For those of you that are interested in food blogs, or want to start your own food blog, listen up and take notes because you’re about to learn from a pro. Stephanie Martinez is a Denton food blogger with a following of over thirty-two thousand people. She is also a Dentonite editor. Stephanie got her start on Instagram, back when it was only for iPhone users. It was a way for her to express herself, and suddenly her Instagram became a little less about just her, and more about her surroundings, her community, and thus her food blog was born. Denton Food (the name of her food blog) was a way to interact with everyone and show “Dentonites” that they didn’t have to go all the way to Dallas to get great food. The most important thing about running a food blog is “giving the people the content they want.” Go to all the new restaurant openings, find the small hole-in-the-wall mom and pop shops, order different things every time you go to your favorite restaurants, and always take your friends when you go, that way when you steal food from their plates you can call it taste-testing for your blog, which is true – kind of. Viewers love to be in-the-know, so let them know! Let your viewers know about secret little shops like Denton’s Back Dough. Queenie’s Steakhouse at 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights turns into a secret little doughnut shop that’s suppose to have some of the best doughnuts in Denton. Viewers also probably want to know which restaurants have a secret menu and what’s on it, which restaurant offers the best caprese salad, or who makes the best Korean barbeque, also who offers the cheapest drinks at happy hour. Something that is vital to every blogger is connection; connections to the community, connections to the mom and pop shop owners, restaurant go-ers, and connections to your viewers. You have to get out there and meet people, actually talk to the restaurant owners, if possible, because as not just a food blogger but any blogger, you have to know the right people. When it comes to maintaining your food blog, the most important thing is that you be active and post regularly. It takes hours to find new restaurants, have new creative content, and answer all your viewers questions. The time it takes to run a successful food blog is definitely a bit of a down side to running a food blog, but it’s the only down side. The up-side being, “the food of course”, going to all the events, like grand openings and food festivals, getting free food, there’s also a bit of exclusivity to it – getting to try things before everyone else.
As far as taking the pictures/ videos and editing software, though using a DXLR camera is better, don’t underestimate the quality of a picture taken on a Samsung Galaxy or iPhone, and just edit using InstaSize and VSCO cam. For camera’s, a Canon, specifically the Canon EOS Rebel T7i, is a really good choice, and highly recommended by most photographers. It gives you more control over what you are shooting, but it also comes with more rules. Like, never have the ISO above 800, 400 if it’s at night because if you do, your pictures will come out very grainy, and it’s better to shoot in raw instead of jpg – which is what most cameras are automatically set to. Shooting on an actual camera also makes it easier to edit things in Adobe Photoshop, or my personal favorite Adobe Lightroom CC.
What differentiates Stephanie’s blog, Denton Food, from other food blogs is the open lines of communication. Stephanie goes out of her way to interact with her viewers as much as she can. If someone has a suggestion on a restaurant she should review next, she’ll do it. She dedicates hours of her week just to answering her viewers questions, having good content and staying active is one of the ways how she got such an impressive following, it’s the best way to not only keep, but maintain viewers. Lastly, once you have an established blog with loyal followers and a growing following, you’ve set a posting schedule and have figured out how to balance your personal life with your blogging aspirations, then you need to start thinking about what’s next, what’s the next step? A YouTube channel! YouTube channels have gotten really popular within the last few years, since people discovered that being a YouTuber can be a real job and that successful one’s have a net worth in the millions. In an age where less and less people are reading, vlogging is important, but only after you have already established yourself to some viewers. YouTube is already saturated with food video bloggers, so, like you did with your digital food blog, you need to find a way to differentiate your video food blog from others. Once you do that you’ll get noticed, which is easier to do when you already have an established following, plus having a YouTube channel will allow you to reach millions of new viewers and transfer some of those new viewers on your digital blog.
Instagram: @stephlariss
Twitter: @DentonFood