We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Asya Olson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Asya, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
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At first my photography was just a hobby. I enjoyed sharing my pictures with others and wanted them to be seen by as many people as possible. At that time I didn’t think of making a job out of it or even about spending too much time on my hobby. Then, with time I started noticing that people ask for my advice about travel and photography more and more. I was inspired by thankful messages about me helping someone with their vacation ideas. Brands started reaching out to me for collaborations and it slowly turned into a side job. I began getting more and more encouragement from the people around me and brands who enjoyed working with me so I decided that this is my mission and I should do it full time. Now I am working with many travel brands and creating digital products to help my audience to travel and elevate their photography skills. |
Asya, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Hi, my name is Asya, a passionate photographer, videographer and travel blogger based in California.
I have an Instagram travel blog @AsyaTravels where I inspire my audience to travel by creating high quality pictures and videos, sharing unique places, events and experiences.
I recently launched a custom California Map to help my followers explore our beautiful state. It has lots of unique local destinations to make vacations more fun, and I keep perfecting it.
I also currently working on a Travel Photography class that I’m planning to launch later this year.
In addition to that I love helping my favorite brands with promoting their products and services.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
First, it is important to understand that many creative jobs don’t have stable income especially in the beginning of their journey. They are very much depending on support of others. If you love someone’s creative work make sure to share it with your friends and family so they can also enjoy the creative products and support the artist in their own way. If you are planning to buy something consider getting it from a small local business.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
It took a long time for me to realize that I need to take social media seriously and invest my time into researching how it works.
Even if you create the prettiest art ever it is helpful to know of how to present it better. Social media is constantly evolving, changes its approaches and algorithms but your audience is real people who have their wishes, habits and pain points.
My social media channels started performing much better when I started focusing on making my content useful. Sharing tips and my creative journeys including not only my best work but also my failures, struggles and before/after results.
My advice would be to keep attention to the both sides of the social media: ensure you are bringing value to your community and at the same take time to research about algorithm statistics. Experiment with different approaches, such as video length, hooks and different social medias. My favorite platform is Instagram but maybe another one would work better for you! Survey your audience often to understand better what they value about you and what types of content they prefer.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://asyaolson.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asyatravels/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asyaolson/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@asyatravels
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@asyatravels
Image Credits
Ben Olson, Lina Irwanto, Jasmine Huynh