Thinking about your food blog as providing a service is a great way to clarify your blog's identity and brand. With so many food blog's out there, having a unique brand is essential. In a previous post I talked about ways of clarifying your blog's identity, and answering this question does a similar thing.
more on providing a service in second part of post...
My food blog has undergone a few identity changes because I'm always thinking about this question. Each time I answer it, I feel closer and closer to developing a unique brand and identity. These are some of the questions I'm constantly asking myself when thinking about what service my blog provides:
What Will My Readers Gain?
Why Will They Return?
What Role Does My Blog Play In There Lives?
Can They Find This Content Anywhere Else?
Answering these questions will help clarify the type of service you are providing your readers. Once you find the 'service', cater to it in every post, comment, and link.
So, what service does your blog provide? I'd love to hear some of your answers in the comments!
Great question!!
ReplyDeleteI am a scientist and know a lot about healthy eating, so I offer advice and tips on that. However I am also an SF foodie so taste, adventure and presentation are also very important to me.
Specifically I cater to younger, single people living in urban areas that want to be healthy but don't really know how and don't want to sacrifice quality of life.
I provide regular tips on health (science) and seasonal shopping with accompanying recipes. Always fresh material, so that keeps them coming back.
Thanks Darya.
ReplyDeleteI really like that your blog has a clear point of view and the service you are providing is very evident. Congratulations!
Did you figure this out naturally or did you brainstorm, plan, etc?
First of all I'd like to thank Food Bloggers Unite. The advice here is brilliant, I even use some of the tips here for every post I do. I started my blog a bit over a month ago. The quality of the photographs have gone up and so did the traffic rate. There's much more I can learn so I keep coming back here. So big thanks to you, Danny.
ReplyDeleteI think it's of utmost importance to ask yourself what service you are providing to others. Here are my thoughts about it.
What will my readers gain? I'd like to offer service to 2 types of readership: On one hand, people who like to skim through food blogs, only look at the pictures and feel amused. That's why I only feature dishes that visually stand out (hence the blog name eye candy). On the other hand, I'd also like to give people who are more involved the opportunity to recreate the dishes I showcase. That's why I include recipes, technique explanations and step-by-step picture guides.
I hope that my readers return when they're a) simply bored or b) are looking for food presentation ideas for special events like national holidays, theme parties and so on. I still have to expand my archives to offer good service in this regard, though.
I don't expect my readership to return because they're looking for the world's best tomato sauce recipe, or how to make the perfect macarons, or because of my writing style. It's not that I'm not interested in this topics, but there are plenty bloggers that can do better on that score so I just want to focus on a small niche.
I try to offer content that can't be found somewhere else or at least content that is probably unknown to the readers. If I pick up an idea/recipe from another website, I ask myself: Do my readers know this idea? If yes, could I give it a twist so I can offer new content nonetheless? I read Japanese blogs and pick up ideas there because I guess that my English speaking audience doesn't have access to them. As much as I love simple Chinese tea eggs, I would never feature them because I feel that a big part of my readers already know them and are fed up with it. If I were to post about them, I would probably do a quail egg variant or a deviled egg serving suggestion.
Uhm sorry, I couldn't stop myself from writing so much.
Keep up the good work!
Sorry, wrong URL: http://eyecandy.nanakaze.net
ReplyDelete