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October 26, 2009

Food For Thought: Cultivating the Saavy Food Blogger’s Taste

Hosted by the New York Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, a panel of food bloggers gathered to discuss their blogs, food trends, and how public relations professionals can embrace the growing food blogging community.

The panel consisted of:

Josh Friedland of The Food Section - www.thefoodsection.com

Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan of Apartment Therapy’s the Kitchn - www.thekitchn.com

Karen Hochman of The Nibble - www.thenibble.com

Kat Kinsman of AOL Food and Slash Food - www.slashfood.com

The question was posed: How should PR firms communicate with bloggers?

What NOT to do is continue the blanket email blasts, cold calls and misdirected solicitations. Food bloggers only respond to relevant pitches.

Being a blogger myself, and targeted surreptitiously on my website with irrelevant pitches, I sat in the audience nodding in agreement with the food bloggers.

What you SHOULD do is find out what bloggers are writing about. Actually READ THEIR BLOG and not just one or two postings. Get a feel for what they cover and tailor your pitch to their subject matter. Food bloggers are happy to try samples, break stories, and work with PR professionals as long as you make it interesting and worth their while.

A few specific recommendations for electronic PR pitches from the blogger’s themselves -

  • keep the pitch short
  • the pitch better directly relate to what their blog is about, otherwise they hit delete
  • send low res thumbnail images only
  • cut and paste all text into the body of email
  • no attachments
  • address the blogger by his or her real name in the greeting

On the lighter side - the bloggers were asked to list the top food trends.

The response was:

  • bacon
  • food television shows
  • healthy cooking (especially gluten free)
  • slow cooking

But of course, you foodies knew about these trends already didn’t you?

The panelists also discussed the controversial question that recently tore across the food blogosphere - Did the Internet kill Gourmet magazine? (The original op-ed piece that set off the firestorm is here)

The panelists agreed the answer is unanimously NO!

Gourmet was shut down because revenue was down substantially. It was a business decision, pure and simple.


Posted by Amateur Foodie

1 comments:

  1. What an interesting post. I am such newbie at blogging and there is so much for me to learn. I was recently contacted by POM to ask if they could send me samples of their pomegranate juice-Sure! Now, I have quite a few bottles, and I am thinking, got to make something. For the food industry, it's a win-win. The food bloggers (especially the newbies, are excited to receive free product samples) we blog about them and it costs the company almost nothing for free advertisement.
    As for Gourmet, I was completely bummed. Gourmet was my favorite food magazine. I depended on it each month to take me to faraway places and introduce me to fabulous food ingredients. The article that I read said it was a Rachel Ray world now, and the advertisers were no longer flocking to Gourmet, it was too high-end and the food industry was catering to the middle class.
    Great blog post!
    ReplyDelete

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