Zero to Two Million
Vrbo's TikTok grew from zero to 2 million followers in under two years, built on one core insight: the product isn't the property, it's what happens inside it, so content had to feel like a real vacation rather than a brand pitch.
I built Vrbo's first creator program to deliver that authenticity at scale, partnering with talent whose own passions and identities did the storytelling for us. My editorial filter stayed simple throughout: would someone stop scrolling for this, or scroll past it?
That question shaped everything from trend response to storytelling moments. The results followed: rapid account growth, with top organic content feeding directly into paid media to lift conversions.
Here’s a selection of the content that made it happen.
Passion-Point Creator Partnerships
We partnered with creators whose identity was already built around a passion, then let them bring that passion on vacation instead of scripting a message around it. The authenticity read through immediately, and their existing audience came with them resulting in engagement rates +7.74pp above benchmark.
Emotional Storytelling
Vrbo's value isn't the property itself, it's what happens inside it: quality time, togetherness, the people you're with. We built content around small, relatable moments that captured that feeling honestly — from a couple traveling together after 50 years of friendship, to fleeting, ten-second glimpses of a feeling in time — rather than relying on an aspirational shot of the property alone.
Aspirational Property Tours
Cinematic property tours shot by longtime creator partners made properties feel genuinely covetable rather than staged. This format balanced the lower-fi, emotional content elsewhere in the feed with pure visual aspiration.
Low-Cost, High-Performing Trend Formats
Short, meme-style videos pairing a striking visual with a universal feeling consistently outperformed higher-cost content at a fraction of the price. Many were shot by our own team on location, so the budget went toward travel, not creator fees, and the authenticity showed.