Nivedith Gajapathy on creating content as #MacroTraveller

After years of working on documenting his travels online, Nivedith Gajapathy quit his job to become a full-time travel blogger in 2015.

To gather experiences and do justice to his job as a travel blogger, Nivedith Gajapathy spends 200 days in a year travelling across the world. These include FAM as well as personal trips. He spends his day creating content for various social media channels, keep track of realtime trends and what his fellow bloggers are up to. Other tasks include emails and following up on payments. He tells us more about his efforts to build #MacroTraveller.

Looking back, where did it all begin?

In my school and college days, I used to be very active on social media. This was around 2004-2008. I used to share my travel and tech experiences on Orkut and Facebook and a friend recommended me to start sharing my experiences on my own website (blog) so that it can be documented well and I started my first blog in 2008 and it's been 12 years since then and I have changed 3 blogs and evolved with time. The current blog is Called #MacroTraveller which is all about Luxury Travel & Lifestyle. I have been doing full-time Travel Blogging since 2015 when I quit my high paying digital marketing job to travel for a living.

What's in the name? 

#MacroTraveller is a brand that I decided to build which should be synonymous to be the One-Shot solution for All Luxury Travel and Lifestyle information, tips and trips. The name goes by my identity and my Avatar.

What is your USP in this cluttered space? How does your content give you an edge?

I always say content is the king and the way you present it to your fans and followers which is simple enough for a layman to understand. I keep it simple silly, no jazz and all. It’s to the point and in detail so that people have seamless travel experiences. I like to create content that is experiential and not too jazzy or out of reach for others so that anyone can have that experience even if its luxury as well which I specialized on. I like to have my content as interactive as possible and always engage with my fans and followers so that they can I am easily and always approachable.

Please take us through your content creation process. How do you stay relevant and relatable?

Well, it’s like a company to create content. You need to do everything to create good content like donning multiple hats, being the writer, photographer, video guy, editor and janitor as well. I work on improving the skillsets to be relevant and be in the midst of things and retable and also foresee what content works well and interactive content with my fans and readers.

I also have a content calendar that is set up for each platform and I always believe that consistency is the key and I blog 1 Post a day and 1 post on Instagram and multiple posts on Facebook and Twitter based on the engagement and reach and always make it a point to go thru the insights analytics and analyze every week to see what kind of content worked for the future content schedule.

How do you make moolah with your efforts?

Well, there are multiple verticals to sustain as a content creator. One of the biggest verticals is brand collaborations and promotions on my social media channels and blog.

Also, #MacroTraveller has a merchandise line where readers, fans and followers get to buy the array of goodies as I have a new design of #MacroTraveller based on all the places & destinations that I visit and festivals and special occasions.

The third vertical is affiliate marketing and ads on my blog.

How do you maintain editorial objectivity with the influx of brand briefs?

Well, As a travel blogger, I travel extensively like 200 days in a year and most of the time there is a request for FAM trips with tourism boards, brand and destinations but I also plan the equal amount of personal travel to visit the places that I always wanted to and keep the content genuine and even with brand briefs I generally don’t like selling the brand blatantly but trying to subtly integrate into my daily life and I endorse brands that I use or would love to use and not just for money.

Also Read: If you are here to stay, keep things real: Lata

One instance/experience that made it all worthwhile.

When I love what I do, it’s totally worth it. When I am my own boss, it is totally worth it. When I quit my job over 5 years ago to travel for a living and I am making a living and empire out it. It's totally worth it.

Weirdest brand brief/request ever:

Well, there have been countless experiences as a blogger and one of my recent experience as I had reached out to a hotel brand in an exotic honeymoon destination and the way they had responded that I had to finish deliverables when I am at the property and if I don’t complete them, I had to pay the entire amount of stay while checking out.

If not blogging, you would be? 

I was a marketeer and will be a marketeer for life.

A day in your life...

For me, day and night are the same. I start my day with my blog and end with my blog. During the day, I work on content for various social media channels, check on all the content that is happening in realtime and also have a look at what are the fellow bloggers doing. Also, I work on proposals, emails to clients and following up for payments.

Message/tips for upcoming bloggers

Tips for upcoming bloggers is you need to identify the niche and work on it and stay focused and consistent is the key.

Your Favorite Influencer

I have met a lot of them but honestly, I don’t have any favourites, some are good friends as well.

The Future you foresee for your Personal Brand

I want #MacroTraveller to be the first choice for anyone in the world who wants to travel and I want to build an empire out of it like Disney.