Sarah’s Cucina Bella
http://sarahscucinabella.com/

Sarah moderated this festive panel.  She didn’t have as much opportunity to speak as the other panelists, but she did talk briefly about a few things:

• How long does it take to create a quality blog post for a food blog?  It’s like a 4-5 hour endeavor, from picking the ingredients, to developing the recipe, to buying the food, making the food, taking pictures, *eating*, cleaning up, then writing it up.
• Food bloggers have tremendous community, and do a lot of charitable works (see below for examples).
• She doesn’t have time for Chowhound or Yelp, she prefers to put the time and energy into her blog.
• She keeps her cooking blog separate from her review blogs (see her list of blogs on her site).

Nika Culinaria
http://nikas-culinaria.com

In terms of social networking, Nika  maintains an account on Flickr, because she’s photographer, so she takes food photos there.  She’s on Twitter as well, but mostly to kvetch about the election.  She’s also got a Facebook account, but not as a “refresh all the time” sorta thing.

Nika recently went back to work full-time, and she has kids.  As a science writer, she’s always writing in her brain.  She’s got many blogs, to keep her thoughts separate but robust.  The writing process is organic, but doesn’t take very long, and she may or may not edit, and she does write better at certain times of the month than others.  Once she writes her posts, then she shoots the photos, and it’s impossible to say how long it takes, it’s a constant process.

When she goes into social media, it’s about politics, not food.  When she Googles for food content, she finds she most often hits Chowhound results, and the quality of the content she finds varies.

If she says something on her blog, she’s responsible for it because it’s her identity.  On Chowhound, people have more of an opportunity to be anonymous, so the quality may not be there.

She’s all about taking good food photos!  She offers a Food Photo 101 class on her blog, and she worked with another blogger who came to her with the idea, for people with point and shoot cameras and not much experience with photography.  You can also search the web for tips and tutorials.  In the end, it’s a matter of practice and staying away from the flash.  It’s easier to shoot apples than, say, soup, or oatmeal.  Know your camera, use the manual a lot (the simplest functions usually give you the best results), nd a studio near a window or something is especially good. Do give yourself space to learn!

The only numbers she really thinks about are Google PR stats for her ads.  Other rankings for the popularity of food blogs isn’t something she has time to look at.

Lydia Walshin Perfect Pantry
http://www.theperfectpantry.com/

She’s *very* ingredient oriented.  Lydia was a food writer before she was a food blogger, and she thought blogging might be on the same level as “root canal,” that’s how little she knew about it.  She came to it trying to figure out how she could be different from all the other food bloggers out there.  As she examined her “not so perfect” pantry, she realized that she had accumulated so many odds and ends that she didn’t know about, and she figured other people might think the same thing.  She looked at what should be there, what she didn’t need, what she could use and how, and that was her way into the market

Lydia uses Twitter because that’s where she found the greatest number of bloggers in her universe.  If she only could pick one, Twitter would be it, since that’s where her friends are.

In food blogging, you need to choose where you will be present.  She chooses to be present on her blog, and responds to blogging, and she has the “smartest commenters on the planet!”  She wants to encourage this type of interaction, so if she had to choose one place to really be present, it’s on her blog on her site, since that’s where she wants to keep the conversation.  It makes her a better blogger, and provides the best interaction for her readers.

She writes predictably, 3 times a week, and she’s working on some long features (right now she’s got a series on “other people’s pantries”).  Quality is always what’s going to keep high quality readers and commenters coming back.

The food blog community is a welcoming community for first timers.  Everyone is here to help, there’s an answer to every question, and help is only an email away.  Social media or no, it’s like no other community out there.

She’s not a chef, but she’s a foodie.  No matter what your level of food professionalism, food people are giving people, and food people online are no different.  What they’ve been able to do through social media and other connections, they raised almost $10,000 for the UN food program, Kiva to make micro-loans to organize their own choosing.  Food blogging and social media have given her the opportunity to create non-profits very easily.  She’s been running a concept of “Drop In And Decorate” making cookies to give to people in need around the holidays in Rhode Island.  She ran it by her 30-40 food blogger friends, and not only did they write about it, but it was picked up by many magazines, and it’s now a national non-profit organization, and the food blogging community continues even today to promote and foster the growth of her organization.  The food community makes things happen, and you can get the help and publicity you need with little to no outlay of cash.

When she goes to Chowhound, she finds it’s full of people who have tons of free time, and tons more money to go out to eat than she does.  She tends to double-check reviews with people she knows.

Photography is not her strength, not enough space and time to get it right, but she does her best.  3 sites where you can see the accepted standard for styling food for photos (a good way to learn):

• tastespotting.com
• foodgawker.com
• photograzing.com

Also, Lou Manna has an excellent class on taking food pics… he’s book, too, which you get if you take his class.

As with any other community, if all you do is take, you won’t get anything in return.  If people comment, answer them.  If they offer her a link, she sends a note saying that she doesn’t do link exchanges like that, but she will follow their blog and link to them when possible.  It’s like being a good neighbor in your neighborhood; think of your blog as a way to share your neighborhood,  not just something for you.

She doesn’t write about anything that isn’t in her pantry and being used.  It’s important to have an honest relationship with all food PR people.  She has developed a document she sends out to PR inquiries, letting them know what she reviews.  If it’s something she discovers to be a great pantry item, she might write about it.  Any non-perishable item that she doesn’t use or reveiw is donated to her local food pantry, and tells them that.  Her highest priority is to retain her readers’ trust.  If you want to see her PR communication document, contact her and she’ll send it to you.  Just find your ethical compass.  Keeping faith with readers, PR people, advertisers, makes your blog a more trusted blog.

Kalyn’s Kitchen
http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/

If you learn one thing in session, you need to learn that if you choose to blog, you should blog about something you are absolutely passionate about.  She’s actually retiring from her job as a third  grade teacher to blog full time.  She got “really fat” eating M&M’s in too many teacher meetings, so she found the South Beach diet, and as a foodie, she needed to strike a balance.  People noticed her losing weight, and wanted her recipes.  As word got around, it got to be a pain to send things out to one person at a time, so her kids recommended she start a food blog, and she’s still on Blogger where she started.  She had some really lucky breaks, but it was really, really hard, since it was at least 2 months into blogging that she realized you could cut and paste!  But her learning has been exponential so far, but there’s so much to learn, the only way she can keep learning is to quit her job and go into full time blogging.

Comments are the most important things for her online.  She’s got a robust community, and that’s where she spends most of her time interacting.  She actually doesn’t use social networking to promote her blog.  She does, however, use social networking to get to know other bloggers on Twitter and Facebook, and make connections with people who read her blogs.  But not so much for promotion.

Food blogging is so unique because there are so many aspects to food, so there are so many food blogs to choose from, and it’s all about how you approach it.

In terms of bringing people to your blog, it’s all about the content.  She started writing, and she had no idea that people would come back to her blog and start from the beginning.  Write about what you love, what you would want to do, something you talk about the time, something with passion.  Your passion shows in your writing, and keeps people coming back.  If you’re just starting out, go to the Elise Bauer’s “How to Build blog Traffic” on the BlogHer site to learn how to get people to your blog.

How much time does she spend maintaining her blog?  She doesn’t really watch TV anymore .  She reads cookie magazines at lunchtime, she sneaks it in anywhere she can.  Some say she should write more often, but she disagrees, it’s better when she goes at her pace.  She often prays that her kitchen is in one piece before she goes to work on Monday, since it’s crazy, messy, busy work.  If you want to make money on your blog, you need recipes, since people look for that.  Plan your meals, make it, take pictures, clean up, eat, then write it all up.

She loves Chowhound.  She also says to check out Food Blog Search.

It’s hard to get into food blogging right now.  Find 10 people at the same level as you, and make friends with them, it’s a support group.  Also, be really generous with your outgoing linkage and gain food blog karma, since it will come back to you.

When she first started blogging, she was excited about freebies and opportunities to review cookbooks.  This was before she realized that everything stays up there forever, and it’s like eternal free advertising for that item.  It’s not that she would never accept anything for review, but she’s way more careful now.  It has nothing to do with her, like, say, a request to review handbags, she’ll delete it.  Since her focus is low-glycemic index, it needs to meet that criteria.  If it’s something interesting, she does send a note saying that she doesn’t think it’s fair to her advertisers to just review something out of the blue, and refers the company to BlogHer to invite them to their advertiser program (since her ads come from there).  Rarely, if it’s something really new, and soemthing she’d really like to try, she tell them to send it.  Otherwise, she’ll give them the “try buying advertising” note.

Kaylen’s kitchen pics she has a list of things she totally loves, and with such a limited list of things, it kinda gives her blog more cred because she’s so very picky and selective.

Other tips from the panel:

• Apparently, recipes can’t be copyrighted.  Your blurb that describes the recipe can be copyrighted, and if you describe a step in a very specific, arty way, then you can copyright those bits.  You also can’t copyright a set of ingredients.
• All the same, provide good linkage if you use someone else’s recipes.  It’s about sharing, it’s not about getting attention for yourself.
• Check out VeganYumYum’s “Food Photography for Bloggers.”
• Other good food photo stools: Natural light, natural lense, tripod, SLR, copy of Lightbox.
• Good sites for n00bs: Food Blog Sc’ool and Serious eats.
• Spark Recipes: get nutritional info on your recipes for FREE.  But be a bit careful, have a disclaimer unless you’re a health/nutritional professional to note where your sources come from.
• Advertising etiquette: just don’t stack them over your content.  A good decision tree: are you enhancing or obstructing the reader experience? (Note: BlogHer gives you the opportunity to opt out of specific advertisers.)
• Get involved with the community, be a good citizen, and tap them for information as much as possible.  It’s not a competition, everyone helps everyone.
• Always take pics, even if you don’t write them up right away.
• Never snipe at other bloggers, ever, anywhere.
• Think about whether or not you want your name out there, and if not, use a pseudonym (I’d also say askpeople before you use their real names, too).
• Don’t be pressured to write more often.  Give your best to each post, don’t go for quantity of posts over quality of posts.

My note on Yelp

I wasn’t too thrilled with how Yelp was addressed by the panel.  It didn’t seem like most of the panelists even knew what Yelp was, or had ever visited the site,, and as a social networking site in its own right, I think it was summarily overlooked and even a bit frowned upon.  I’m very active on Yelp, and while it can be used as just a review site (for more than just restaurants, by the way), it’s more of a community if you participate in the community by going to events, sending compliments to people, posting and readin the Talk section, creating lists, and more.  I don’t trust every review outright, but of the people I know on Yelp, I would trust their reviews hands down.  I would have been happier with the panel if it really addressed how all of social media could save dinner, as opposed to just about how blogs can save dinner.  I know many a dinner has been saved for me by my community on Yelp.

© Andrea for LibraryTechtonics, 2008. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blogher, blogherboston, dinner, food, foodblogs, foodies, Yelp

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