I attended Techmunch in Boston on Sunday. It is a food blogging conference hosted by the site Bakespace. The conference consisted of several classes that focused on such things as marketing, making connections with Brands, and SEO.
meeting people at the mixer after all the classes/ a caramelized onion & goat cheese tart
I took a lot away from Techmunch. I could talk and blog for hours about it.
But I leave you with this:
1) Be yourself!
Don’t tailor your blog to fit into something you are not. Find you passion and your voice. It will make blogging easier and a lot more fun. You will connect the people because you are being real.
2) You photos need to say ‘eat me’.
Take a step back and look at your photos. If you saw them, would you want to eat the thing you are looking at? There are simple tips and tricks to folow that will help you. Stobist was suggested as a site to learn food photography.
3) It takes time.
Be patient. Things take time. The people that have successful blogs took their time, learned from their mistakes, and improved things from writing, layouts, graphics, and photography to get where they are today. They are passionate about what they do, if you are and you stick to it then you will find your own degree of success.
4) Traffic isn’t the end all and be all in sponsors.
While you can worry about your site traffic all day long it won’t be thing ONLY thing that sponsors look that. Absolutely, sponsors are looking to pay you for reviews or host giveaways if you have a lot of traffic, but there are other factors in place. Are you a good fit for their brand? Are you just generally a nice person? Is there potential?
Additionally, you can’t just agree to all sponsorship. You should not host giveaways or write reviews if it doesn’t fit you (see #1). Does it make sense for you to give ________ away? Is there a conflict of interest because you are supporting another brand?
And last but not least…
5) SEO! SEO!! SEO!!!
There are things you can do on your blog to make your site come up in searches a lot easier. They are fairly simple. They are kinda obvious once you think about them. Do them! You can refer to this PDF for some help.
books to win through Harvard Common Press/ Sharon Sprague and Justin Ide chatting
I had a wonderful time on Sunday.
Thank you Babette and the rest of the Bakespace team
Thank you Kitchenaid for giving away a variety of kitchenwares. I won a hand mixer!
Thank you Harvard Common Press for giving away books. I am enjoying the Dark Spirits book already.
Great recap! So much learning, so little time, right? I’m sorry we didn’t get to catch up on Sunday. Hope to see you at another event soon!
Last Sunday I attended Techmunch the food blogging conference in Boston, It lasted the whole day.
The reason for my attending the lecture was specifically to meet Mr. Hirsch, Food Editor, the Associated Press, as well as Mr. Adam Salomone, Associated Publisher, The Harvard Common Press , who were scheduled to lecture respectively on “How to Get on a Food Editor’s Radar” and “How to Market your Blog and Turn it into a Brand /Business.
I am the author of Knack Italian Cooking published January 2010 by Globe Pequot Press, New Haven Ct., former owner of Spesa restaurant, a professional chef, lecturer at Boston University for the Arts Department and a teacher for various schools.
Enthusiastically I answered Mrs. Obama’s call for every chef’s help, in fighting child obesity. After a lot of research about the subject and learning all the realities of the alarming situation, I approached Mr. Hirsh and Mr. Salomone respectively with a concept, in writing, for a weekly cooking column that focuses on nutrition, and draws ideas for recipes from the audience itself, via letters or e-mails that readers would submit. Each week, readers of the column would be asked to send their favorite recipes, and I would convert them to a healthier version. My goal would be to retain the original taste of the recipe, using only readily available ingredients.
I was met with strong resistance from both of them and without uncertain terms I was told that something like saving our children from certain death at a young age was less sellable than a new BQ sauce.
Is a pity that Mr. Hirsch and Mr. Salomone think their readers are so shallow. Call me sentimental, but I am convinced that a lot of people are concerned about obesity in America. Our children are in danger of inheriting diabetes, heart disease, stroke and a myriad of other diseases very early in life, diseases once afflicting only out of shape middle aged people. Not to mention esthetic, a factor of tremendous importance for the development of self esteem in growing children.
With sadness and heavy heart I have to relinquish the power to Mr. Hirsch and Mr. Salomone for this round, but my quest for someone who will grasp the importance of the situation will continue.
well I saw that awkward public exchange between you and J.M. much differently. He politely explained that they have a staff for columns, therefore AP would not need a column from you.
I think that you first need to tackle the local level, before you try to get to AP.
And good job copy/pasting content as a comment. I obviously knew Techmunch was an all day conference… I was there.
Kinda jealous about the hand mixer!
It was a pretty incredible event! Thanks for the excellent recap!
I love seeing pictures of all my food blogging friends 🙂 Great recap!
Great tips! Wish I could’ve made it. Thanks for sharing!