educating others about the various career possibilities for travellers. They host workshops on how to build an Instagram following and blog community, how to earn money from your travel write-ups, pictures or reviews, dealing with editors and clients, establishing partnerships and collaborations and many more topics that are related to the travel industry. The next event is scheduled to happen on 29th April at Melbourne.
‘If you love something, you are going to do it well. If you do it well, you will grow an audience’ is the mantra that she follows. Lauren was a finalist in the Gold Coast Women in Business Awards for the category of ‘Women for Change’ in 2015.
