Carlota Pico recently sat down with Yaron Hubin Plimmer, global social media manager at EF Education First, to discuss how he got into marketing, what his position entails and how to create content for a company that’s based on international travel during the pandemic. The Zurich-based marketer also went into how and when companies should react to social issues on their social media channels, how to manage negative comments and how to build a socially conscious brand.

You can watch the full conversation in the video above or on YouTube, listen to the podcast on Apple and Spotify, and read our recap below.

Key takeaways

  • Some of the most important metrics used to determine success in social media are reach, engagement and collection of UGC (user-generated content). Facebook often caps organic reach for businesses, so Yaron likes to use average reach as a KPI.
  • Social listening is a useful tool to gain a deep understanding of your brand’s performance on social media. It lets you monitor keywords, positive or negative sentiment and conversations, and can be used for crisis management or prevention.
  • The best way to manage negative reviews is to talk to people like their opinion truly matters—because it does. On social media, we engage with companies just like we engage with our friends, so people expect prompt, personal and sincere responses.
  • Customers expect brands to be committed to their values, regardless of the sector or industry. When brands speak out, they must provide action plans to lend credibility to their statements.


I’ve seen a lot of companies issue vague statements in support of social justice movements, when they’re not actually doing anything to improve the situation. From a brand perspective that’s extremely dangerous, because people aren’t stupid.

Rapid-fire recs

A professional role model or influencer you admire?

In the field of marketing, I’m lucky to have a great boss who’s been very influential to me. But Gary Vaynerchuk was also someone I looked up to at the beginning of my career. He’s got a lot of useful advice about content marketing and a refreshing approach. 

A book or publication that you’d recommend?

I think my all-time favorite book is “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari. I believe that understanding the way humans work is key to understanding how social media users operate, and you can draw plenty of parallels to marketing.

See also: Top 8 content and marketing books to read right now (according to experts)

Your favorite app at the moment?

I’m going to stick to something a little more traditional and say that I’m really enjoying Instagram at the moment. I think if you curate your feed by following people with the same interests, you can find some great content on it.

Connect with Yaron and Carlota on LinkedIn.

This post was edited by Rishabh Agrawal, a freelance content creator based in Madrid.

For more insight into building a socially conscious brand:

Commitment without action means absolutely nothing – Luc Berlin, enterprise marketing expert

Diversity in marketing is paramount – Tina Morwani, senior marketing manager at GitLab

Why your brand shouldn’t stay silent on social issues

To see the full transcript, click on page number 2 below.