Cristian China-Birta was my guest column Tasty Memories, from the podcast Digital Chronicles. If we caught an expert in all things online, we took the opportunity to understand how social media works for brands, what makes an influencer good and bad, and what we do with all the online hate speech, especially if we are in HORECA.
Cristian China-Birta, in the podcast Digital Chronicles:
"People always say, 'Look what that influencer did!' That's how it looks from the outside, but I've seen many incidents like that that I've experienced two or three times in my life. You don't react as an influencer, you react as a human, not that it's an excuse, it's an explanation. The fact that you have a million people following you should be a kind of brake, a cap on your human outbursts, to think that you have a very, very big responsibility and that you can hurt a brand when you react as a human .
It's just that it's going to happen at some point. The worst thing is not that the influencer reacts, because if you looked, most of the time, the influencer first gives feedback to the brand and gets terribly angry when the brand reacts very badly. These are the biggest crises. That I told you that I didn't like this or that, it happens, but when the brand reacts badly towards me, it makes me terribly angry. Here it is very easy to accuse an influencer, but what do you as a brand do?"
"With an influencer, it's always about the relationship he establishes with his community of fans. There are people in his community who, without being forced by anyone, listen to that man. That's the strength of an influencer, only he can't play with this relationship. And then, if he saw that in his community the world is asking, that's what he does. Not necessarily because he is paid, on the contrary because he listens to the requests of the community. A restaurant that advertises, why would they go to an influencer who has never recommended a restaurant? It doesn't go. Any restaurant is looking for influencers on food, because they are the ones who have eaten in taverns and know how to look at a restaurant."
How to manage hate speech
"This is about community management, managing the reactions on social media and what people are saying there. The reviews, the reviews, this is a strategic management decision that you have to take in social media as well.
Many in HORECA see social media as something out there. If you see social media as something out there, social media will see you exactly the same - as something out there. The idea with social media is this, it's hard for brands to understand this, but in social media you're reaching people who consider social media as their own, personal. Strategic management decision means social media. It's a good channel for us that we want to benefit from, so we have to budget for it, we have to allocate resources and come up with goals."
Digital Chronicles podcast, produced by Zaga Brand and Humart Association (Human Made Art), comes with new episodes every Thursday and Friday on all audio streaming platforms and on www.cronicaridigitali.ro.
Digital Chronicles podcast is supported by Raiffeisen Bank Romania and Electrolux Romania. The project partners are convinced that through access to education, culture and technology, we can become the best version of ourselves.
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