Social Media
The coolest part about displaying our art on social media is the responses we receive. While it is fun to showcase our new artwork and offer free giveaways, connecting with people through our creations has been the most rewarding thing of all.
We've teamed up with Nashville natives, National Parks explorers, HGTV Tiny House dwellers, and travelers alike to combine our art with their stellar spaces. Today we're featuring a Q&A with some of our advertising partners. The first is with local Nashvillian Marc Crosby about his Instagram photography and following that's been rapidly growing. The second is with a couple, Ryan & Rebecca Rogge, traveling in their Tahoe through Parks all over the U.S.
Here's the scoop:
Instagram Tennessee Q&A
How would you describe Instagram Tennessee?
We try to tell the story of Tennessee, one picture at a time. Our Instagram Tennessee community has grown to one of the largest and most active groups in Tennessee on Instagram.
We formed Tri-Star Adventures in 2015 to help connect local artists, businesses, and event planners with our community built on Instagram. As one of the largest accounts in Tennessee this platform has helped promote local photographers, entrepreneurs, and musicians. In 2016 we launched our clothing line with our popular Wander Tennessee design.
On top of having a full-time job, what made you want to take on an Instagram account with a large platform?
Creating a large platform wasn't really a goal or priority when I started out I just wanted to promote the state and the outdoors. Tennessee is really a beautiful place and gets over shadowed by some of the more popular outdoor destinations. Our community really began around the hashtag, #InstagramTennessee and it caught on. Followers share their photos with us using this hashtag and we pick the best of the best to highlight to our community. We are getting close to 200,000 times its been used on Instagram which is pretty crazy to think about.
What about our art made you want to reach out and partner up for social media?
My wife and I absolutely love your designs. We purchased some of your National Park designs for our home when we lived in Missouri and did not know you were a Nashville-based company until a coworker mentioned it to me. When we saw the calendars we knew we need to have our own wall calendar and now it's an annual tradition! We use the prints to decorate in our living room.
Check out Tennessee photography on Instagram: @instagramtennessee and their online store tristaradventures.com/shop
OurStreamlinedLife Q&A
On your website, you both explain what you do and why do you do it. Basically, you travel and live life debt free (everyone’s dream). You’ve gone all over the U.S. in a camper, and now just a Tahoe. What’s been your highs and lows of both vehicles?
Our travel trailer was our first home on wheels, and we absolutely love it. For the times when we’re parked in one spot “long” term – usually about three months or so – it’s the perfect home base. It’s so comfortable and gives us plenty of room to work, play, and entertain. However, we’ve learned that we don’t love towing the camper when we’re doing more fast-paced travel. Towing forces us to keep our driving days super short, and is also more expensive, from gas costs to campsites. When we’re adventuring, we just want to be a little lighter! [You can read more about our decision to leave our camper behind this year here.]
We love the freedom and ease of traveling with just our Tahoe, especially with our upgraded setup. We feel like we can go anywhere, camp anywhere, and be super comfortable at the same time. The one downside of long-term travel with the SUV is not having a comfortable place to spread out and work. Since we work on the road, we end up spending a lot of time in coffee shops, which can be a drag when we’d rather just hang out in a campground. Ultimately we think we’d like to build out a van, or renovate a small RV to have a more permanent work space.
How did you hear about us? What made you want to reach out?
I found ADG online totally randomly. I was starting to plan our 2017 travels, which include lots of national park stops. I don’t remember the exact keywords, but I searched for something having to do with national parks and road trips, and ADG’s national parks line popped up in the results. We immediately fell in love and wanted to share it with our readers because we knew they’d love it, too!
We have a lot of followers that have airstreams and pack up for months and travel to state and national parks all over the U.S. What are your suggestions for the best things to do on the road? (games/podcasts/playlists/conversation topics/activities?)
We love Audible – it’s one of our biggest road trip must-haves. (Right now we’re listening to Louise Penny’s Gamache series.) I (Rebecca) love podcasts; some of my favorites are Extra Pack of Peanuts, Break Into Travel Writing, and The Simple Show. Ryan loves music; some of our favorite road trip tunes are Chris Stapleton and Andrew Duhon.
Because we spend so much time on the road, we also try to make our travel time productive (although sometimes it’s nice to just stare out the window!). While we’re driving, we’re often planning the next leg of our travels; I always have my National Geographic Adventure Edition Road Atlas, National Parks Passport, and KOA campground directory close at hand. We often use driving time to work or blog, as well. And we have some of our best conversations about life, business, and the future when we’re driving!
As travelers, what do you hope to achieve in your social media platforms?
We first started our social media platforms as a way to keep in touch and share photos and updates with our family and friends during our travels. (We share most things on Facebook, as well, but we’re most active on Instagram.) Social media has also become a wonderful way for us to connect with other full- and part-time travelers. We’ve made new friends and gotten great advice from so many people! Social media is also one of the biggest ways we drive traffic to our blog.
What place are you most looking forward to going to this year?
We’re going a lot of awesome places this year, but Alaska is a bucket list destination for Ryan and we’re both super excited about it! Revisiting Big Bend National Park for almost two weeks was also a highlight. Last year we spent a lot of time in the southwest, so this year we’re extra excited about some of the northern parks we’re going to hit, like Denali, Glacier, and Isle Royale.
Check out their travels on their Instagram: @ourstreamlinedlife and their site ourstreamlinedlife.com
For our Nashville peeps, we're bringing some new designs your way including Radnor Lake! For our traveling & adventure followers, we have new National Parks artwork headed your way as well along with stickers and patches coming this summer. Stay tuned!
Follow us on Instagram for new artwork & giveaways: @adgnashville
← Older Post Newer Post →