To build a social media following in Arlington, focus on community.
That’s one lesson that local influencers shared with ARLnow, discussing how they and other Arlington residents have cultivated Instagram and TikTok accounts with well over 50,000 followers.
They cover a diverse range of topics — including parenting, real estate and fitness — but all of them tap into topics of interest to build strong followings, sometimes spanning the gap between online and in-person communities.
“I think Arlington is a really good place to create content, because there’s so much to do and there’s so much opportunity out there,” parenting influencer and Pentagon City resident Diana Casillas told ARLnow.
Motherhood: Diana Casillas
Casillas has been posting her journey from marriage to pregnancy to motherhood on TikTok since 2021, when she and her husband moved to Arlington.
“Now it’s mostly motherhood related,” Casillas said. “Any time I’m going through something with my child, I’ll just upload a TikTok.”
Casillas is bilingual, and her content is mostly in Spanish. She spent most of her life near friends and family in Texas, and she says social media has helped her connect with her new community in a place where she doesn’t have that support system.
“My focus is motherhood and family life, and because we live in Arlington, our community naturally becomes part of the story,” Casillas said.
Casillas currently has over 60,000 followers on TikTok. She says she’s experienced rapid growth over the past five years and credits other Arlington moms for her large following.
“This area is so diverse. We’re so different, right? Like, we come from different backgrounds, but at the end of the day, we love our babies,” Casillas said.
Real estate: Discover Arlington
Blake and Leah Davenport started their Instagram account highlighting “things to do and places to live” in Arlington in 2016. The married couple is in business together as realtors, and their social media presence is aimed at connecting with potential home-buyers and showing off Arlington neighborhoods.
“We’re not pushing real estate down people’s throats, but because of the content that we create, people are engaged enough to dig deeper, and then they learn that we are in real estate,” Blake Davenport said. “A lot of people, when they think of Arlington, think of the Metro line, but there’s so much more to it. We’re trying to expose those different areas.”
The account’s recent posts include a blind ranking of cookie shops in Arlington and an estimation of where “Love Island” reality-TV couples would go on dates in the county.
Many of their posts highlight their favorite Arlington restaurants and stores.
“We’ve gotten to meet a lot of the business owners in the area,” Blake Davenport said. “I think that’s one of the greatest gifts, just being able to help people showcase their dreams, showcase their business, to a greater audience.”
The pair has over 67,000 Instagram followers.
Running and fitness: Mike Wardian
Mike Wardian, an Arlington Heights resident for the last 20 years, is currently sharing his latest extreme fitness challenge on Instagram: running the Pacific Crest Trail from Canada to Mexico. It’s small potatoes compared to his 2022 run across the United States.
“He started running his junior year of college, and then he just kind of kept going,” his wife, Jennifer Wardian, told ARLnow. “He realized the longer the distance, the better he was…. I think he’s just always gonna be moving.”
Ranked “America’s Fittest City” by the American Fitness Index for nine straight years, Arlington has a lot of runners. Jennifer Wardian said her husband’s social media presence has connected him with some of them.
“He loves running the Arlington loop,” Wardian said. “Other runners are always the ones likely to know him, so he gets noticed on the trails all the time.”
At 52 years old, Wardian’s next adventure is already set. Next year, he says he’s going to row across the Atlantic Ocean.
Wardian has over 56,000 followers on Instagram.
Photo 2 via discoverarlington/Instagram; Photo 3 via mikewardian/Instagram
