Welcome to a new episode of HERstory, where we explore the journeys of remarkable women making waves in the marketing world. Today’s spotlight falls on Arielle Berlinsky, a Social Media Marketing Coordinator at Delta Vacations, who has taken the enviable task of transforming immersive travel experiences into compelling social content.
In our conversation with Arielle, she opens the door to her exciting, non-stop world of capturing dream vacations for potential travelers. With her phone as her primary tool, she works around the clock to paint a vivid picture of various holiday experiences for her audience, carefully balancing her personal encounters with the need to create diverse and engaging content.
Arielle takes us behind the scenes, sharing her process of developing a social calendar, aligning content with Delta Vacations’ brand image, and the unique challenges of ensuring consistent content delivery. As someone with an organized personality, she gives a sneak peek into her meticulous planning and the importance of keeping a brand human and relatable.
With an eye on meaningful engagement rather than raw numbers, Arielle dives into the metrics she considers most valuable in assessing her social media campaigns. She discusses her diligent research into industry trends and how these insights fuel her strategies.
Reflecting on the evolving role of social media in the travel and hospitality industry, Arielle foresees ‘POV experiences’ as a rising trend. These immersive portrayals allow followers to envision themselves in these locales, sparking their wanderlust, and pushing them to book the next flight out.
As a social media marketing coordinator at Delta Vacations, you have the unique task of capturing and presenting entire vacations to potential customers. What kind of planning and coordination does it require to accurately represent such an immersive experience?
It’s months of planning from logistics to scouting locations to ironing out final details until the day before leaving. It’s a 24/7 job when on-site in a new city for a ‘Come Along With Me’ journey shoot. I could be filming things in the rain, on a shaky boat, or in the middle of a parade. It’s a balancing act that is nonstop in the best way.
But, hey, you have to make the most of the time you have when in a destination to get any and every picture/video clip possible for the followers. It’s about me, my phone, & the vision I have for our accounts.
In your role, you have the opportunity to bring the audience with you on various vacations. How do you balance your personal experiences with the need to create engaging content for the audience?
I try to go through the content capturing in my head the way I’d approach a vacation. I then amplify that times ten! I try to cover the grounds of what all different groups of people want to experience. You have your nonstop adventure seeker, the classic foodie, a shopaholic, the never wants to leave the pool type, and more. I try my best to speak to all of them.
You want to feel seen by a brand for your interests being heard. This makes for the most accurate representation goal I can have in shining light on all the things one can do when traveling.
Could you explain the process of developing the overall social calendar and posting schedule? How do you ensure that content is consistently delivered and that it aligns with Delta Vacations’ brand image and objectives?
There’s a lot to it. Some things I plan weeks in advance, but that’s my organized personality. I’m always trying to think of ways to continuously engage with our audience. I plan a calendar that sparks discussion with followers to speak with them about their determination to travel instead of speaking at them to say “buy this.” My goal is to be known as a brand that cares about establishing its community. Who doesn’t want an awesome group of people giving travel and vacation tips?
Of course, there will always be last-minute trends or experiences that are relevant to the world of the internet and travel that I throw in, but I work to make content visually flow with the season. Followers want to feel connected, and I make sure our brand goes beyond just being a title. I put a human voice behind the captions, comments to followers, and even the fun remarks I reply on other famous brands’ posts to increase exposure.
What types of metrics do you consider most valuable when measuring the success of your social media campaigns? Can you give an example of how you’ve utilized these metrics to improve your strategies?
Everyone will naturally gravitate to the basics of analyzing how much your likes, comments, and following goes up after a campaign. It makes sense.
But I love to see the genuine engagement, excitement, and interaction from the followers that hop onto our accounts after a campaign because they care. Most importantly, they feel seen as a traveler. I work to make sure we are a go-to source for all things wanderlust and vacation planning. Everyone deserves a break and an excuse to use PTO.
I also do research on what similar accounts in the industry do well, and what I enjoy as a viewer. I try to trickle that style into the work I put out on our accounts. You have to keep your finger on the pulse of the social media industry because it changes quicker than the wind. The more you study, the greater your learnings are, and the faster you can apply them successfully to your approach to future campaigns and regular feed posts.
In your opinion, how has the role of social media in travel and hospitality changed over the past few years? What trends do you see emerging in the future?
It’s becoming THE most pivotal part of the industry. People are always open to planning a trip whether they’re realizing it or not. Tons, including myself, want to have doses of travel inspo while taking a break from work at your desk or scrolling through social on the weekend.
It’s one of the quickest ways to get someone to book a trip whether they’re looking at a killer restaurant experience in Costa Rica or an insanely cool activity you can only try out in a particular city in Europe.
The biggest trend by far has been POV experiences, also known as point of view. Sure, people enjoy seeing influencers and models doing the vacation, but they really want pictures and videos that present travel in a way they can actually picture themselves there. When you get a taste of that, it’s enough to call your friends up and say, “It’s time to book it!” In this day and age, people are more likely to spend money on experiences than things, and that’s what travel is all about.
I am endlessly passionate about what I do, and I love giving people a look behind the curtain. That’s why I started posting on LinkedIn as a Creator. I wanted to show inspiration for people who used to be in my shoes of what the industry is really like, all things social media one should know, career advice, and more. It’s important to stay connected to people in your field in the industry to learn from, inspire, and give feedback to each other. It helps you grow as a person, and you make amazing friends along the way.
We’d be remiss to not ask, what was the best place you’ve visited as part of your role at Delta?
I had a fabulous time recently traveling to Puerto Vallarta to capture one of my ‘Come Along With Me’ journeys for our social. It was spectacular! I’m about to head to Rome & Venice for the next one in the fall, which I’m very much looking forward to experiencing.