118: How Discovering Your Brand Can Help You Grow with Gaby Dalkin

Welcome to episode 118 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Gaby Dalkin from What’s Gaby Cooking about understanding your brand, developing a product line, and working with a team.

Gaby’s blogging story isn’t the typical blogging story. She started as a private chef for Jessica Simpson, built a team, and even worked with Williams Sonoma on a product line. Oh, and she also managed to build a hugely successful food blog, What’s Gaby Cooking.

But all of her success is rooted in a strong understanding of her personal and blog brand. She has an acute understanding of her audiences across all of her platforms, and that understanding influences how she interacts with those audiences.

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117: How to Sustain a Successful Blog for 10+ Years with Maria Lichty

Welcome to episode 117 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Maria Lichty from Two Peas and Their Pod about how blogging has changed in the past 10 years.

When Maria started blogging at Two Peas and Their Pod, the food blogging industry looked quite different.

Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest weren’t around, videos weren’t as popular, and the industry as a whole was much smaller.

But Maria has learned to adapt to this quick-changing world and to work to her strengths while growing her blog. She has hired a team to help her manage her social media and video work while she focuses on the work she loves like recipe testing, photography, and more.

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116: Answering Questions about Sponsored Content with Danielle Liss and the Pinch of Yum Team

Welcome to episode 116 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, we’re sharing the Q&A from the Sponsored Content Bootcamp. You’ll hear Danielle Liss and the Pinch of Yum team talk about starting sponsored content, pricing your work, and reaching out to brands.

Sponsored content is a great way to generate income for your blog and make connections with brands you really love.

At the Sponsored Content Bootcamp on September 12, 2017, we showed attendees how to price their work, the tools you need to create sponsored content, and how the Pinch of Yum team handles their sponsored content work. We also held a Q&A at the end of the day where we answered questions from our attendees about sponsored content.

We’re sharing that Q&A with our podcast family today, and we couldn’t be more excited. Danielle Liss from Hashtag Legal and Businessese and Lindsay and Jenna from Pinch of Yum answer some of your questions about creating awesome sponsored content.

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115: How to Write a 5-Star Cookbook with Kathryne Taylor

Welcome to episode 115 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Kathryne Taylor from Cookie & Kate about how she decided her blog would have a food focus, when she chose to make her first hire, and her advice for future cookbook authors.

While Kathryne’s blog Cookie & Kate didn’t start out as a food blog, she transitioned to sharing healthy, whole food recipes. From there, Cookie & Kate became her full-time job, and she quickly learned the ins and outs of blogging, web development, and design.

Just a few months ago, Kathryne released her first cookbook, Love Real Food, which has gained a ton of praise (including nearly 200 5-star reviews on Amazon). She learned a lot from the cookbook publishing process, and she has a few tips that will help aspiring cookbook authors turn their ideas to realities.

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114: How to Run a Successful Blog as a Partnership with Polly Conner and Rachel Tiemeyer

Welcome to episode 114 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Polly Conner and Rachel Tiemeyer from Thriving Home Blog about working as a partnership on their blog.

A blog is typically started as a sole venture, but Polly and Rachel decided to start their blog, Thriving Home, as a team.

While they both have different personalities, they use those differences to their advantage to divide tasks and grow their business. But even though they’re running their blog as a team, anyone can take lessons away from the way they treat their blog as a business. You’ll learn how they made their first $1, the most important thing that makes their partnership work, and the intentional way they invest back into their business, and more.

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113: How to Gain 90K Instagram Followers in 2 Years with Ashley Walterhouse

Welcome to episode 113 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Ashley Walterhouse about working with brands, building her following, and growing her Instagram account to over 90K followers in two years.

Yep, that says 90K. In two years!

If you’re anything like me, you randomly post to Instagram whenever you remember to in hopes of gaining followers and getting some click-throughs to your website.

But Ashley’s social media success is proof that it’s helpful to have a strategy when growing your social media presence. Posting at the right times every day, engaging with comments, and sharing the right recipes all play into growing your Instagram account.

Ashley has cracked the code on Instagram growth and engagement, and she’s sharing how she managed to grow her two-year-old blog, Fit Mitten Kitchen, into a full-time job.

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112: Perfecting the Art of Food Photography with Taylor Mathis

Welcome to episode 112 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Taylor Mathis from Photographing FOOD about lighting, consistency, and his go-to equipment.

Photography is one of the most important aspects of food blogging. We’re always told that people eat with their eyes, and that couldn’t be more true when trying to gain a following as a blogger.

While Taylor started his photography career as a wedding photographer, his interests quickly settled on food photography. He has devoted his career to perfecting the art of food photography, and now he’s sharing what he has learned with you. His composition, lighting, and gear tips will give new insights into your photography setup and planning.

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103: Answering Questions about Recipe Videos with the Pinch of Yum Team

Welcome to episode 103 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks to Lindsay and Alana from Pinch of Yum about creating awesome recipe videos.

Spend five minutes on Facebook or Instagram, and I bet you’ll see at least one or two recipe videos in your feed.

Recipe videos are the thing for food bloggers right now, and we always get questions from bloggers about how they can make viral food videos that will help deliver value, boost engagement, and grow followings on social media.

That’s exactly what Alana, Bjork, and Lindsay talk about today.

Today we’re sharing the Q&A session from our recent One-Day Recipe Video Bootcamp event. Alana, Bjork, and Lindsay answer some of your questions about gear, lighting, writing engaging captions, and their personal success with recipe videos in this Q&A.

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100: How FBP Listeners Have Used the Podcast to Grow Their Blogs and Businesses

Welcome to episode 100 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, we’re celebrating our 100th episode with a special community episode!

There have been 99 Food Blogger Pro Podcast episodes before this one, and we’ve heard from a lot of amazing people. From full-time bloggers to SEO experts to social media pros, this podcast has seen no shortage of inspirational interviewees!

We’re really excited about this episode because we’re hearing from you. We asked our listeners what their favorite Food Blogger Pro Podcast episode was, and we’re so excited about the response. It’s so exciting to hear which episodes came to you at a specific point in your blogging career and how the podcast helped you overcome obstacles, become more confident, and grow your business.

We hope that this episode will help you find an episode you might have missed or remind you of an episode that you’d like to go back and listen to again. Thanks so much for a great 100 episodes!

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098: An Architect’s Journey to Becoming a Freelance Food Photographer with Ashley McLaughlin

a headshot of Ashley McLaughlin and the title of this Food Blogger Pro Podcast episode, 'An Architect’s Journey to Becoming a Freelance Food Photographer'

Welcome to episode 98 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Ashley McLaughlin from Edible Perspective about becoming a full-time freelance food photographer.

Architecture and food…it doesn’t sound like there would be many similarities between the two, right? But there are, and Ashley’s background in architecture helped her understand experience, perspective, and design in a culinary setting.

After staring her blog, Edible Perspective, as a way to stay creative, Ashley’s love of food transformed into a love of photography. After a long learning process, she went from a complete novice with a DSLR to understanding exposure meters, shooting in manual mode, and writing a food photography series on her blog. Now she’s a full-time freelance food photographer who has photographed multiple cookbooks for bloggers.

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