For a snack and 5 questions with... Kirsten Hanka from Kitchen Stories

What will be the most important social media channels in the coming year? And what is the best cooking advice you've ever received? The answers to these questions (and many more) are available once a month in the Stories+ Snack, the Kitchen Stories business questionnaire.

• This time Kirsten Hanka from Kitchen Stories answers.
• As Head of Cross-Channel Communications, she is not only responsible for our activities on social media, but above all for communicating with and expanding our foodie community.
• By the way, your favorite snack is Antipasto (There is also an Aperol Spritz, then it's called an aperitivo).

One reason why we at Kitchen Stories always talk about a platform and not just an app is the many other channels we use every day to feed our community with inspiration, recipes and entertainment. You helped build the majority of these cross-channels. What are your three favorites — and what makes them so special for you?

Pinterest - One platform that not everyone in Germany still has on their screen is pinterest. On no other channel have we managed to build relevant reach so quickly with our content and become one of the best in the food sector. Pinterest is more of a visual search engine than a social network, making content more durable and more suitable for the target group. For a long time, this has made it one of our strongest drivers of organic traffic. Pinterest is particularly suitable for identifying trends and using them for yourself. We regularly incorporate inspiration from Pinterest into our content strategy, which still makes this channel very relevant to us.

‍

Email newsletter - It may sound a bit “old school” but I personally like to read a lot Email newsletters. Unlike other channels, communication is more direct and personal. I've subscribed to newsletters from all my favorite platforms to stay up to date (and to get inspired for our own, of course). Do I always read them all? No With each of these emails in my inbox, do I still have the vague feeling that someone there was thinking of me? Kind of.

‍

YouTube - After we have spent years youtube We will focus on that next year. Production costs are significantly higher than on other channels, but we are convinced that there is enormous potential for us here that we have not yet exhausted. YouTube is known for having a very loyal user base. So if we manage to gain loyal followers here, we hope that our Kitchen Stories community will grow very sustainably in the long term.

YouTube is therefore considered to be the social media platform with the most loyal community. The relaunch of our Kitchen Stories channel therefore sounds like a logical step. But what specific goals are we pursuing with this?

Of course, we want to get people excited about cooking there, as on all other Kitchen Stories channels. Because cooking (and eating!) is something very emotional, a video-based platform such as YouTube is particularly suitable for generating and transporting these emotions. Here, users spend significantly more time watching a video than on Instagram and thus not only get to know kitchen stories as a brand, but also the personalities and values behind them.

Our goal is to create content that both meets the specific needs of a platform like YouTube and is reflected in our overall strategy and business goals (this applies to all of our channels, by the way). A first step is to build a loyal community directly on the platform, which, for example, looks forward to a new video every week and interacts with us.

Another step is to convert these viewers to our own platform, where they can find more recipes and easier cooking instructions than on YouTube.

‍

Some love it, others not so much - your daily work consists largely of social media. What fascinates you most about your job?

I'm lucky to be one of the first. No seriously, of course, many topics in this context are being discussed in a controversial way. This includes, among other things, the power that these media have today. On the other hand, the possibility of (seemingly almost) infinite ranges, sometimes out of nowhere and overnight, is not available on any other channel and is therefore definitely fascinating in my opinion. This presents opportunities and risks in equal measure and often raises the question of which social media trend we should and should not pursue. But it definitely never gets boring in such a fast-paced environment.

As a marketer, you could hardly ask for a more beautiful topic than that of Kitchen Stories. Our content is still something very special for me even in the cluttered social media world and continuously gives us the opportunity to attract completely new target groups with the fascination of food and to make their daily lives a little bit more beautiful. Because there's one thing you can't deny: Everyone has to eat, so why not something really great?!

Within the Kitchen Stories family, you are known as an absolute foodie. There is hardly a restaurant in Berlin that you haven't tried yet. How did this passion come about and what motivates you to try out new things over and over again?

For me, the Berlin food scene is absolutely the most exciting in Germany and I am very happy to work and live (and eat!) here to be allowed. There's always a new restaurant opening up somewhere, so it's impossible to actually test them all (my reputation probably precedes me).

The inspiration comes primarily from social media (fittingly), but I also love sharing it with colleagues — I would describe most of us here as “foodies.” I also have a “regulars' table” with whom I regularly meet in restaurants where none of us have been before. In this way, you avoid only ever going to the favorite locations.

What is the best cooking advice you've ever received? And which ingredient could you always do without?

I can definitely do without meat, I haven't eaten it for a few years and I don't miss it for a second. But with Kitchen Stories, I learned that vegetarian cuisine doesn't just consist of pasta (although I'm still a carbohydrate fan club).

I always try to use every opportunity to squeeze out our professional chefs for tricks and advice. A very important one: fat is the best flavor carrier! If you really want it to taste really good, more is simply more and you shouldn't save at the wrong end. Butter has been my favorite spice ever since.

‍

Thank you so much for the interview.