For only being a year out of college, Kristina Bornholtz has an impressive résumé. After a stint writing beauty during college, the mid-west native fell into food when she scored an internship with the Food Network’s Snapchat Discover. It was a match made in heaven. Now she’s not the just the social media editor for Lucky Peach, but she’s the first one to hold the position. The foodie, talks with us about how she snagged a job right out of college, gives us a behind the scenes look at her workday and dishes the secret to an epic #FoodPorn photo.
Going into magazines, did you ever think you’d end up in food?
No, I didn’t! Originally I wanted to be a sports news reporter, with the dream of writing for the Minnesota Twins in my local paper back home. Only when I got to college did I realize how magazines were a much better fit — I’ve read them my whole life. After that realization, I tried my hand at beauty writing, which was so much fun and at the time, I thought I would be there forever. But I somehow managed to fall into food and now I couldn’t imagine my life any differently. Food people are the best people.
You started interning at Food Network’s Snapchat Discover then got hired as an EA. What are some of the things you did that helped you get hired?
So I actually got the gig at FN’s Snap through Ed2010! After refreshing the page over and over hoping that something would get posted, it was the first thing that popped up. And it was like, of course this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I love food, I love the act of sharing a meal with people, I love the community of it. Really throwing yourself into a brand makes you so much more marketable. When I had completed all my assignments and had a moment of downtime, I’d dig into our content and really familiarize myself with every piece of content in our database, our chefs, our recipes and the way the backend worked. The key is to make yourself a vital part of the team, a real asset. Train yourself in everything you could ever possibly need to know so that when the time comes, they wouldn’t dare let you go!
One final note: it’s so important to humble yourself in this job market. Going right out of college, it’s going to be hard to get a job. When I graduated, I interned and prayed that it would turn into a full time job. But my gig at Food Network, while full-time, was on a contract basis, which meant no benefits and that my job was up for review every six months, pending the renewal of Snapchat and Food Network’s contract. The renewal cycle was stressful—will I have a job? won’t I?—and the lack of benefits was tough, but I took it anyway. Don’t be afraid to intern and work a second job to make ends meet. Don’t be afraid to freelance or contract, at one place or five different places. Dreams don’t come true overnight, jobs don’t appear overnight. Work hard, stay organized, get the gig!
Now you’re at Lucky Peach as a social media editor. What made you want to go from writing and editing to social media?
At Food Network, I learned a lot about social media and the way it plays in the food news cycle. Which is to say, it’s on its way to becoming the news food cycle. We were always sending each other things we saw on Instagram like, we NEED to cover this, or did you see this? How can we do this and make it our own? It was crazy to watch a phenomenon like the Black Tap milkshake blow up overnight, from one lone post on an Instagram to my aunt in middle America sharing a video of it on Facebook. And of course, as a 23-year-old girl, I have spent a lot of time on social media over the years. It’s a natural interest!
Did you have any experience with social media prior? What skills did you take from your previous job to market yourself for this position?
My social experience from working at Food Network’s Snapchat is really what helped me get started at Lucky Peach. Surprisingly, some of the most important marketing skills I took with me were the ones to do with numbers. Reading analytics, measuring KPIs, performance levels, and measuring a story’s success on social as such. Being able to take a look at a story and saying, “Okay, this didn’t meet our metric, what can we do different for next time? Should there even be a next time?” It might not seem like it to the public eye, but brands run all of their social media with those KPIs and metrics in mind.
Social media is more than just being able to write a tweet. What are some of things you do that people don’t get to see?
It’s also just a lot of juggling—making sure your advertisers are happy, working with PR people, coordinating calendars with the website and the magazine to make sure our social is promoting our content. It’s about developing vibes and also promoting your content, which can be a tricky balance. It’s a lot of spreadsheets and calendar reminders. I’ve only been doing this for two months, so it’s definitely a learning curve I’m still figuring out.
Can you describe Lucky Peach’s brand presence on social?
How I officially describe it in our one sheet? “Lucky Peach and its voice is at the intersection of straightforward, informational, humorous and irreverent.” We have an extremely talented design team that gives us great images to work with, stuff that I couldn’t dream up in a million years, that really helps make our presence stand on that corner, to continue the cheesy metaphor. And food on social media really does the job itself. The magnitude of the food ‘gram trend. In terms of the copy, I try to keep the voice as true to the voice of our magazine.
I noticed on Instagram that your #foodporn game is strong. What are your tips for snapping the perfect food pic?
I have no positive answer for this. I’m online all the time, and when I’m not, it always has some way of biting me in the butt! That’s always when the universe decides to play tricks on you. You always need to be checking up on how people are responding to your content, whether that’s replying to a question in a tweet or keeping an eye out for obscene or inflammatory comments. Luckily I really love what I do, so I generally don’t mind checking up on social throughout the day, well in to the evening, way past work hours. But I do try to keep the rule of not checking it during meals with friends! Common courtesy, people.
Do you have something you can’t work or live without?
I know this sounds so stupid, but my phone. I would not be able to do work without my phone – it’s like the whole world is in the palm of my hand.
Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat?
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