Happy New Year friends! To kick off 2023, I wanted to create a resource for foodies that are thinking about starting a food blog. A ton of people slide into my DM’s to ask me how I got started food blogging and if I can share some tips for beginners to help them get started, so here is a list of five things I like to tell aspiring food bloggers:
You make the rules to your food blog
People always think that there is a list of unwritten rules to creating content for their food blog that they should follow when in reality, YOU make the rules. It’s your blog, which means you decide what channels (website, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, etc.) you want to start creating content on and you come up with a posting cadence that works for you. The last thing you want is to become burnout because you are trying to stick to a posting schedule that is too frequent for your day-to-day life.
Find your niche
I know that this is on everybody’s list, but rightfully so, because this is important. Before you even start gathering content for your blog, you want to make sure you know what type of content that you want to share and what audience you’re looking to target. This should really be step one so that the name of your blog aligns with your content (unless you are just using your name) and that your bio/about me section clearly outlines what type of information people will find on your page. Finding your niche will help you gain followers that will engage with your content and discover other food blogger/influencers that you can connect with and potentially network with (my next tip expands on this). It will also help businesses, brands, and organizations that are related to your niche find your page when looking for creators to collaborate with.
Engage with other food bloggers’ posts
A good way to grow your following and content engagement is to simply engage with other food bloggers’ content on the regular basis. When I first started my food Instagram, I searched through hashtags that I thought would be popular for my audience like #durhamfoodie or #ncfoodfinds and found posts from other food bloggers in the Raleigh-Durham area. Once I started following, liking, commenting and sharing their posts, they began doing the same for me and then other food bloggers came out of the woodwork. The foodie community is huge and food bloggers are always happy to hear about new delicious food and drink spots in their areas. If you visit a place that you heard about through another foodies content, it’s good best practice is to tag them in your post or story once you blog about your experience so that they can see they impact their content is making — which is really one of the most rewarding parts of food blogging.
Be unapologetically yourself
Unless you’re an absolute trash human being, it’s important that you’re being true to yourself in your content. There is absolutely no reason to put on a facade or develop some weird alter ego when making videos or drafting out your captions — just share what you want to share. If you want to just stick to sharing details about the food and service in your captions then that’s totally fine, but if you want to show off your personality a little bit more then I highly recommend trying (I say try because it’s easier said than done sometimes) to add a voice over to your video content so that people can hear your tone and excitement. Personally, I get compliments all of the time about my authenticity because I’ve been super intentional about being myself and having fun with it so I highly recommend others to do the same. Worrying about what other people will think of you will only hold you back in the end.
Don’t chase perfection
Please, please, please don’t get caught up in trying to make sure everything on your page is perfect. You’re not always going to have the perfect lighting or the perfect cheese pull everywhere you go and that’s okay! You don’t need to wait until you can afford an expensive camera or become a master video editor to start food blogging — I am almost three years in and still use my iPhone for content. Everybody has to start somewhere and you will learn what you like and dislike as you continue to test out different types of content. Social media algorithms are wonky and you never know which posts will end up performing well, so don’t let less than perfect content stress you out.
I have so many other tips that I can share and would be happy to do a part two if y’all find this helpful and interesting. I told myself that I’d give YouTube a try this year, so maybe I’ll even make this a video series — stay tuned!
Joy Eats World 