Welcome to episode 139 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, we’re sharing the Q&A from our recent Recipe Video Bootcamp.
Last week on the podcast, Bjork interviewed Ashley Ward from SEMrush about optimizing the content on your website. To go back and listen to that episode, click here.
Answering MORE Questions about Recipe Videos
Have you tried making recipe videos yet? They’re incredibly popular right now, and they’re a great way to grow your audience and social media following.
We recently held a Recipe Video Bootcamp where we taught attendees how to shoot and edit their own food videos like a pro. Our last session of the day was a Q&A with Lindsay Ostrom and Alana Woolley from Pinch of Yum, and we’ve decided to share it as a podcast episode today! You’ll learn all about how the Pinch of Yum team handles producing and sharing high-quality video content every week.
In this episode, Lindsay and Alana share:
- The best practices for sharing videos on social media
- How to work with tricky foods
- How to work with brands
- The gear they use
- How they handle shoots as a team
- How they come up with inspiration
- How to make your videos stand out
- How long your videos should be
- The settings they use to record videos
Listen to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast below or check it out on iTunes or Google Play Music:
Resources:
- 136: Optimizing for Search Results on Google and Pinterest with Raquel Smith
- 7 Essential Tools You Need to Shoot Your Own Recipe Videos
- Erickson Surfaces
- 093: How Finding a Niche Transformed a Business with Meggan Hill from Culinary Hill
- Check out the gear we use for recipe videos
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to [email protected].
Thanks to our Reviewer of the Week, Kelly from A Side of Sweet! If you’d like to be featured, leave a review for us on iTunes and include your name and blog name in the review.
If you’d like to jump to the comments section, click here.
Transcript:
Bjork Ostrom: In this episode, I’m going to talk about the dark corners of your blog, and we’re going to have a Q&A session with Alana Woolley and Lindsay Ostrom from Pinch of Yum chatting all about recipe videos.
Hey there everybody, this is Bjork Ostrom, and you are listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. This podcast is brought to you by WP Tasty. If you run your site on WordPress, then you should check out WP Tasty. It is the site that we built to offer all of the things that we are integrating into our own blog, Pinch of Yum. The two products that we have right now are a recipe plugin called Tasty Recipes, and the Pinterest Plugin called the Tasty Pins. I’ve talked about both of those in depth. If you haven’t had a chance yet, what I will say is go check those out, and see if they would be a good fit for your blog.
If you have a food or recipe blog, Tasty Recipes is going to be an incredible solution. You can see what it looks like and how it works on Pinch of Yum. All of the recipes are built with Tasty Recipes. If you’re interested in leveraging traffic from both Google and Pinterest, check out Tasty Pins. It’s a simple little plugin that allows you to optimize an image for both Pinterest and SEO. If you didn’t understand that, that’s okay. You can check out podcast episode 136 where we talked with WP Tasty product lead, Raquel Smith. She talks about how Tasty Pins and the Tasty Recipes work. You can see that at foodbloggerpro.com/136. This is the tasty tip. We have one tasty tip for every podcast episode.
Today’s tasty tip is all about checking those dark corners of your blog. Here is what I mean by that. It’s actually dark important corners of your blog. Every blog has these areas that are really important, but we don’t really see them because we’re not shining a light on them often. One of the most important areas on your blog to shine the light on is the dark corner of the confirmation page. The confirmation pages are any of the pages that people see after they sign up for an email or any type of signup that they go through, any type of signup process. Both for Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro, we’ve slowly but surely been converting over our confirmation pages, so they are valuable pages.
If you want to see an example, you can go to pinchofyum.com, and sign up for the email list. If you want, you can automatically unsubscribe right after that. You don’t have to stay a subscribed member or a subscriber, but what you’ll be able to see is the confirmation page that we use for Pinch of Yum. You can see that we have some information on that page, but we also have really solid next steps for people, some other areas that they can go and explore including the pages and posts on Sage, our dog. Some of them are fun. They don’t have to be very intentional, but the idea is that you’re allowing people to take a step after they sign up for something. You don’t want to give them that blank confirmation page.
Make it a really valuable page. The takeaway, the tasty tip is to number one make note of that, and then number two, test out the confirmation pages on your blog and your website to make sure that those are optimized. If they’re not, make a point to update those, so that dark corner of your blog, that place that you don’t often see turns into a bright corner, and it becomes a beautiful place, not only in the design and functionality, but also in terms of the flow that people go through when they sign up for any email list or opt-in that you have on your blog. That is the tasty tip for today.
We have a live Q&A session that we’re going to be showing today, or we’re going to be replaying today. This is from the recent recipe video bootcamp that we did. The recipe video bootcamp was a deep dive into shooting recipe videos and how we do that for Pinch of Yum, and Alana, the video specialist at Pinch of Yum, and Lindsay, both were a part of this live Q&A. I played the role of host or facilitator. We went through a bunch of different questions that people had as they participated in the recipe video bootcamp. If you are a Food Blogger Pro member, you can check out this bootcamp in the bootcamp sections of the video courses.
If you didn’t make it this time, we do these bootcamps occasionally. We’ve done one on sponsored content and Instagram. We’ve done a recipe video bootcamp, and we’ll probably have some others coming up down the line. If you stay tune to the podcast, you’d be able to hear those. Right now, what we’re going to do is we’re going to go ahead and jump into the live Q&A. I will officially welcome Lindsay and Alana. They’ll do a little intro to who they are and what they do. Then we will jump into the questions.
Lindsay, if you would start by sharing a little bit about who you are and what you do, and what your role is when it comes to videos on Pinch of Yum both past and present.
Lindsay Ostrom: All right, cool, can do. Hello everyone, I’m Lindsay, and my role with Pinch of Yum and the videos has changed over time and as we’ve built up our team. In the beginning, when we first started doing videos, I mean, I’ve always been behind the scenes of Pinch of Yum, or not even behind the scenes, I’ve always been like the face of Pinch of Yum, the voice of Pinch of Yum, and the content brain of Pinch of Yum. When we started doing videos, I was literally the one propping my iPhone up on a couple boxes of cereal, or trying to rig up some really fancy system to record little videos, and edit them on my phone usually.
Bjork and I did a few together on a DSLR camera, but then a few years went by, and we realized really the need and the desire for leaning more into video content, and then that’s when we hired Alana. She does all the video creation at this point, so my main role now that we have a person doing video full time is to direct the content, I would say, and the style of the videos.
Bjork Ostrom: Awesome. There was a time, like you were talking about, when you were doing everything for Pinch of Yum, that I had a bigger role in the videos, but that’s changed now, and Alana is our video specialist. She handles all things video. Alana, do you want to talk about what a typical day or week could look like for you?
Alana Woolley: Sure. Hi everybody, I’m Alana. My role is the video specialist, so I work with Krista who is our shoot assistant, and we take Pinch of Yum content and other content. Two days a week, we’ll film those recipes, and turn them into recipe videos. Then the other three days of the week, I spend editing those videos so that we can post them on the blog and on Pinch of Yum social media sites.
Bjork Ostrom: Cool, so we have a broad range of people and experiences here with Alana and Lindsay. We have some questions from earlier in the day, so for the podcast listeners, the recipe video bootcamp, just so you know what happened, was we spent the entire day today talking about the process that we use on Pinch of Yum for shooting and editing videos. Lindsay talked about using an iPhone, and the editing was in the iPhone. Then Alana talked about shooting with the DSLR, and then talked about editing as well. We’re going to have lots of questions all across the board as it relates to the video process for Pinch of Yum.
As a side note, again, for podcast listeners, if you are interested in catching any of these courses, they are a part of Food Blogger Pro, so for any Food Blogger Pro members, you can go ahead and check those out in the bootcamp video area. Bootcamp sounds super intense, but it’s actually us just talking about how to shoot and edit videos, not like an actual bootcamp. Let’s jump into some of the questions here. First question coming in is about sharing and promoting. Any best practices when it comes to the process of sharing and promoting the videos? Lindsay, I’ll start with you by asking when you think about the different platforms, is it different for every platform how you share videos, and what is your focus right now from a platform perspective?
Lindsay Ostrom: I mean for us, what we primarily end up doing is focusing our content, direction, and style, and all of that on Instagram, and how that content will perform on Instagram, and how it will really be best optimized for Instagram, and that’s just because Instagram is our top performing platform. That’s where we have the most followers. That’s where our videos get the most engagement and views and things like that. From there, we’ll take that video, and share it across other platforms, so Alana will actually a lot of times tweak little things that make a video for Instagram maybe better optimized for Facebook or better optimized for YouTube.
For example, on Facebook, a lot of times, we’ll have teasers. We’re always experimenting with this book on Instagram and Facebook. Is it best practice to put a little teaser of the completed recipe at the beginning, and which platforms is that best practice for? Right now, I don’t know. I guess right now, I would say maybe Facebook over Instagram, we’re doing that less and less on Instagram. Then for YouTube, another thing would be like, and Alana can talk again more about this at greater length and detail about this, but doing some different things with the logo side at the end or the different calls to action.
For example, on Instagram, our ending slide says Pinch of Yum, which is the accounting, and then instead of saying, “Go to pinchofyum.com for the recipe,” which isn’t a natural behavior on Instagram, we have our call-to-action on that ending slide, say, “Follow @pinchofyum for more recipes.” Our call-to-action is native within the platform that we’re sharing. I think little things like that are how we really optimize the content for the different platforms. We’re not actually filming different videos, like a long-form video for YouTube, and a short-form video for Facebook and Instagram. We’re using the same content, but we’re just tweaking it, and my new way is to really optimize it for the different platforms.
Bjork Ostrom: Got it. Alana, can you talk about from an editing perspective some of the ways that it looks a little bit different, and maybe some of the things that we’ve changed for different social platforms? Are things different in the beginning? Are things different at the end? Were using the same video in general, but on the editing side, there’s some promotional things that look a little bit different, so can you talk about what those are?
Alana Woolley: Yes sure. Lindsay hit a lot of really good points. The biggest difference between the videos that we’re posting on the different platforms are like Lindsay said, that end card, that call-to-action on YouTube, because we have a little bit more time to work with, and there’s not that one minute limit on videos. You can add links within the videos on YouTube. We have an end card that doesn’t just say, “Follow us at Pinch of Yum on this platform,” but it also has links to the website, to the YouTube channel, to other recipes you can find. There’s more options and more time for people to engage with that video at the end.
Then for Instagram and Facebook, it’s an ever evolving game trying to figure out what makes videos perform well. The intro, the little two-second teaser, where I was trying to figure out, it seems to perform better on Facebook than Instagram, but that’s always changing as the algorithm changes, so it’s just little tweaks like that, but the main content of the video is pretty much the same across the two.
Bjork Ostrom: The big thing with YouTube that’s interesting is they have so much functionality for interacting with the video within the video. Like you said, you can include a link to your blog. At the end, you could say, within the video, you could say, “Click here to get access to the full recipe.” You could link to another video within YouTube, which isn’t as possible to do with Instagram for instance. You can put a message there, but that message isn’t going to be something that people are going to be able to click and interact with. Different strategies there, and you can check out the different videos that we have to see how we do that a little bit differently.
A question coming in that has to do with the specifics around food, so this would be for both of you because you both have experience with this one. I’ll start with you, and then Lindsay if you have anything to add. Are there specific foods that are really tricky to shoot? Video usually takes a little bit longer than photography. Are there specific types of food that are difficult to shoot? If so, with those videos, what would your tips be for when you do have a recipe that is that type of food?
Alana Woolley: That’s a really frustrating part of filming food is especially when you know that a dish is really delicious, but it doesn’t come off that way, either because it’s not very colorful, or it’s like a weird texture. We do our best to find the pieces of that recipe or the different elements that do look the most delicious, the most mouthwatering, and really try to show off what that is. If it’s a soup, it’s not going to look super interesting in the bowl. If it’s a pureed soup or something, so we’ll try to get really closeup shots of a bread dipping into it, so you can see the texture of the soup, or adding a little swish of oil or something to show off those parts that are the most appetizing to look at, and not waste time just doing the same kinds of shots for every video. That’s not going to show off what is best about it.
Bjork Ostrom: Lindsay, this would be more for photography for you, but I guess it would also cross over. Are there certain types of food that are difficult, and any advice for people when they’re looking to shoot those types of food?
Lindsay Ostrom: I think, everything Alana said is exactly spot on. For both video and photography, we’re constantly thinking, “How does this food look best?” Foods that are consistently pretty challenging would be cheesy foods, like Alana said, like pureed smoothed flat foods or even something that’s not pureed, but just brown and lumpy. Like, I’m imagining a lentil soup. It doesn’t have a lot of vibrant color to it. This is a medium good example. We just did a sweet potato nest with an egg cracked in the middle of it. It looked really nice as is. I mean, eggs usually are pretty good to work with as long as you can get the yolk cooked just right, because it will make a really nice shot to dig your fork into it, and have the yolk be runny assuming that you’re into runny yolks.
If you’re not, you should talk to me about that because I will convert you. We have these cute little nests, and we’re like, “Oh, this looked great. They’re delicious,” but then it’s saying, “Okay, what could take that and make it just one level better?” Texturally and lighting wise, everything with those actually looked good, but they were just a little bit more interesting when we put some little micro greens up on top or after the side, or a couple slices of avocado just to add some color variety. I would say the specific foods that are probably like when I think of the category that’s the most challenging, it’s probably cheesy foods or brown lumpy foods in the soup and casserole category.
Then when I think of how we tackle that, it would be anything from paying attention to texture, paying attention to color, and then paying attention to form. Let me think of a good example. Let’s say the beer cheese soup. We’re in the middle of filming this beer cheese soup. That’s oh my gosh, it’s just been kind of … We’ve had to many rounds of it because we want to get the cheese melted just right so that it looks perfectly smooth. I think, we’ve made it a total of six different times, and we’re still going to be making it again to get it just right, but when it will look the best, it might not necessarily be like Alana said, when it’s in the bowls, when it’s just flat in a bowl. It might actually look best when a big ladle is going into the soup pot.
Then we’re really paying attention to that specific shot as opposed to just doing it the normal way that we do everything else. I think, if you can think how does this food look best? Another example is I did a … it was a brown, just completely brown colored vegan chocolate pie last summer. I mean, a pie is pretty beautiful to work with, but it didn’t have any toppings, that it was pretty flat, basic, and brown. The crust was brown, but the thing that really was awesome about that pie was the texture. It was like a buttery thick dense texture. This is a photography example, but I think it crosses over to video as well.
We were really careful about how that was chilled so that it was just thick enough so that when we put a fork into it, you could see the lines of the fork running through that slice, which gave you a really, I think, intimate feel of what would this look like, what would this taste like if I had it right in front of me? That’s not necessarily needing to pile a bunch of stuff on top, and make it super fancy, but it’s just knowing that the best thing about this pie is its texture, and then really leaning into that with how we visually represent it.
Bjork Ostrom: Awesome. Really good things to consider. One of the takeaways I feel like is to think creatively, to not just say, “This I how I always shoot video, and this is what I’m going to do for this, but to think creatively and say, ”Okay, given what I’m shooting, how am I going to represent that? It might require me to think creatively and think outside the box a little bit.”
Lindsay Ostrom: Yes, and can I say something else about that?
Bjork Ostrom: Yes.
Lindsay Ostrom: Other specific things that I’m thinking of as they relate to cheese, because I know sometimes, it’s hard to take these generic … It’s helpful to have some really specific things, so one thing I always say with cheese is have everything set up. Like, get your camera settings right. Get everything all set so that when you pull something out of the oven, you can literally bring it over, set it down, and you’re like even pull your placeholder pan out. Put your real pan in, and then take that big scoop out so you can get the cheese while it’s still really hot. I feel like cheese is one of the few things that you can’t go back as easily. You have to get the timing just right, otherwise it’s going to tighten up or get congealed and not be melty in the way that you want it to be.
Another thing that I know Alana and Krista do quite a bit with the videos, and I do this a decent amount with photography too is returning something to the microwave, and maybe stuffing a little more cheese in if we’re trying to get a specific shot of let’s say a grilled cheese pulling apart. Alana, did you have to do that at all for the crunchwrap that we just posted, when you guys did the cut for the crunchwrap?
Alana Woolley: Yes.
Lindsay Ostrom: Putting in like an extra layer of cheese or something, is that what you did?
Alana Woolley: Yes, especially for those pull shots. If you cut it, sometimes, the cheese doesn’t re-stick together, so we stick a little bit more cheese in there and melt that so that when it’s already cut, pull it apart, the cheese is ready to go and melted and not sitting around.
Lindsay Ostrom: Yeah. Those are some of the super on a really practical level, and specifically with, I think, my/our toughest category, which is cheese. Cheese can be either amazing or really difficult, but those would be some of the specific things that we would do on that category.
Bjork Ostrom: Great. A question about brands. Brands are obviously interested in working with video, because they are able to showcase their product in a way that is natural and also a little bit more enticing than it would be with a photo. I know for Pinch of Yum, that’s one of the things that we hear a lot is brands would be interested in working with video, sometimes not even on the blog, just strictly on social media and Instagram or other platforms. Alana, I would be interested to hear you talk a little bit about the ways that you are able to naturally include a product into a video. What do you find? Do you have to go out of your way to do this really strong product placement?
Are you able to integrate that in easily? What does that look like for somebody that’s never worked with a brand before in terms of including a product when they’re showcasing that on the video? Is there anything else they should consider in terms of how that video is presented, like disclosure or something like that?
Alana Woolley: Yes. We try to feature brands in the video in a way that feels seamless and … We try to choose shops that we would use for just a regular video, and not a sponsored video so that it doesn’t feel different or it doesn’t feel like it is a totally a separate thing from what we’re already doing and already publishing all the time, so finding always to if it’s from the overhead, maybe instead of just dumping a tomato sauce into the thing, you show the jar as it’s going in instead of having this total separate scenes that have just to show off this one jar or container or whatever the product might be.
Then we also do include the logo for brands twice in the videos for our social media. One is with a little banner that comes in in the first few seconds of the video. That’s pretty small, but still noticeable, but not too intrusive into the video. That just says, “This video is sponsored by whatever the brand is.” Then at the very end, on our little call-to-action page, where it says, “Pinch of Yum, follow us here,” and then we’ll put the brand logo there as well. Usually, you just one shot, product shot in the video, and that shot, we try to have matched the normals shots that we do for our every other video.
Bjork Ostrom: It’s interesting that you say that. I always viewed it as disclosure, but when you said that, it’s like, “Oh yeah, that’s not just a disclosure like we’re partnering with this brand.” It’s also a chance for them to get their logo in front of people, so it’s branding PR, so it’s a win for them, three different places, in the beginning and when they have the product placement, which is where I’d normally would think of that being the most value, but then at the end again when the logo comes up.
Lindsay, a question for you, when you’re working with brands, how are the ways that you think about balancing the brand relationship with the brand of Pinch of Yum? Pinch of Yum has a look and a feel and a style. Then in some ways, it has to mix together with another company, so how do you go about doing that stylistically from a recipe standpoint, from a content creation standpoint? What does that look like Lindsay? Alana, if you have any thoughts after Lindsay, I’d like to hear them.
Lindsay Ostrom: I think, it is a process. I think, when I started Pinch of Yum, and when we first started getting pitched to do videos, it’s different. You’re in a different place, and you are more eager to take any projects that come your way. I think, as we’ve developed our brand and as we’ve developed our ability to create and share these videos, we also are able to be more particular about who we work with in a way that that really feels like a good brand match between us and the people that we work with. What that would look like, I just had a check in with Jenna a little bit ago.
Jenna is our communications manager for Pinch of Yum. She manages a lot of the brand relationships, and she had four new brands over the last couple weeks that we needed to go over some proposal-related things for. There’s one of those four that is within budget, and it’s within the scope of what we normally do, but I don’t feel like it’s a super great product fit, and she doesn’t either. Together, we’re saying, “I don’t think that this is the right brand to work with, because I don’t know that this product is going to land really well with our readers.” A lot of our readers/ Instagram followers in this case, because we’re talking about videos specifically and social media, but a lot of that decision comes with time.
It comes with really knowing who you’re reaching and what you’re good at, and what messages you’re able to most effectively communicate to the people that are listening to you. I feel like that’s something that if you’re feeling frustrated with that, that’s okay because that takes time. It takes a long time to develop. I feel really solid with where Pinch of Yum is today in that regard, but I also feel like two years ago even, two years isn’t that long. Two years ago, it was a lot different for us, because we were just getting into the video game. We’d have sponsors, and we’d be super excited. We wanted to do more of that, so we were in more of a yes mindset.
Now, we’re really thinking about what are brand core values, what are a potential brand partner’s brand core values, and how do we pick brands that really lined up with what we’re trying to communicate?
Bjork Ostrom: One of the things that I hear you say a couple of times that I think is important to point out is that it’s a process, and it’s an evolution, and to not get overwhelmed in the early stages if you feel like you don’t have it figured out, because nobody ever has it fully figured out. Embrace the process, and be okay. Knowing that things might feel a little bit weird or off, but as you go forward, as you improve, as you figure things out, it will get better and better, but it doesn’t have to be good right off the bat, which I think is encouraging for people to hear.
Alana, anything that you’d add from a brand perspective in terms of when you’re shooting a video that you know you’re going to partner with a brand on? Are there any changes that you’re making stylistically, or for the most part, do you say, “Hey, this is going to be the same style, but we’re going to be making the adjustments to include our brand product placements somewhere throughout the video?”
Alana Woolley: Yeah, I think, we tried to have it matched on sponsored videos as much as possible, just paying close attention to including those packaging shots, and really showing off whatever the product is that they want us to promote. I think, what Lindsay said, having working with brands and products and foods that really match your blog’s brand is really important and really helpful for us, because then, the kinds of recipes that we’re filming feel like any other Pinch of Yum recipe, and we’re not going out of our way to create something totally different for a brand that doesn’t fit our style.
Bjork Ostrom: Right, it makes sense. One of the question that came in from the chat here, so again, people are going to be listening to this on the podcast, but there’s also people listening to this live and real time, so we have some questions coming in from people that are watching, is a question about the surfaces that Pinch of Yum uses. Also, for people that were watching the bootcamp, there is this cart that we had. Can you talk about in general what that cart is, and how that works in surfaces, and the gear that Pinch of Yum has, not necessarily the camera gear, but everything around that, the things that help you to shoot recipe videos effectively? If you could chat about that, Alana, that would be great.
Alana Woolley: Sure. The surfaces or I guess surface that we use 99% of the time is a marble, a white marble pastry board. Ours is 16 inches by 24 inches. It’s not humongous, but it’s big enough that we can fit pots and pans on it. They’re not going to overflow over the sides if the board. Then we shoot on, I think, it’s an IKEA table. It’s like a kitchen island kind of a table. We put the surface on that because the table is big enough to hold the tripod and all of our extra dishes and everything else. Then the marble is just one little surface on top of that table. I like this table, because it has a couple shelves on the side too, so we can have paper towels and oven mitts and whatever we might need on hand and ready to go at this shooting table.
Bjork Ostrom: Great. A question came in about how you use a monitor. Pinch of Yum, when you’re shooting, Alana, you have the camera, but then you also have a little monitor where you’re able to see what’s on the camera screen. Somebody was asking if you can use your phone to monitor what’s on the screen. Is that screen that you have, the monitor there, could that be a phone that you use to connect it and sink it over, or is that a special piece of equipment that’s made specifically for cameras?
Alana Woolley: Our monitor is made for cameras. It’s a field monitor. It’s just a little seven-inch small HD is the brand. That’s connected to the camera using an HTMI cord. I’m not sure if you could do the same thing with a phone unless your camera had some wifi connection, and I don’t know if there’s even apps for that on the phone, but if you don’t want to splurge on a monitor, there are a lot of programs that camera companies will make for your computer. I know Canon has one, or you can tether your computer to the camera, and then see what’s on your camera screen on your computer, and use your computer monitor as a little field monitor.
Bjork Ostrom: Great. The best way to find that would probably be to search for your camera name, plus … probably not monitor, it would be camera name, plus … What would the additional search field that they would use to be able to find that? Do you have thoughts on what that would be?
Alana Woolley: For Canon, it’s EOS utility, and that’s from the manufacturer website, and I’m sure it’s something similar for Sony and Nikon.
Bjork Ostrom: Got it, cool, but point being that you don’t need to purchase this separate piece of equipment, a lot of times, what will happen is you can get a cord that connects your camera to your computer via USB. I would guess, usually that happens, or usually, that’s the connector cord that you’d use. Then you can see what is on your camera, which is really nice in general, but especially when it’s overhead, and you can’t get up there. A lot of times, you can control it from there as well, I think. Is that right?
Alana Woolley: Yeah, we can start recording and change your settings and everything right from the computer.
Bjork Ostrom: Cool. Somebody just said in the chat, “It’s control my Nikon. It is great for Nikon.” That looks like something that’s somebody’s using in the chat. A question coming in, Lindsay, I would be interested to hear you talk about this. Alana, you could weigh in on this as well. Let’s say that you are going to be shooting the crunchwrap. We just did that with Pinch of Yum. I have been lucky enough to taste test a few rounds of that, and I have also insisted that it’d be made on other nights after taste testing it, a great recipe. Wondering if when you’re preparing for that shoot, do you sit down and say, “Okay, this is exactly how I want to go about shooting it. I want to do these steps in this quarter?”
From a high level brand perspective, Lindsay, Pinch of Yum brand perspective, do you come to the table, and meet with Alana, and say, “Here is what we want to do, and here is how we want to go about shooting it. Make sure to get this angle here and this overhead shot there?” What does that look like in terms of the planning process, and how has that evolved over time?
Lindsay Ostrom: In terms of video, we’re speaking specifically about video, Alana pretty much … she pretty much takes it and runs with it at this point, but if we rewind to when she started, and when we were just starting to work together as a team, there was more conversation about that. There was a little bit more happening in terms of story boarding or even building a template storyboard, so we could say, “Okay, on every recipe video, we’re going to have this angle for when the ingredients get added, then we’re going to do this angle for this.” Obviously, that’s going to be different for every recipe depending on what the steps are.
Alana and I are consulting pretty regularly on, “Hey, we have this video coming up. It is this particular type of recipe. I don’t think our traditional angles are going to work for it, so what if we try this type of angle instead?” There’s a lot of that happening on both of our ends, where I’m bringing that to the table, or she’s bringing up an idea. Now, there is not more collaboration, but this is just a little bit more fluid, so it’s more on a case by case basis, whereas in the beginning when we started working together, I mean, you’re just trying to learn how each other works.
For me, I am trying to communicate the brand and the style of Pinch of Yum to her as a new person to our team, and so there was more of that that was happening in the beginning. I think, now, and Alana, you could probably speak to this, but I think now, some of that is just like in your head. It’s like with photography, I have a little shot list mentally in my head. I don’t need to have it written down, but in my head, I know generally what types of shots I’m looking for. I’m looking for a beauty shot. I’m looking for some in-process shots. I’m wanting to get as closeup side angle so that I have some variety of shots within a post. That would be true for video as well.
Bjork Ostrom: Great. Anything you’d add to that, Alana?
Alana Woolley: I think, at the beginning, like Lindsay said, there is more conversation around it, and we worked off of a pre-production form. There was every step of the recipe listed out, every shot that we wanted to get, every ingredient, every detail of the shoot is planned that way ahead of time so that when we sat down to shoot, we knew exactly what to do, exactly what shots to get. Then as we started making more and more videos, we had the same routines for different types of recipes. Now, we’re at the point where I can look at a recipe, and some recipes, if they’re more complicated, I will write out a story board, or write out the specific shots that I think are important to get in order to make that recipe flow better, and fit into that one minute timeline for Instagram.
For the most part, I think, Krista and I can take a recipe, and know which shots we need to get, and how to approach it, but that just comes from doing so many of them.
Bjork Ostrom: Great. That makes sense.
Lindsay Ostrom: One thing to add would be on the back side of things. Our process now is … Alana creates a video. We have it in Dropbox. This is just to give people an idea of how it works from a team perspective, but she has the video in Dropbox, and currently, I’m the person that’s approving those or the final run through. Does everything look like? Does the recipe look right? I’ll go through all of those videos, and give approval or send notes to her, and say, “Hey, one thing, I was thinking let’s word this a little bit differently with this text, or can we try to go back tomorrow, and get one more shot of that soup being scooped out with a spoon?”
Then we also have monthly video meetings that are pretty important times for us to come together, and say, “Hey, what are some new style things that we might want to try?” I’ll often bookmark sources of inspiration or videos I see that, I think, “Wow, that’s a really interesting idea. I haven’t seen that before.” I’ll bring that to the team, and say like, “Hey Alana, what would this look like next month to try this particular new style?” That’s happening. It’s just happening more after the fact and within the context of these monthly meetings, these monthly check-ins. Those could be things like, “Hey, I was thinking, what if we try no teasers this month at the beginning, or what if we try removing text all together, or what if we try taking more of a stop motion approach for some of our videos or closeup angles, or any of those different kinds of things, changing out backgrounds?”
It could be a variety of things. Those things are always being communicated to. It’s just happening, I would say, in a context, in a confined context. One thing I found helpful, and Alana I’m sure feels this way, is that instead of me always being like, “Idea, idea, idea,” and sending them to her, and having that be all the time to put some parameters around that, and say, “Here is where we keep track of it. Here is the one time a month that we talk about it, and then make a plan.” Then using that as our lunch pad for any new stylistic ideas for our videos.
Bjork Ostrom: Awesome, great,
Alana Woolley: It also helps, I think, month by month to look back at what we did the previous month instead of just trying new ideas all the time, but to have this month, we’re going to try this thing. Then a month later, we can look and see how did that perform? Is that something that we want to continue doing? Segmenting it that way.
Bjork Ostrom: I think, it’s important for people to hear just not only what’s involved with editing and shooting, but also what’s involved outside of that, because a lot of thinking and intentional work goes into the content. It’s not just how do you produce the content, it’s what content are you producing. That’s such a big part of the story. I think, sometimes, that can get lost as we get into the specifics of gear and equipment and what editing software do you use, which speaking of is a good lead into the next question about gear. Somebody had a question about when you’re shooting with two angles, so let’s say you have an overhead. You also have something on the side.
If you’re lucky enough to have two cameras, is it an issue if you’re doing that, and it’s two different types of cameras? Do you need to have the same type of camera if you’re going to be shooting two different types of angles? Alana, do you have any thoughts on that?
Alana Woolley: No. I think, in general, you shouldn’t be able to tell what kind of camera your footage is shot with, but you will be able to tell the difference if you’re shooting with different frame rates, or different camera settings. The biggest thing, it doesn’t matter if you’re using two different kinds of cameras, just that the settings on those two cameras match so that when you go to edit, your project settings will be consistent throughout the entire video.
Bjork Ostrom: Great. For those that want to know the different gear that we use for Pinch of Yum videos, you can go to foodbloggerpro.com/videotips. That is with no dash, just videotips. Now, I’ll bring you to – it’s a little PDF download that we have that outlines what we would consider the seven essentials tools for video including the types of cameras that we use, and software and stuff like that. You can check that out, videotips, foodbloggerpro.com/videotips. Some other questions coming in, some questions about surfaces, so we talked about the surface that we use. Have you ever tried any other surfaces? Sometimes, you probably use vinyl surfaces. One of the companies that we partner with for Food Blogger Pro, Food Blogger Pro members get a discount on Erickson Woodworks, which is another great company.
Lindsay, do you have any thoughts on surfaces from a stylist’s extent point in terms of Pinch of Yum content?
Lindsay Ostrom: Yes, I do. I know that a lot of people love vinyl. I feel like vinyl is like a love-hate. For most people, either they love it or they hate it. I think, I’m in the not supper excited category about vinyl. Advantages of vinyl would be that it’s easier to clean. It’s cheaper. It’s transportable. It’s just like a really good low maintenance option. It’s not going to be super heavy to carry around. Those are all good things. I’m a little bit particular stylistically about wanting things to look like the real thing. Even the really, really nice Erickson Woodworks boards that I have, I prefer them to look like wood or some other wood-related surface instead of the wood board that’s painted to look like marble.
My top preference would be if I want it to look like marble, I want to get marble. If I want it to look like wood, I want to get wood. That kind of a thing would be my preference stylistically, but we have four Pinch of Yum videos, we have played around with some darker backgrounds. Some of the Erickson Woodworks boards that we have, we have used, I think, it was kind of like a gray concrete looking surface that we’ve used a few times. I would say we lean or I lean more towards a higher contrast look. Whether that’s a super light background like the marble, or even something just white, I would probably like pretty well, just a plain white or something that goes pretty dark, where in either case, the food pops off really nicely.
My visual style for my photography is pretty high contrast. I like things to pop. Those two background surfaces allow that to happen pretty easily. There was a time where we were using the gray surfaces, the more neutral colors. I feel like those are a little more tricky, because just the food doesn’t pop as easily. I think, there are some situations where that fits the style. I think, we learned through trial and error that our preference was probably towards either the really light or the really dark surfaces. Between the two, we lean usually more towards a really light surface.
Bjork Ostrom: Got it. The followup question with that, Alana, somebody was asking about the types of dishes that you use. Do you have to use a certain type of dish? Let’s say you used one that is super shiny. Do you get reflections on that? Do you have to be intentional with how you are choosing what you’re plating the meal on or the recipe? It wouldn’t have to be a full meal.
Alana Woolley: Yes. In addition to just stylistically what would look nicest with whatever recipe we’re shooting, we’re also keeping in mind what plays well with shooting on video. Anything that’s super shiny or reflective will reflect either the camera equipment right above it, or sometimes the studio lights, more orange lights that are not natural light, so we try to stick with matte plates and dishes. We also color wise, I think, try to stick with things that look nice with the food and with the marble surface that we’re using.
Bjork Ostrom: That makes sense. Lindsay, somebody asked about ways to make a video stand out. This is Maria. She said, “It feels like all food videos on social media look the same, so any advice for people that are looking for something that hooks people in or something that pops and really draws people? What are some things that people should consider?”
Lindsay Ostrom: That’s a very good question. I would agree that a lot of videos look the same. That’s true for Pinch of Yum videos as well. We follow a pretty universal style for food videos, which is just that overhead hands only style. My gut reaction is to say just anything that surprises people is going to keep them watching. If you can start your video in a way that people are … Imagine people scrolling through their feed, or looking at a discover page with a bunch of different pictures. Again, I’m focusing primarily on Instagram, but the same would be true on Facebook. Imagine they are scrolling through a feed, and for something to really pop out, there’s going to have to be something really unique about it.
It doesn’t mean your recipes have to be super crazy, but maybe if it feels like … I know you can’t really see me super well, but like you’re a normal place to stand when you film your grilled cheese pulling apart would be right here. Try going super, super closeup. Try getting a super closeup on your cheese pull. Another thing for Instagram would be try choosing a thumbnail that plays really nicely with the start of your video. Pro tip, here is a pro tip. Don’t choose a thumbnail is the same as the start of your video, because what happens is when people scroll through Instagram, the first thing they see is just a flash of the thumbnail, and then it starts into the video, but sometimes, there’s a little bit of a lag in loading a video, and so if that is the same as the starting frame of your video, in my opinion, it’s not interesting enough to keep people watching.
They’re just going to keep scrolling past, because it’s flat. It doesn’t look like a big change. For example, I might choose a super nice overhead shot of let’s say spaghetti or something for my thumbnail, but then the first shot that we include is something with a little more action. It’s not that necessarily just that overhead shot, so it’s not like a continuous three seconds of the overhead shot of spaghetti. It changes immediately, and pulls people in. I think, there’s definitely something to be said about videos that include you, that include more of the personality behind your blog. I don’t know. I feel it’s a great debate amongst food video creators or food publishers.
In my opinion, it really depends on if you want to position yourself as an influencer, or if you want to have broad universal like, “I am a food content producer, and I just put food content out there.” I always think of tasty as an example of this, just producing mass amounts of food content. We don’t know who Tasty is. We don’t know who is doing Tasty videos. We don’t know whose hands they are. We just know they’re just going to have a lot of food for us, whereas someone being personally in the video, I think, more of like a food network personality.
When you think about your brand, and standing out, I think, that’s an important first distinction as well. It’s not just thinking like, “How can I, you know, have little gimmicks to make things more fun, but what am I actually trying to be with my video? Am I trying to just be like, ”Hey, look at this great recipe, or do I want to position myself as someone who’s going to talk to people about food, someone who I am as much a part of the content as the food itself?”
Bjork Ostrom: Great. Another question was coming in, and it had to do with different platforms. This one is a question specifically about YouTube. I feel like I can pick this one up to give you guys a break. The question was, “What is the recommended video length for YouTube?” I’m by no means am a YouTube expert, but what I do know from conversations and what I’ve read is that one of the big factors in how the algorithm for YouTube works is this idea of watch time, so how long are people watching your videos? Do they watch additional videos of yours once they’re done with the first video that they’ve watched?
That influences whether YouTube recommends your videos to other people, which then makes more people watch them. If more people watch them, then it’s a video that is sticky if they’re watching a lot of it, so it works as kind of a snowball, whereas with Instagram or Facebook, or if you’re doing video on Twitter, the idea with these is that they’re pretty short-form types of content and medium, the different types of medium, but it’s also restrictive in a lot of ways. Like, you can’t post a super long video on Instagram. With YouTube, there might be some strategy in posting a longer video if it’s engaging throughout.
If you have a 20-minute tutorial video on how to make a certain recipe, and the entire time, it’s really engaging and people watch it all the way through, that’s going to be great, because YouTube is going to see that. It’s going to be a lot of watch time for that video. In some ways, the traditional one-minute recipe video like we’re creating with Instagram isn’t the most beneficial type of content for YouTube, because it’s a tiny little snippet of video, and it’s not going to have much watch time for your account in the media that you’re creating.
If you want to go deep on YouTube, the strategy is going to be a little bit different, because watch time is a really important factor for the videos that you’re creating there. They’re probably going to be longer form than they would be on other platforms. We’re going to keep diving into these questions here.
Lindsay Ostrom: Bjork, can I add one other thing related to that last question?
Bjork Ostrom: Please.
Lindsay Ostrom: This is what happened as the question goes out, and then I answer, and then you talk, and then I think of some more things. This is my answer part two. I think, and a really important thing to consider in making your video standout is, and important enough that I wanted to jump in-
Bjork Ostrom: Jump in.
Lindsay Ostrom: … one more time, and say it.
Bjork Ostrom: Rewind.
Lindsay Ostrom: Yes, is just the content itself, what actually is being posted. You could have a super fun video of making muffins for example. It could be like the cutest muffin video you’ve ever seen, but if you’re trying to get something that’s going to break the internet, I mean, in whatever scale that means to you, muffins probably aren’t going to do it, because people make muffins pretty regularly. Most people know how to make them. The style of making them is pretty much the same. You mix the dry. You mix the wet, and then you bake them into muffins. That’s not really surprising to people. It doesn’t make people say, “Oh my gosh, I should try that.” I think, that phrase is something we think about a lot with Pinch of Yum content.
It almost feels like, again, to go back to … I mentioned this in an earlier session, but that 70 to 80% of what drives performance really boils down to what the content is. You could have the most awesome recipe and video for hot chocolate, but it’s hot chocolate. It’s just by nature, not viral content. It’s not something people are going to be like, “Oh my gosh, hot chocolate. Look at this. We got to make this.” However, let’s say it’s loaded ice cream, boozy hot chocolate overflowing with chocolate lava. That’s something that’s going to make people say, “Oh my goodness, I need to try this. I’m going to take my friends. I’m going to send it to people.”
The video quality could be worse than your regular hot chocolate video, but it could actually perform better. The trick with this is trying to stay true to yourself and your brand, and not just trashing up everything you do in order to try to get it to go viral, and get the performance out of it, but we think the content itself is a major part of our video strategy. When we sit down for these monthly meetings, half of the time that we are spending talking is about not just the style of our videos, and what new stylistic elements we want to have, but literally, what recipes are going to land with people.
That is a huge driving force, and how to get your videos to standout is literally just content that’s interesting, that makes people say, “Oh my gosh, I need to try that,” and at the core, that’s valuable to people.
Bjork Ostrom: Is that a gut thing? How do you go about figuring out what those are, what are those?
Lindsay Ostrom: For us with Pinch of Yum, we are looking at trends of top performing videos, so regularly for us, and I think, this would probably be true across the board, but regularly for us, it’s healthy recipes. It’s pasta. It’s noodles. For us, drink and desserts aren’t super high performing. They’re just not our top winners. We still do that type of content sometimes, but we’re thinking strategically about that. We might not even say, “Hey, desserts do okay for us on Facebook, but on Instagram, that’s not what people are looking for,” and we want our content to consistently perform well, so we’re going to really hand select the content that goes on Instagram.
That’s what we do is we look at the data of the previous month, and we’re just always looking for those themes, and those are generally, the themes that we see is stuff that’s pretty approachable for people, that’s easy. It’s usually nothing super, super wild, but it might be a twist, like our meatless variation on something or something that has a little bit of a different flavor, generally healthy, but still feels like, “OMG, that’s a big pile of noodles,” kind of a thing.
Alana, would you add any food content trends to that list?
Alana Woolley: I don’t know. I feel like it’s always changing too. Even season to season, month by month, what’s doing well at that time of the year is always different.
Lindsay Ostrom: Another example, and this would be something that people could use. I just have to get the resource from Jenna in order to share it, to have it be shared, but Jenna has been following a Pin guideline calendar type thing, so she’s been following that for the type of content that’s going to perform well on Pinterest. We’ve been using that as a guide, that in combination with what has previously been effective for us in the last month. We’re using that to drive our content for the following month. When we sat down and we’re looking at the content for March, just or yesterday. Was it yesterday? This is like a long time ago.
Yesterday, we sat down, and we did that, but a lot of the content is focused around Easter, and salads, and spring recipes, and a lot of that comes from these guides for content that Jenna is using on different platforms, but we’re just pulling that information to use on content for videos. When we know that it’s for example, salads, this is a good season for salads, or lighter, crunchier, whatever things, we’re then going to Pinch of Yum content, and saying, “What are our best salads?” Last year, what salads did people love? Let’s revisit those, and let’s think of variations on them. We might take even the same salad recipe.
There might not even be new blog content for that, but we might just remake it, and this time, we’re going to use tofu instead of chicken, or this time, we’re going to remove one of the weird ingredients, and add something a little more normal. We’re constantly thinking about that, and a huge, huge part of that is looking at how previous content has performed in those trends.
Bjork Ostrom: Cool. A great takeaway. One of the questions that somebody had was a technical question. They’re wondering about the video quality when you are shooting. When you’re shooting a photo, we know that you can set the size to be a really small JPG, so you can have thousands of images that are showing up on your SD card, or you can do raw. The same also exists for videos. Are you shooting in the highest possible format for video, and if so, what’s the reasoning behind that? Alana, would you be up for taking that one?
Alana Woolley: Sure. We shoot our videos with 1920×1080 pixels, which is not the highest quality video you can record, but it’s the highest quality that you can post on Instagram, and it’s the recommended quality for YouTube, so it’s very high quality. It’s HD, but it’s not 4K. Anything higher quality would be you would only need to record that if you are going to project it in a theater, or post it somewhere with 4K viewing capabilities. 1080P is what we shoot in, and that’s the highest quality for most internet content.
Bjork Ostrom: It’s interesting you see 4K popping up here and there with YouTube, but it’s also one of those things, where it’s so rare that people are using 4K when they’re streaming content, because it’s such a huge download, so it would take so much internet bandwidth. For those that aren’t super into detailed shots or really need that 4K, you can have that as the 1920×1080. Even then, people that are streaming probably are streaming at 720 or maybe not even full HD. We’re getting to the end here.
I want to make sure that anybody that is in the chat gets the chance to ask any other questions that they have for people that are attending this live. For people that are listening in on the podcast, sorry, but you can’t submit a question because by the time you hear it, it would already be done, but we’re going to try and hit as many of these as we can. Another question that I would be interested to hear you talk about, a little bit about, Lindsay, is in terms of video, and video interacting with content that you’re creating, are you trying to produce a video or thinking of a video being included with every recipe that you produce, or is the process for including and producing video is a little bit looser?
Like, one week, all of your posts maybe don’t have any videos. Then in another week, every post does have a video included. How does that look in terms of the production calendar with Pinch of Yum content?
Lindsay Ostrom: Most of the posts at this point do have a video. Most of the new posts, they don’t always have a post when they publish, or sorry, they don’t always have a video when they publish, but usually, within a week of publishing, I would say, there is a video that has come out that we are going back and embedding in that post. That is a positive thing obviously for anyone that comes across the post. It’s also potentially a helpful thing in terms of having really rich long-form like valuable content for people, so they’re staying on a page. We rank better in search results. In my opinion, since we have the team effort to be able to do it, there’s no downside to having those videos in each post.
The problem is I don’t produce as much blog post content as Alana and Krista are able to make for video content, so a lot of times, their video content, in a month, let’s say they can produce 16 videos. Maybe four of those, I’m using the example from our meeting yesterday, because I don’t have a ton of recipes coming up. I have a lot of other non-recipe content, but not a ton of recipes, so I maybe have four recipes from the blog that I’ll be giving them to produce the video, but that leaves us still with 12 videos that they can produce in a month, that I don’t have any blog content for them. In that case, what we’re doing is we’re going back …
That’s the content brainstorming piece I was talking about before, so we’re going back to old Pinch of Yum content. We’re looking at videos that were produced last time this year. We might even pull out some magazines and cookbooks, and say like, “Hey, it feels interesting and exciting, and something even if we could, let’s say, ”Oh, this is a great idea from a magazine, where we can make the video, and say, “We love this idea from Food Network Magazine or something like that.” I think, it’s a huge burden if you’re producing a ton of videos, and you feel like all of the content has to always be new.
It’s not always new. A lot of it is variations on older content. I feel like even in the year plus that Alana has been with us, we’ve worked through most of our video worthy existing Pinch of Yum content, and so now, it’s taking that, and just this month for the first time, we said, “What if we revisited content that actually already has a video, but it’s an old video?” Either we edited those videos to update them to match our current style or we made some of a compilation video, so five great recipes, five great dessert recipes for spring or something like that. In that way, we’re not necessarily creating something new. We’re just taking those existing pieces, and either re-recording them or repurposing them in a way that would be useful on social media.
I would say every once in a while, there is a recipe that we come up with as a team. That’s like, “Oh, this would make for a really great video, that then works backwards and comes back over to the blog, because we love it so much as a video, but more often than not, the blog content is those. If you could think of the 16 videos in a month that we’re producing, the blog content makes up for the first four to six pieces of video. Then those remaining 10 are individual. Some of them are sponsored. They’re not sponsored blog posts only social content or things that we come with just specifically for social media and for video.
Bjork Ostrom: Got it, great. We are coming to the end of our Q&A time here, but before we end, my last big question for each of you Alana and Lindsay is for those that are listening that are maybe a little bit nervous about taking the plunge into doing video, what would your advice be to people? This can be general high-level advice or specific if you want it to be, but what’s the one thing that you’d say to somebody who’s thinking about doing this, but maybe a little bit nervous? Alana, what would your piece of advice be? We’ll start with you.
Alana Woolley: My advice would be to just jump in. The hardest video you’re going to make is the first one, and then the second time you go to make a video, you’re going to know all the mistakes that you’ve made, and exactly how to approach it. Just start with what you have. You don’t have to go out, and get all this new equipment, and every little thing that we have to create a great recipe video. You can create a great video with just your phone and an hour of your time. Just jump into it. Don’t be intimidated, and, I think, you’ll find that it’s very fun once you start doing it.
Bjork Ostrom: Awesome, great advice, Alana. Thank. Lindsay, how about you, any advice you’d give people that are just starting out or maybe people that have been doing it for a while, and are still feeling like, “God, I don’t know if I know exactly what it is that I want to do?”
Lindsay Ostrom: My advice would be the same as Alana, but I won’t say the same thing, but I would second for sure everything that she said. Definitely, getting started is the hardest part, so if you can get past that, that’s a major win even if you have a medium good video, but to have my own point of advice for people who are just getting started or who’ve been doing it for a while, and looking to up their game or whatever, my advice would be to think about the content itself as the driving force behind your video. Rather than thinking about creating a video that looks perfect and beautiful, and matches your exact decision of what you want it to be, instead of thinking about all those things, which are important, but maybe less of a driver in the successive video, so instead of focusing on that, focus on the content itself.
Make a video that’s really helpful for people, or really inspiring or really interesting, just really interesting for people like, “Oh, I never thought to use avocados to make ice cream. That’s a great idea.” Really focus on that like, “OMG, I need to try that,” kind of mentality, and think content, content, content as it relates to performance of your videos.
Bjork Ostrom: Awesome, that’s great. That is a wrap for the Q&A part of the call today. Alana and Lindsay, thanks so much for coming in, really fun to chat with you guys. I feel like I always learn something as well on these calls, so it was fun for me to be a part of it as well. Thanks for being a part of it.
Lindsay Ostrom: Thanks Bjork. See yah.
Bjork Ostrom: See yah.
Alana Woolley: Thanks for tuning in everybody.
Bjork Ostrom: See yah, thanks.
Alexa Peduzzi: Hey friends, Alexa here. We hope you enjoyed this Q&A episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. If you’re looking to start a video, or maybe you’re looking to up your video game a little bit, my suggestion is just to jump into it. You’ll learn a lot along the way. I think you’ll find that the recording, editing, and sharing process is actually a ton of fun. We hope that this podcast episode gave you some inspiration to do some video on your own. I’m also here to bring you the reviewer of the week. This one comes from Kelly, from asideofsweet.com. It says, “You really can’t go wrong with any episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast, but the one that inspired this review was with Megan from Culinary Hill. I loved hearing about Megan’s perspective in finding a niche, but what really resonated with me was her commitment to investing in herself and her business.”
“Sometimes, the upfront price tags on something like that could be daunting, but it can really help take you to the next level. Thanks Megan and Bjork.” I love that. Thank you so much, Kelly, for that review. The episode that she’s talking about is number 93. You can find that by going to foodbloggerpro.com/93. It’s called How Finding A Niche Transformed a Business with Megan Hill from Culinary Hill. Honestly, this is one of our most popular episodes, so if you haven’t checked it out, or maybe it’s just been a while since you listened to it, it would be a great idea to check it out again.
From all of us here at Food Blogger Pro HQ, thanks so much for tuning in, and make it a great week.