Developing Copilots Explore - Travel Life, Capstone Edition. Refining The Social Media Process

Time to Refine The Process

Refining The Social Media Process and Developing Copilots Explore - Travel Life

Capstone Edition

July 29, 2026

Objective: Showing leadership through ownership of identity displayed through consistency of brand identity and leveraging multi-platform sharing. By keeping the 7 Principles of Systems thinking at the forefront of decision making related to content and brand durability with a focus on digital storytelling and digital marketing. This Capstone will allow an opportunity for Copilots Explore - Travel Life to practice putting together the pieces built while I have been completing coursework at Gonzaga University, achieving a Master’s in Communication and Leadership with an emphasis in Digital Media Strategy. 

A secondary leadership component to this project will be the intentions put into the content. Copilots Explore - Travel Life is built on adventure, appreciation for outdoor adventures, and observing the world around myself and my partner, Eric. We have been documenting our alternative lifestyle experiences online for the past 5 years, and now that we’ve become monetized, I want to ensure the content truly reflects the “why” of our travels while balancing the responsibilities we have toward protecting ourselves and our environments while exploring.  

Grounding

In my Capstone, I intend to create more consistency between my identity and the brand identity I have created online. Years ago, I wanted to share fun little nature clips as I travelled through beautiful places, and while I found so much beauty in the world, I also learned how to appreciate the gritty and unattractive parts as well. This has been really challenging to show online as the typical content viewers see online is strictly a highlights reel, and I want to elevate my content away from this “sunshine and rainbows”, “everything is awesome”, to a place of more reflection and celebration of growing pains - because that makes the beautiful moments even more outstanding. 

The ultimate goal is to create a brand identity that showcases responsibility in lived experiences in the outdoors, promoting intentional meaning toward what we learn about the world we all share. Showcasing these components across a digital brand requires integrity that requires careful storytelling and acknowledgement of imperfection both in one's own thinking, and the obtuse grit that comes with merging online storytelling to its paradox - being “unplugged”, outside. 

Through completing Dr. Cunningham’s COML-505 course on Digital Storytelling, using the Joe Lambert with Brooke Hessler 5th Edition text, Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community, I found the importance of having characters that are able to introduce itself and keep showing up as themselves through the whole story, leaving the audience with a call to action at the end. In the case of Copilots Explore - Travel Life, my husband and I are the characters. In the Copilots Explore - Travel Life content, I have made edits to showcase both of us equally, as equal partners, especially in long format videos, however I feel as through this has held the content at a surface level as though I am trying to meet a quota. Recognizing this, I want to dive deeper into what the experience truly feels like. No two people will experience the same moment exactly the same, so to try to create equal screentime is not reflective of the lived experiences themselves. This is a combination of Technical Reflection, and Personal Reflection. This acceptance recognizes the need to find a new balance which is freeing and encourages me to take a poetic leap with voiceover techniques and written language that can be viewed on a blog format. 

Another course that showed me the impact of Brand Integrity and Identity within an organization is Dr. Hazel’s Organization Communication COML-504. In this course, the 7 Principles of Systems Thinking opens up a holistic approach to shifting focus from isolated events to underlying patterns, root causes, and long-term behaviors. Using these principles, I can identify where there is room for opportunity to tighten up. Over the last few years, I have heard the quote, “Just make it EXIST first. You can make it GOOD later” by Adam Grant, Organizational psychologist at Wharton, #1 NYT bestselling author of THINK AGAIN, host of the TED podcast Re:Thinking according to his LinkedIn. I have spent time making Copilots Explore - Travel Life “EXIST”, and now it’s time to make it “GOOD”.  This requires change and redirection. 

My concentration throughout my Leadership Studies at Gonzaga focuses on Digital Media Strategy. I recognize the power of social media, and I believe it can be harnessed to share messages through storytelling and information that would otherwise be intangible for many viewers due to varying obstacles. In the case of Copilots Explore - Travel Life, I get the opportunity to show hiking trails that may be inspiring and/or inaccessible to some, and I have the opportunity to expand on all the senses for any given experience, such as the smell of the junipers in Utah, or the dense moist molasses bread in Oregon, or like the way my knees felt like jello after finishing my 20th 12K. My goal is to inspire people and to help expand their comfort zones. 

My Capstone project will focus on connecting my poetry blog posts created in Dr. Hayes Travel Writing COML-521 to my content. This reminds me of the project I completed while in Dr. Cunningham’s Social Media Engagement and Analysis COML-509 class. I dissected why Jordan The Stallion, AKA President of the Fast Foods Secrets club, was so successful. I identified his format and will interpret this to my own social media identity on Copilots Explore - Travel Life. My Blog on Jordan’s success can be found here: https://hendricksonizzy14.wixsite.com/izzy-hendrickson-blo/post/jordan_the_stallion8-successful-brand-influencer-strategies

My Strategy: 

I have been posting on various social media platforms for the past 5 years, assorted bits and pieces at a time, not consistent platform to platform - and during this Capstone I was able to get my content consistently posted across all platforms that Copilots Explore uses for media sharing. In Digital Media Marketing and Analytics, I learned about using services when it makes sense for your organization. I implemented use of Repurpose.io to eliminate a barrier of sharing content across these platforms. This platform makes it easy to create workflows, though does require strategy and troubleshooting. I can route future and existing content to repost on a schedule, allowing content to be dispersed regularly. My workflows look like this:

Now that existing content is circulating and posting with frequency, let’s make sure this content doesn’t fizzle out. Time to film. During this scheduled time of June, I captured photos and videos during trips to Neah Bay/Makah Native Museum/Cape Flattery, as well as Whale Watching and roadtrip clips going to and from these locations. 

The footage is processed and posted... now what?

RESULTS: 

Turning Raw clips into click-worthy photos and reels/shorts/tiktoks. Here are the results from the last 28 days: 

No new sales on Shopify, however the views to the website increased.

While creating this content, I was mindful of 7 Principles of Systems thinking as well as SEO best practices for descriptions. Going forward, this blog will be used as a great house for any written media. 

Let's take a step back. What does the data mean? 

When looking at the spike of audience members who are interacting with the content, this means we are reaching the goals of increasing appreciation for outdoor adventures while sharing the balanced responsibilities we have toward protecting ourselves and our environments while exploring. 

I began using the Mailchimp service and have created this template to use and send out: