New style of influencer marketing to accelerate community development

In today’s digital world, influencer marketing plays a significant role in promotion, adding more value to products, services, campaigns, and travel destinations. Travel and employment company SAGOJO is seeking to bring influencer marketing to a whole new level with its Local Community Travelers program, by creating a group of influencers who travel to and promote particular communities and businesses in Japan through social media.

SAGOJO owns an eponymous job matching platform for companies, local governments, and skilled travelers, where travelers will be tasked with promoting various products and services through articles, photography, audiovisuals and social media. The company believes that while influencer marketing is useful to create instant attention for the targeted product or service, building a group of individuals with a keen interest in the target community can help generate a more engaging, steady flow of promotion.

The first project kicked off in Rishirifuji Town, Hokkaido, with a group of 15 “travel ambassadors.” Rishirifuji Town is located on Rishiri Island, an hour’s flight from Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido. The town’s primary industries are tourism and fishery. In particular, its production of dried seaweed Rishiri Kombu, used as one of the essential culinary ingredients in Japan, is known to be one of the best of its kind. However, just like many other small towns in Japan, Rishirifuji is struggling with a shrinking population, which poses various threats to the community, including the longevity of their Kombu industry.

Rishirifuji’s “travel ambassadors” have visited or plan to visit the town soon, and have been assigned to share the appealing features of the town through blogs, photography or audiovisuals. Also, they are assigned to provide creative ideas to revitalize the town’s industry and community. In return for their work, they can stay in a local lodging facility, a former primary school, for free, and experience the kombu drying process with local fisher-men and -women. Additionally, a maximum of 8,000 yen per day is also paid.

The ultimate goal of the local government naturally is to curb depopulation. But more realistically, the town anticipates this program will help them increase the number of Rishifuji ambassadors, who could potentially provide opportunities for those who never heard of or been to the town to be interested in visiting.

With this Rishirifuji Town project as a start, SAGOJO plans to expand its Local Community Travelers program to more communities and businesses in Japan. The company is developing more incentives to offer to the travel ambassadors, as a vital element of this program is to keep them motivated and connected with the community. As influencer marketing grows in value, communities might increasingly start to work with companies like SAGOJO to help them attract potential visitors and residents alike.