Valentí Sanjuan is a 38-year-old journalist. He has quite a large following in the social media world: 362k followers on Instagram, 253k followers on Facebook, 197k subscribers on Youtube, and 118k followers on Twitter. All of this totaling at nearly one million followers across these platforms, it is clear that influencer is a large piece of Sanjuan’s job description. With his successes in being today’s modern journalist, this has come with the perks of being an influencer, like his sponsorship from Adidas and other companies.
Despite his success today, you could definitely say that Sanjuan started from the bottom. About ten years ago Sanjuan was fired from his job at a radio station. In less than a year he was bankrupt, his mother passed away from cancer, and his girlfriend left him. Sanjuan talked about that time in which he hit rock bottom causing him to have anxiety like he never had before. Because of this, he turned to running at night to cope. Through this, Sanjuan found happiness in athletics that he had been lacking in his life during that time. He decided to participate in an Ironman, which is a long-distance triathlon. The way that the Ironman works is that the contestants swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles, in that order.
“After that you decide if you rest, or if you rest in peace.”
Valentí Sanjuan, talking about finishing an Ironman Triathlon
Around this time was when social media like we know it today began to take off. Sanjuan decided to film the process of completing his first Iron Man. He trained for two months and then competed in the Ironman Lanzarote in 2013 with a total of 1800 contestants. By combining storytelling, content, and social media, Sanjuan navigated his way through becoming a social media star without any role models in this new territory of media.
Through using his journalism skills, Sanjaun created something that was very new to the internet at that time. By recording his story in the first person with a GoPro, he highlighted the pain and suffering of the journey. Today this video has over 500k views on Youtube. The thing that sparked interest and ultimately led to his following wasn’t purely the story itself, but instead his personality. Throughout the video story, it shows the way that Sanjuan kept positive and light-hearted energy throughout the extreme athletic strain he went through by cracking jokes. At the end of the video, the happiness and accomplishment of completing his first Ironman set an extremely motivational tone. As his social media following began to take off, so did his athletic passions. Today, some Sanjuan’s accomplishments have been completing 10 Ironmans in 10 days, multiple Ultraman’s, and this past year he did a Toroman.
Over the years, Sanjuan has been the perfect example of how social media has changed so many things about the spread of information. As time has gone by, he just keeps coming back for more. Every year his athletic abilities have developed and the same can be said for the journalism side. Through documenting his experiences he has developed an inspired audience, which is the core of his influencer status. Through watching his story of the struggles that he endures in the intense races, Sanjuan’s fans feel connected to him. People that follow him feel an emotional connection to his journey.
After sharing his own story began to feel repetitive, Sanjuan decided to start focusing his content on the people that he met along the way. He said that one of the best parts of participating in these extreme athletic competitions was the inspiring stories of others. One of these was about Bebe Vio who is a paralympic fencer. She shared her story about losing her limbs and fighting her way to the Paralympics to do what she loved most. This is where Sanjuan has struck gold with his content. The unique stories of the people that came into his life through sports stepped up the motivational tone in all of his work. This sparked his followers to ask themselves: “What am I doing? What’s my excuse?” Whether that be accomplishing an Ironman, conquering a fear, achieving a goal, or stepping outside of a comfort zone, this element in his work allows for viewers to relate to the human emotions that the videos feature. Sanjuan said this element has been the key to his success and following. Today, Sanjuan has expanded his content to documentaries. In the Cape Epic 2019 documentary, he highlights the sports side and the human side of the race. Through this Sanjuan says he goes, enjoys, suffers, competes, races, and meets people with inspiring stories.
The avenue that Sanjuan has chosen to embark on in his journalism career is much different than the traditional media. Before the dawn of the Digital Era, journalists stuck to television, print, and radio. Today, journalists have the power to take their content and their stories on the go, anywhere and everywhere. The avenue that Sanjuan’s stories come in is at peak for the types of stories that he is putting out there. Today’s influencers have found that it is important to be fluent in all social media platforms that have a lot of traffic in order to grow and reach more people. In Sanjuan’s case, most of his core content relies on his Youtube channel and the other platforms are used to promote his work and brand deals.
According to Business Insider in 2018, Youtube had 1.8 billion users monthly. Today, many people’s favorite social media app to use is Youtube and this creates a great ecosystem for Sanjuan’s stories to exist. Over the years, his videography, editing, and content has evolved into a very professional level. Because of this, his following has continued to grow.
In terms of travel, the same type of content can be seen. Christian LeBlanc is an influencer with over 1.4 million followers on Youtube. LeBlanc’s channel is called Lost LeBlanc and his content highlights his travels all around the world. Through his videography and editing skills, LeBlanc has established a following that is different and similar to SanJuan’s all at the same time. Although the channels focus is not journalism based, LeBlanc uses his experiences to guide and inspire people in all terms of travel.
People do not buy goods and services, they buy relations, stories, and magic.
Seth Godin, Gates Foundation
The Yellow Brick Road 