We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Arielle Porat. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Arielle below.

Arielle, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

In a word: tenacity. You can have all the education or minimal, an army of support or be incredibly independent, you could have opportunities in front of you or have to seek out every single one, but without tenacity, success longterm will be very difficult.

Tenacity can look like something different for everyone depending on their personal walk of life.. but to me, it looks like constantly thriving for more, seeing each experience as a stepping stone to the next & better one ahead, walking away from something when it doesn’t align, and moving forward even when it feels like I’m down. I’ve paved a path for myself way different than anyone I know or anyone in my family, I chose a freelance career in social media and content which is so new that we are all truly trailblazing the way – which is exciting but also very scary in the ‘unknown’ of it all. Being in the Content Creation business, everything is so fluid – from clients, to workload, income and even energy levels (I think we’ve coined the term burnout ;) ) and it’s not something you can just “let happen”, it is a very hands on, high energy industry to be a part of and tenacity is part of the secret sauce!

Arielle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started food blogging (that’s what we called it in those days) on Instagram as an escape from a very mundane desk job and it quickly turned into a full time position at a start up in the restaurant industry. Working at a start up gave me my first taste of wearing multiple hats and I got to work on partnerships (dealing with emails, brands, etc) and social media (from the photo days to the transition to reels) which is where I found the joy and value in creating videos for small businesses. I dabbled here in there in event coverage and ran my own client’s social media and then I never really stopped dabbling to where now I’ve worked in so many different industries creating content: from hotels and rental properties, restaurants and boutiques, and special event and wedding coverage! I offer content creation services to anyone who needs help creating for their business, brand, product or even just for themselves. Where many find it daunting, I have a passion for helping people shine through social media.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Yes! My side hustle was running social media accounts for a variety of clients as I worked at the start up. I wanted to expand my experience and also have something that was mine (aside from my “work”) and something I truly enjoyed- it was working as the SMM for a catering company that I really realized I could (and should) expand my experience. It gave me the confidence to, later on, shoot Wedding Day-Of Content which gave me confidence to shoot hotels and properties. It was really a leap of faith in myself that I could do things outside of food that allowed me to see that there was a world, a business, far greater than what I was doing currently AND…that I was the secret sauce for the content that was working. It started with taking on one client on the side, to being asked by multiple people to help them with their social media until I realized that this was something I could do myself, full time and big picture.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think there is a big misconception that it’s easy, and while it can be fun and there are great experiences to be had when exploring content opportunities, there is a lot of work that goes into being a successful, full time content creator. Besides the fact that landing and retaining paying clients involves a lot of research, email ping pong, rejection etc, creating content is a process of it’s own and what actually gets delivered and seen is maybe only 15% of the whole execution. There’s also a sense of responsibility, especially with working with small businesses, that you’re holding their vision in your hands and you really want to deliver on it and see them succeed! I’m not saying it’s a high pressure job like being a surgeon or as difficult as rocket science – by no means am I saying “woe is me, I’m a Content Creator” but it’s just like any other job, it has its pros and cons, ups and downs..

Contact Info:

• Website: https://relatablesocial.com
• Instagram: @relatable.social
• Other: TikTok: @relatable.social