- After she couldn't find anyone to go with her on a trip to South Africa, Nastasia Yakoub created an Instagram account dedicated to solo female travel.
- She now earns more than $4,000 for sponsored posts on the page with over half a million followers.
- Business Insider spoke to Yakoub about how she grew her account and turned it into a business.
- She said that the key to her success was consistently uploading high-quality photos to her account and promoting the #DameTraveler hashtag to build a community and increase her exposure.
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As a nursing student at Loyola University in Chicago, Nastasia Yakoub received the opportunity to take a trip to Cape Town, South Africa, and volunteer at an orphanage.
"I was so excited to go, but I couldn't convince any of my friends to go with me," Yakoub remembered. Nervous about traveling across the world alone, Yakoub almost canceled her trip. "I thought, I can't go all the way to Africa by myself," she said. But she ultimately changed her mind. "If I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it," she recalled thinking.
"In the end, I was glad I did it alone," she added. The trip sparked Yakoub's love for solo travel, and she wanted to find a community of other women with a similar interest.
Seeing a niche
After graduating, Yakoub began working as a nurse but soon suffered an injury that put her out of work for months. "I was so bored in bed rest, and I wanted to get an iPhone so that I could get on Instagram," she said.
Once she got the app, she searched for a female travel community with no such luck. So she decided to create her own travel platform in 2014.
"I started realizing that people are not really reading magazines anymore; they're not really watching commercials anymore," Yakoub said. "Instagram is really becoming a place where people are planning their vacations and travel."
Creating a travel account and trending hashtag
Yakoub named her account @dametraveler, as Yakoub associated the word "dame" with courage and strength and found it fitting because "when a female travels solo, she trusts the universe to protect her while she uses her instincts to make smart decisions," she said.
Yakoub began to share photos and stories from female travelers around the world, which she found through launching the hashtag #DameTraveler alongside the account.
"I added the hashtag to every photo, added it to our bio, and occasionally reminded the audience to use it in our captions," Yakoub said. The idea was that female travelers could share their photos and stories using the hashtag and Yakoub could choose the photos she liked best to feature on the page.
When selecting images, Yakoub considers how the photos will fit together on her feed. "The feed is very important to me because it's the first impression when someone stumbles upon the gallery, so if the colors and composition of the photos flow well, people are more likely to follow," she said.
Every day, she looks through the #DameTraveler hashtag, adds the photos she likes to her Dropbox, plans her Instagram grid — the order or setup of her posts — on a separate app, and then uploads one photo at around noon EST.
Of course, Yakoub gives the women behind the photos full credit for their work. She also asks permission before using any photos that don't include the #DameTraveler hashtag in the caption. "If I'm looking through a geotag on Instagram and I see a photo I like, I always check to see if they've used the hashtag, and if they haven't, I send them a message and ask permission," she explained. "Nine times out of 10, they want to be featured on the page."
And it makes sense that they want to be included: Since launching the brand, Yakoub has built a following of over 580,000, and her hashtag now contains more than five million posts.
Building an audience and blog
To reach that level of influence took five years of work. "I consistently posted photos on the account and interacted with my audience to build a community," she said. In terms of her hours, Yakoub "virtually never unplug[s]," she said. "I'm always working because there's always something to do."
She added that she never had any sort of viral post that dramatically boosted her following, but she does believe that she created her account at an opportune time. "We're a travel blog for women. And female empowerment and travel are very popular right now," Yakoub said. "These things have always been very important to me, and I'm glad I live in a time where other people care as well."
As she began to grow her following, Yakoub decided to expand Dame Traveler beyond Instagram. Shortly after she created the account in 2015, she created an online blog, where female travelers can volunteer to share travel guides and tips for certain locations. She initially created the blog because she wanted "something [she] fully own[s]," she said. "You never know what will happen with Instagram, and I never want to put all my eggs in one basket."
She also created two other Instagram accounts, @dametravelerhotels and @dametravelerfoodie, in 2016. On these accounts, she shares photos of restaurants and hotels from destinations around the world. "I realized people like to plan their trips together, so they can find locations on the main account and foodie spots and places to stay on the other accounts," Yakoub said.
Turning an Instagram account into a business and partnering with brands
It took nearly two years of brand building before Yakoub was able to monetize Dame Traveler. At the end of 2015, she felt like she had a large enough presence on Instagram to begin working with brands and charging them.
At the beginning of 2016, Yakoub created a media kit and began to offer three distinct sponsorship packages to brands. She set her prices for sponsored content based on YouTube tutorials she watched and her experience working at a travel brand's headquarters in early 2015. She initially struck deals with brands through PR companies that she found and reached out to. As she grew, brands began to approach her, and she raised her prices.
Today, the "basic package," which she sells for $750, includes one blog post on Dame Traveler's website linking back to the brand's website, one Instagram story on Yakoub's personal account with over 100,000 followers, and a post on Dame Traveler's Twitter and Facebook pages (which have around 5,000 followers and 10,000 likes respectively). The "standard package," which goes for $2,500, includes two blog posts, one Instagram story on Yakoub's personal account, one story on Dame Travel's main account, and a post on Dame Traveler's Twitter and Facebook pages. And the "premium package," which Yakoub prices at $5,500, includes all of that plus a post on Dame Traveler's feed. She also individually sells sponsored posts on Dame Traveler's feed for $4,000 each; these come with a blog post as well.
Yakoub told Business Insider that she prefers long-term relationships with clients over one-off posts. "I like to build long-term relationships with brands because then they know the value I can offer, and they get to know me," she said.
She points to her partnership with HotelTonight as an example of one of these relationships. "Hotel Tonight is my No. 1 client, and we agree on a minimum of six campaigns per year," Yakoub said. "This provides me with security because I know that I'm guaranteed a minimum of six campaigns a year besides all of the other campaigns that I do." In this sponsored post, for example, she discusses booking a hotel through HotelTonight for a quick trip to Paris.
Yakoub clearly communicates to brands that the sponsored content must align with her other posts. "For example, when I've partnered with airlines in the past, I've kept the content destination focused on the feed while tying in the brand messaging in the caption rather than posting a photo of an airplane on the feed, which is hard to make interesting," she said.
Yakoub said she no longer actively seeks work. Instead, brands reach out to her if they see her as a good fit for their campaign, and she believes her move to New York from Chicago in 2016 is part of the reason why. "Networking has played a huge role in the campaigns I'm offered," Yakoub said. "When I moved to New York, I started to get invited to all of these PR events, and I would go to all of them so I could meet all of the PR companies and go out to lunch with them."
"Once you're on the PR lists, you receive regular sponsorship and campaign offers from brands," Yakoub explained.
Looking to the future
Yakoub says her goal for 2020 is to expand the brand further beyond Instagram. "I recently hired an editor for the blog, and I'm looking to scale the blog and make it bigger than it is right now," she said.
Outside of the blog, Yakoub is releasing a book titled "Live The Spirit of Adventure" in March of 2020 with Ten Speed Press, a Penguin Random House imprint. After Yakoub was featured in the Washington Post in 2017, a publishing company reached out to her and referred her to a literary agent. After putting together a proposal and sending it to 40 publishers, Ten Speed Press picked it up. The book is set to include photos and travel stories from approximately 100 women who have been featured on the Dame Traveler Instagram account.
She's also considering selling Dame Traveler merchandise or even creating a Dame Traveler wine brand. "Right now, I need to figure out what will be best and focus my energy there," she concluded.
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