A Conversation With Celine Linarte, A Food And Travel Content Creator
On choosing content creation as a career, handling brand sponsorships, and finding her favorite editing tools
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Based in Los Angeles, Celine Linarte is a content creator specializing in food, travel, and lifestyle. After working in marketing at corporations like Disney, Universal, and Yelp, Celine decided to pursue building out her own brand as a foodie and world traveler. The constant flow of socializing, social media engagement, and events keeps this extreme extrovert fulfilled. Using lessons from her own success, she helps other individuals and brands through her company, The 00 Agency, where she has worked with clients like Rob Kardashian and Madonna’s skincare line.
I met Celine last fall on a trip to San Antonio, Texas, where we celebrated Día de los Muertos. I wanted to know more about her job as a content creator, so in this interview, we talked about managing her events-filled schedule, her favorite video and photo creation tools, moments of inspiration, thoughts on money, and her brainstorming process.
What is your craft?
I do really love creating content and sharing it, so I guess I’d call myself a content creator. I focus a lot on travel, lifestyle, and food. Ever since Instagram started shifting over to Reels, a lot of my content has become more video-focused. It’s something I’m still working on and improving.
About five years ago, I started a digital marketing agency called The 00 Agency with my co-founder. We were managing our own social media pages full time, but we felt like we were missing something and wanted to do more and build out other brands to help them with their growth. We felt like because we were able to grow our pages, we wanted to help others as well. We market a lot of different clients and help them build their vision, brand, and of course, content creation. I come from a corporate background, so I think having a career of some sort was always important to me, even if it may be unconventional.
How did you decide to start creating content as a career?
I majored in psychology at UCLA and got my masters in communication management at USC. I thought my whole career track was going to be working in corporate. I worked at Disney for a while, and then I went to Universal and Yelp. My whole goal was to climb the corporate ladder of Disney and be a part of the family. However, during that time, I was out and about. I had a personal Instagram, and a few YouTube stars featured me in their videos which caused my personal Instagram to grow. I honestly had no idea what that meant at the time and was very confused. It grew to 10K, and at the time, I was taking photos of my food and decided to keep going with it. When I started getting invited to events, that’s when I realized that there was so much more out there than just corporate and working a 9 to 5 and being in an office the whole day. I started taking my own Instagram more seriously and eventually transitioned it into something more full time.
You can find Celine on Instagram at @celinelinarte and on TikTok at @celinelinarte. She shares outfit ideas, travel tips, new restaurants, unboxing videos, workout ideas, and more. Follow The 00 Agency on Instagram at @the00agency.
What does your day to day look like?
My day to day is actually very scattered. If I’m home, I wake up, work out in the morning, get ready, take some work calls, work, and then go out and about to my day in the afternoon, whether it be a media event or work shoot or seeing some friends. It’s really dependent on the day, and I’m always running around. When I’m traveling, I’m working remotely and traveling at the same time; there’s a lot that goes behind the scenes. I shoot content and try to make the most of it.
Do you have a set schedule for editing? How do you keep consistency or do you even need consistency?
I think my morning routine is enough for me. But other than that I don’t really have much consistency. Sometimes I work at night, maybe from 8 pm to midnight or to 1 am. Sometimes I edit in the morning. It’s definitely all over the place!
Once I fell into Instagram, I was working in the day and editing at night. Back when I was getting my master’s, I was working throughout the day and taking classes at night. I’ve always liked staying very busy, so it was pretty easy shifting the workload to other outlets since I was already doing so much.
How has your brand evolved, and how have you seen yourself change?
I started out as a foodie; my passion is in food. I grew up in restaurants; my dad is a chef and restaurateur and I would help him prep, bus, serve, etc. However, as I was doing a lot of media events for food, I noticed that I was gaining a lot of weight. A very first world problem but it was an unsustainable lifestyle because of all the food that we got constantly. Sometimes it was three to four meals a day. I started becoming really unhealthy and decided to shift toward lifestyle and travel. Some of my audience still follows me for food, but others follow me for travel and lifestyle. Now, I’m trying to go back to finding that healthy balance between food and travel/lifestyle.
Where do you get your inspiration?
Growing up, when I was younger, my mom used to always take me traveling. I really grew to love traveling and seeing what’s out there, experiencing new cultures, and trying new things. Being open to learning about cultures and being open to learning about other types of people has been really important to me. It’s a big inspiration to me as well because at the end of the day, we’re all the same, we’re all people. I want to see how other people were raised and their beliefs and their food. I try to show people “this is why you should visit this place” and “this is why you should check out here.”
How do you handle media events and brand sponsorships? What are your personal policies?
I love discovering new brands and if I believe in the brand or like it, I would definitely work with them. Working with brands is fun, it challenges my creativity. Instead of doing the same thing, it’s like, what can I do for this brand? I have a campaign for a projector right now. So I’m like, what can I do with this projector to make it an appealing campaign? Things like that really matter. As for work trips, they ask for particular deliverables (ie. a certain number of posts) so I just make sure I complete everything. In terms for personal policies, for restaurants, it’s extremely important to be respectable and be a good guest. I’ve heard of so many horror stories and it really upsets me especially since it gives us a certain stereotype. I think one of the biggest things for me, especially seeing a lot of people in the industry take advantage of a situation, is just making sure we’re not entitled and to also take care of people in hospitality because at the end of the day, they’re the ones giving you the food, treating you out, etc.
What does your brainstorming process look like? Before you turn on the camera, how are you preparing?
I like looking at other people’s content just to get some inspiration. Especially when I’m traveling to a new place, I check the geotags, and I see what the location looks like and how I could potentially angle a shot. That way, I already have an idea so I know what to wear and what I want to look like. There is a whole process to it. For videos, I look at other videos and reels and see what could potentially work for my page and then try to execute that. Once I know what I want, I get it and I’m done so I’m generally pretty quick. Sometimes if it’s a really cool location and I want to do more, that might take a little bit longer.
What are some of your favorite tools?
For videos, I really like using InShot. It’s a video app. UNUM is great for feed mapping. I really like using Unfold for stories. Retouch is another favorite. It’s like PhotoShop on your phone. I mainly use those. For tripods, any tripod does the trick.
How does money work in your world? What’s your relationship with money?
Growing up, my parents used to always get mad at me and say, “You think money grows on trees?” I was very happy go lucky at that time; money comes and money goes. After quitting corporate, I was living month to month. Not having that stability made me really nervous, but it also taught me a lot in a sense where I need to manage my money better. I didn’t have a savings until my mid 20s, and I’m definitely a lot better about it now. Now that I’m starting to settle down, I need to save money to buy a house. I learned later in life that saving is important and I kind of regret that because I would have started saving money a long time ago. Better late than never!
How do you set boundaries with yourself? How do you regulate your time off?
I’m an extreme extrovert, so I love being out and about. I’m constantly working. I don’t think I have any boundaries, especially with the marketing agency. I always have to be on my phone just in case something happens. But when it’s dinnertime or I’m out with a friend, I make sure to put away my phone when I’m catching up.
How do you define creativity for yourself?
I honestly never thought I was in a creative field, especially when I was in corporate. I didn’t even know I could take photos. I picked it up randomly because I wanted better photos for myself. I went to a Sony event and they gave a really big discount on the A7RII when it first came out, and everything kind of just fell into my lap. I did not think I had much of a creative streak in me either, but I guess I’ve made it this far. I really enjoy talking to people and networking, and from there, I was able to build out. I would say I’m a jack of all trades but a master of none.
Before you go…
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