Global Influencer Board meets in Ventura and celebrates California Surf Day

Visit California convened its Global Influencer Advisory Board in Ventura this September for a meeting and local activities that captured the destination’s relaxed beach town vibes.

With two new members from the U.K., Nat and Charlie, a couple sharing LGBTQ+ travel content at @natandcharlie, the board now has 12 members and a total potential reach of more than 3.9 million.

Visit California first started the advisory board in 2017 with the goal of fostering long-term ambassadors for California while also gaining insights into influencer best practices to both inform our program and pass along to the industry. Quite a few valuable insights were shared during the meeting and will be reflected in the upcoming 2025 Influencer Strategy Document.

• Posting frequency: Influencers noted a trend toward less frequent posting, both in-feed and in Stories on Instagram, noting that reach starts to plummet after a few Stories, so they’re letting them fully time out before posting a new story set.
• Challenges with paid partnership tags and whitelisting: While whitelisting is a strong and necessary marketing tactic, influencers and brands need to work together closely on audience targeting for whitelisting campaigns to ensure the content is reaching the right people and not resulting in negative comments. Many GIAB members also expressed that they’re experiencing challenges with reach when using the paid partnership tags or following whitelisted content, so they have to account for the loss of engagement and reach in contracts.
• Video content: While platforms like TikTok had started boosting long-form content not too long ago, the creators now find a balance between long- and short-form video content is best. Long-form content allows them to stand apart, but short-form content has more potential to go viral and grow follower counts.
• Importance of shares: With Instagram’s move to show the “number of shares” as a metric on each post, it’s clear that shares are a key element in the platform’s algorithm. Instagram is now actively seeking to amplify content that prompts more sharing behavior, and creators are taking that into account when creating content.
• New platforms and extensions on the rise: Largely reliant on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, the one thing fully in each creator’s hands is their own email list. Whether they’re on Substack or managing their own email newsletter, creators are prioritizing growing their email lists and using these communications to make more thorough recommendations to their audience. Additionally, when it comes to platforms, many of them are incorporating YouTube Shorts into their larger content spheres, as it’s easy for them to reuse or remix Reels and TikToks. Some are also using Threads and LinkedIn to talk about their partnerships in a more organic way.

But the trip wasn’t all meetings! The group spent a day at Channel Islands National Park for hiking and kayaking, took a surfing lesson with local legend Chipper Bro ahead of  California Surfing Day, and visited many of the local businesses that make Ventura so vibrant, including Ventura Coast Brewing Company, Coastal Cone, Strange Beast, Paradise Pantry, and Peirano’s, to name a few.

Big thank you to the team at Visit Ventura for the warm welcome and unforgettable week!