Carla Pesono is a social media influencer who truly hates that term. But she can’t quite hate the results of the work she has put in on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok.
Near the beginning of 2023, she decided to go full-time with content creation and brand building on social media. Since then, she has doubled her number of followers. At the time of me writing this, Pesono has more than 16,600 followers on Instagram.
“I hate the word influencer. That’s what people call us, but I look at myself more as a food journalist, entrepreneur,” said Pesono.
Pesono’s Instagram account is full of lively videos, pictures and content that revolve mostly around the food scene of New Orleans.
Pesono will visit various restaurants, food pop-ups, or even guys cooking on Frenchmen Street in the Marigny on a random evening. She thrives on introducing the viewing audience to what she calls “hidden gems” in New Orleans. It’s an extension of what she once did on television.
Pesono spent almost a decade working in various local television markets. A native of Buffalo, NY, she took a variety of on-air positions at TV stations in Missouri, Baton Rouge and ultimately in New Orleans, where she currently lives. Pesono says she loves the city and its wealth of restaurants, festivals, and events. The city is a target rich environment for an influencer who caters to foodies and people with wanderlust. It also provides many opportunities for social media influencers to collaborate with businesses, restaurants, and fests. In that regard Pesono is hardly ever starving for material. But the city can be stubbornly old school in some of its ways.
I had a very honest conversation with her about the peaks and valleys of the social media scene. How do people make money as influencers? Can a native of Buffalo really judge New Orleans food? And how does she deal with potential creeps online? Listen to the podcast here.
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