‘Bitchin’ Kitchen’ serves a full-course menu of social media success

Mashable asks, “Name a chef who wears green eye shadow, sequined purple sweaters, and leather pants with a zip-out crotch. Chances are, you’re still searching. That is, unless you’ve tuned in with millions of other viewers to watch Cooking Channel’s ‘Bitchin’ Kitchen,’ where celebrity chef Nadia G totters around on heels higher than some ears of corn.”

With that going for it, it’s no wonder “Nadia G’s Bitchin’ Kitchen” is a broadcast hit. But what warranted top honors in the Best Community Manager category in PR Daily’s Digital PR & Social Media Awards is how the community manager weaves this into a social media presence.

Angelique Picanco—Bitchin’ Lifestyle’s managing editor, community manager, and social media mastermind—acts as senior managing Web editor. Managing a team of four staff members, she develops features, writes articles, creates the latest community-based contests, designs and implements various sponsorship campaigns for BitchinKitchen.tv, and doubles up as a script coordinator for “Nadia G’s Bitchin’ Kitchen.”

Seevibes has named it among the top 10 Canadian TV Facebook/Twitter sites. Picanco reports that “Nadia G’s Bitchin’ Kitchen” generated more than 5 million post views and 20,000 likes/comments on Facebook per month. The Facebook site has 106,000 likes.

Picanco clearly knows how to stir the pot on social media. She drew 570 comments and 25,000 shares with the question, “If you could only pick one style of cooking … that you had to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

Another recent comment said, “If we were drinking milk right now, it’d be shooting out our noses at the hilarity our community brings to our day! Check out the weekly roundup! http://ht.ly/fdTwu.”

They also draw crazy posts from visitors, like the woman who wrote, “What CAN’T you wrap bacon in?” and posted a picture of a turkey mummified in bacon strips.

The application states:

“Angelique has witnessed the community grow from zero to over 95,000 avid friends and fans, connected with over 25,000 Bitchin’ Kitchen followers on Twitter, and continues to chat with them on a real-time basis, daily.

“Facebook page is chock-full of user-submitted photos—which paints a nice illustration of the rapid fan base they’ve developed in three short years—from quaint skull-topped cupcakes to the more hardcore fans with logo tattoos (really).

“As one of the original administrators of Bitchin’ Kitchen’s Facebook fan page and Twitter handle, Angelique successfully developed and implemented a social media strategy responsible for Bitchin’ Kitchen’s online brand development and website traffic growth.”

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