Interview with an Influencer: Citizens of the World (@citizensoftheworld)
Meghan and Dom (@citizensoftheworld) share their journey as a husband and wife blogging duo. Over the past six years, Meg and Dom have travelled the world and have shared their adventures with their 58.4k followers. Discover how they juggle parenting, travelling and managing themselves as influencers.
Meg and Dominic (@citizensoftheworld) sat down with us to chat about their lives as travel bloggers and their journey to becoming influencers. Citizens of the World, founded and run by husband and wife duo, Meghan & Dominic Loneragan, showcases unique and authentic travel experiences and has amassed a loyal following of over 58k.
Since beginning their blog in 2012, Meghan & Dominic have travelled the world and shared every step of the way with their audience. Their skills as producers, videographers, photographers, copywriters, and editors have allowed Dom and Meghan to work with brands such as Wanaka Tourism, Vodafone and Mercedes Benz.
Meghan & Dominic took the time to chat with us about how they got their start, how they juggle parenting, travelling and managing themselves as influencers. Check it out!
Can you tell us about yourself and your blog?
The media kit version of 'Citizens of the World' is the ‘Wild Vs Mild’ of travel, family and life.
Essentially, because Dom and I consider ourselves a mix of adventure travellers versus relaxed resort revellers, we're happy to hike ourselves half to death in Death Valley versus indulging in the Maldives.
BUT in saying that, we had a baby a year ago and world travel has gone by the wayside.These days, COTW is us living life as creatives, working in our respective fields, navigating family life and sneaking in travel and some philanthropic work at the same time.
What made you get into blogging?
It was actually Dom’s idea (my husband and photographer behind COTW). I had to be convinced because I knew just how much work goes into blogging. I also worked in the magazine industry and bloggers were seen as the enemy.
I took some convincing that we would be okay working together, especially as we’d only just started dating.
How long have you been blogging for?
We've been blogging since 2012. The landscape was very different back then (which feels like only yesterday, but is actually edging towards 10 years ago).
When we started, websites were king, now it’s only about Instagram (with websites as the bonus).
What are your secrets to success and how did you turn your passion into a paying job? Or was it the other way around?
Persistence.
Also, knowing our value and evolving along with the landscape. And gin. Haha. (But seriously, you need a thick skin to work on the Internet).
In regards to the payment side of it - let’s say - there’s a reason blogging/influencing is seen as a young person's game. You need that expendable income and time to foster your passion in order to fund yourself for the years you work for free.
When we started we were very lucky to be working in similar fields to what we blog about. I was a travel writer and Dom was a photographer.
We were lucky that we still had our bills paid in our respective careers. But when you first start don’t expect to make cash for a while. You need a good side hustle to your side hustle.
I think what separates a successful influencer/blogger isn’t just hard work but its being able to be multiple things at once and solve problems for people.
The first question when a client comes to you is to distill what their objective is into a sentence, such as, ‘we want to equate [insert whiskey brand] with adventure’. From there you have the parameters to help come up with creative ideas.
Biggest misconception about you and your job?
I think it’s a cliche to say that it’s a lot of hard work. Everybody works hard, y’know? But the hard part about being an influencer comes from the wearing multiple hats and also working mostly solo.
You’re a producer, videographer, photographer, copywriter, editor all at once. As well as having the pressure of using your personal life as the medium to tell stories, which opens you up to a lot of criticism.
What’s the best advice you ever received?
“Whenever you feel like giving up on your dream remember you are maybe just three feet from gold.”
What are two learnings since starting out?
Start with a niche. And stick to it. We wish we did this.
Best campaign you’ve ever worked on?
The best campaign we've worked on was a co-collaboration with Wanaka Tourism, New Zealand and Vodafone.
And basically every campaign that’s taken us to New Zealand. It’s so much our spiritual home, we love the Kiwis!
What was your greatest failure and what did you learn from that?
Swap the world ‘failure’ for ‘lesson’ and we’ll say trying to run a blog and a handmade product line with only us and no staff. We learned a LOT.
How do you structure your days? How many hours a week do you spend working as an Influencer and has that changed since Lachie Loneragan came into the world?
In our line of work, the family and influencer line blurs a lot. It is important to have that separation, however.
Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays are Lachie-Free days. Dom and I take a walk on the beach with a coffee, talk about upcoming stories, campaigns and trips, and nut out what each of us our working on that day.
We then normally spend the day furiously trying to get everything we can done before we get Lachie back at 5pm. Then it’s family time.
This sounds a lot more serene than it actually is. Ha. It’s really more like this.
Do you schedule your posts? If so, what app do you use?
Zero scheduling. 100% wrangling the increasingly unfriendly algorithm with human hand.
What tools do you find indispensable for social media?
Canva, VSCO, In Shot.
Do you have rules when it comes to brand collaborations?
We are selective in the sense that it’s not in ours, or the clients interest, to work on something we know won’t resonate with our audience. We always ask ourselves what we think our audience would get out of it.
What has been your favourite brand collaboration to date and why?
Our favourite brand collaboration was Mercedes Benz. We were able to drive from Sydney to Byron Bay on our first family holiday. A good example of something branded but still felt very natural.
What advice would you give to brands looking to work with influencers?
A nice feed is nice, but work with influencers that have experience as well. Check that they can do, what they say can do.
CREDIT: @citizensoftheworld
