This month, Travel Agent is spotlighting "The Most Innovative People in Cruise Travel for 2018." As a part of that coverage of excellence in global cruise line leadership and creativity, here are three front-line managers from Carnival Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International who are social media stars.
Robyn Fink, Carnival Cruise Line
Since joining Carnival Cruise Line as director of consumer public relations in early 2016, Robyn Fink has assumed responsibility for consumer PR outreach including public events, ship inaugurals and social media – with the goal of increasing positive news coverage and building brand awareness.
For example, she’s played a role in the celebrity-driven launch of two new ships – Carnival Vista, with a year-long sponsorship of singer Carrie Underwood’s tour and a shipboard concert and naming ceremony for military personnel affiliated with Operation Homefront, and Carnival Horizon, which launched with a fun event with partner Lip Sync Battle featuring Queen Latifah, shown with Fink in the photo at right.
These and other events have generated a billion-plus media impressions and significantly boosted growth within Carnival’s social media platforms.
That includes a 21 percent increase on Twitter, a 16 percent increase in Facebook followers and a whopping 63 percent increase on Instagram.
Prior to joining Carnival, Fink served as vice president at Taylor PR in New York, where she specialized in sports-related public relations and developed effective PR strategies and projects for consumer brand companies, including Lenovo, KT Tape and Capital One.
Named "Account Director of the Year" in 2009 by PR News, she also has led major consumer PR initiatives in everything from sports (with on-site PR initiatives surrounding three Super Bowls) and entertainment initiatives to charitable organizations and community relations.
Nathalie Fernandez, Royal Caribbean International
During Nathalie Fernandez’s three years as Royal Caribbean International’s senior manager of social media, she’s played an integral role in developing the team, as well as strengthening and expanding the company’s social media presence.
Proof? Royal Caribbean’s fan growth on Instagram has increased a whopping 780 percent, as part of a robust influencer program and effective social media growth strategy.
With a combination of original content creation, daily performance analysis, strategic focus and an eager and creative social care team, Royal Caribbean has become a leader in fan and follower growth and engagement.
A Miami native and University of Miami graduate, Fernandez also is a strong advocate for inventive storytelling on social media -- overseeing two award-winning projects: “The Local” and “SeaSeekers.”
As the social media landscape becomes increasingly competitive and as consumers become more selective with how they consume media, Fernandez leads Royal Caribbean’s social media team in sharing the kinds of stories that inspire wanderlust.
Evelyn Macki, Norwegian Cruise Line
In just five years, Evelyn Macki, director of social media and content marketing, Norwegian Cruise Line, has moved up the ranks quickly. Joining Norwegian Cruise Line as assistant manager, marketing and promotions in 2014, she became social media manager in 2015 and assumed her present post in 2017.
At Norwegian, she's expanded marketing efforts on social media to more effectively connect the brand with consumers who are a good match for the Freestyle product.
Macki has orchestrated multiple, successful social media campaigns for Norwegian, most notably, #NorwegianBLISS, a social media effort that helped launch the line's newest, most amenity-laden ship, Norwegian Bliss.
Macki's 15 years of advertising and marketing experience span a wide range of industries including travel, telecommunications, consumer packaged goods, government and healthcare.
The social media star has a bachelor of science degree in journalism and mass communications, and also a master of science degree in mass communications, both from Florida International University.
For her master's program, she specialized in global strategic communication and her thesis covered the impact of social media on media consumption habits and consumer brand relationships.
Also performing well on social media, according to Seahub statistics from earlier this year, are Disney Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Princess Cruises and others. Look for more social media stories in our cruise line coverage moving forward.
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