In a week when a petition was raised to get Katie Hopkins sacked from The Sun for her neo Nazi rant & food blogger Jack Monroe semi quit Twitter after being persecuted about her sexuality; I’ve been enjoying passive aggressive tweeting, a new butter knife & the search for the ‘new’ Anthony Bourdain.
How not to use Twitter part 1
This week a conversation on Twitter went viral, nothing really that new in that. But to me it highlighted a growing problem on Twitter within food bloggers & writers. The use of social media to pressurise an eatery to give you preferential treatment in exchange the possibility of added exposure.
The twitter blagger, @CardiffBiz, has 105,000+ followers and tried to use this as leverage to get a table in a restaurant (@Chaiholics) which was already full. Quick tip to blaggers, if a restaurant is full, it means it can not hold any more.
How not to influence somebody on Twitter
Now as much I deep down wanted some of @CardiffBiz’s users to be fake, unfortunately they aren’t.
How not to use Twitter part 2
That said it didn’t stop a relative new set of food bloggers catching my attention this week. It wasn’t great images or beautifully crafted wordplay, no it was a remarkable growth in in twitter followers. Now, we all like to be popular, & I guess a Twitter following is one kind of barometer of that. But it’s flawed. If you’re so inclined you can buy followers (something I’ve highlighted before), sadly PR companies don’t really check this and view such a following as a level of influence (Tip to PRs; use Klout as a measure of influence with social media).
The Twitter user: @Foodbashers have had a remarkable growth in new followers:
Thursday April 16th they tweeted:
Almost 2000 #followers! Thanks! We’re attacking a #restaurant today. So prepare for another killer #review! Hint: SG9ibywgV2FyZWdlbSAoQkUp
By Saturday April 18th they were approaching 4,000, and as of this morning they’re on 4,927. Sadly for @Foodbashers, they’re nearly all fake, as demonstrated by TwitterAudit.com:
CAUGHT OUT AS FAKERS – @foodbashers
Klout score is automatically displayed, if you use the Hootsuite client/app for your social media:
Easy way to spot fakers
If you love freshly baked bread with butter, then this is for you.
We’ve all been there. The beautiful comforting smell of freshly baked bread making your mouth water; you can’t resist any longer, you lop the end off the loaf & try to spread some butter on it. Only to find the butter is too hard & tears the soft insides as you drag the knife across it.
As spotted this week, there is a potential solution to your problem; ButterUp
Who Is the Next Anthony Bourdain?
Yet again one of my favourite websites came up with a gem of a story:
Who Is the Next Anthony Bourdain?
As if one wasn’t enough?!?
Read the full story here: The Thrillist
Hacked supermarket labels:
The tagline on the Pokes website is
Time well wasted
This week they’ve been serving up ‘Hacked Supermarket labels’, and in particular this classic:
@ThePoke