Step 11: Meet other food bloggers

This is part of the series ‘Step-by-step guide to getting started as a food blogger’.

Food blogging is a very social thing and getting to know other food bloggers is part of the fun.

Here are some tips on how to get to know fellow foodies online and in person.

Meet Online

Food blogs

Use our food blog directory to find other bloggers, see what they are doing, reach out to them and say “hi” by posting on their blog. Remember to add your blog to the directory too!

Forums

There are many food forums. The best are ones that have developed a community of regular posters – often revolving on a particular topic, such as chocolate, slow cooking, dietary requirement, location, etc.

Facebook

There are lots of food related groups on Facebook that you can follow and participate in. These can be a good way to talk with other foodies on a particular subject. If you attend a food event or conference, it is quiet likely that it will have an associated Facebook group that you can participate in to get to know people before the event – and to keep up with the latest news.

You can also create a Facebook group for your blog. This works best if your blog has a very niche focus, or if your blog is very popular. You can add and remove functionality and security from Facebook groups, such as forums, pictures, the ability to allow everyone to post on the wall, apps, etc.

Twitter

Following someone on Twitter is a fantastic way to stay up-to-date with what they are doing, posting and discussing in real time. It is also a great way to interact with fellow foodies as you can reply to, or re-tweet tweets that you receive.

With Twitter, you can organise people (‘tweeps’) that you follow into lists. For example you might have lists for your friends, family, food bloggers, food photographers, food companies, restaurants, etc. You can then view a list to see all tweets by people within that list.  GetMeCooking has a number of lists, comprising of people who we don’t follow in our main twitter feed – this allows us to keep track of many people on twitter, but not have too much ‘noise’ in our main feed.

You can also find people on Twitter using Twitter based directory services such as WeFolllow.

Google+

Google+ allows you to find and follow people (and soon companies) and engage with them. You can group people into ‘Circles’ to make following them easier and at the same time filter out the noise.

Video Sites

Elizabeth Filardi made a project whereby she filmed herself having breakfast every morning. It has been watched and commented on by thousands of people.

Video blogging is becoming a popular way to create and engage with people. Darya Pino hosts a ‘Summer Tomato Live’ show in which she discusses food and food related issues with her online audience.

Meet in Person

Meetups

Search on meetup for food events in your area.

Other websites and organisations have similar types of ‘meetups’.

Food Blogger Conferences

Yes it’s true – there are conferences around the world specifically for food bloggers to meet up, socialise and learn more about food blogging!

The largest in the UK is Food Blogger Connect – I attended the first one and presented at the third one! See me at 2:59 in this video:

These events usually have talks from high-profile food bloggers, people who have written food related books, people/companies who have written software that might be of interest to food bloggers, cooking demonstrations, restaurant critiques, food photography lessons, food journalists, workshops on food blogging software such as WordPress, etc.

Potluck Cooking Events

The term potluck (not spelt ‘pot luck’ or ‘pot-luck’) may have come from the word potlatch or the term ‘luck of the pot’.

A potluck cooking event is a social event where a number of people get together and they each bring a dish to share. Here is a review of a potluck cooking even that I attended in London.

This type of event is often held at someone’s house, or in a public place such as a park.

Lunch and Dinner Clubs

Doing the same thing for lunch every day while at work can get a bit boring, so why not use the time to socialise? Websites such as Grub with Us and Lets Lunch let you specify the day and time when you are free to take your lunchbreak so you can meet up with other people in your area.

Dinner clubs are similar, just usually not as rushed. They can take place at someone’s house, or at a restaurant.

Some clubs are themed. For example a Russian brunch club I attended had the theme ‘Ukraine and it’s lard(er)’, so that was a chance for me to taste authentic Ukrainian food, learn a bit about the country and meet with some food bloggers and non-food bloggers.

Other groups such as Girl Geek Dinners might also be fun (unfortunately I’m not able to attend these to review them!).

Food Festivals

Food festivals are a great way to taste a variety of foods, talk to traders and to see cooking and product demonstrations.

I can recommend the Ludlow Food Festival which is Britain’s longest running food festival.

These would make a perfect venue for a food blogger meetup.

Holidays

There are a wide variety of food based holidays available, including wine-tasting, food and photography, culinary tours of regions and cooking.

The Culinary tour of Lebanon holiday that I went on was organised by a food blogger and is often (but not exclusively) attended by other food bloggers.

Cooking Courses

Cooking courses are often attended by food bloggers. You are quite likely to bump into some food bloggers on a course, or you could start a topic on a forum to organise for yourself and other food bloggers to attend a course.

Food Writing Courses

Writing about food isn’t easy. The challenge is to keep your readers engaged and interested by not making every recipe sound the same. For example try writing three blog posts about a cheeseburger a barbeque burger and a bacon and egg burger – they are basically the same with just a few different ingredients.

Learning how to write well helps make you more creative – as well as more critical of yourself!

Food writing courses are a great way to meet other food bloggers and find out how others write about the same subject from a different angle.

Suggestions?

How have you met other foodies? Are you attending any food related social events soon? Which was your favourite? Let us know in the comments.

Coming Soon: Step 12: SEO - Get Search Engines to understand your recipes, comments and other content