Episode 777: The Framework That Helped Build a 7-Figure Brand (And Can Work for You, Too) With Lindsay Pinchuk

EBT777 – Lindsay Pinchuk

[00:00:00]  Megan Porta 

What if you didn’t have to be everywhere to grow a wildly successful blog? Lindsay Pinchuk, entrepreneur, podcast host and creator of the SWEEP framework, shares how bloggers can simplify their marketing, grow their audience, and turn content into revenue using the exact system that helped her build a seven figure brand. Get ready. There’s a lot to take action on inside this episode.

[00:00:26] Intro  

Hi, food bloggers. I’m Megan Porta and this is Eat Blog Talk. Your space for support, inspiration, and strategies to grow your blog and your freedom. Whether that’s personal, professional, or financial, you are not alone on this journey. 

[00:00:43]  Megan Porta

Lindsay, hello. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

[00:00:46]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Hi, Megan. It’s so good to be here. Thank you for having me. And I am good. I’m good on this Tuesday afternoon.

[00:00:52]  Megan Porta 

Yay. And it’s always good to have a fellow Midwestern girl. I love Midwestern Western people. They’re the best. Right?

[00:00:59]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Me too.

[00:01:00]  Megan Porta 

Yay. And I’m very excited about this topic today because this is a framework that I feel like all of us need in the food blogging space. There’s so much to do and it’s overwhelming. So thank you for bringing this to the table.

[00:01:13]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Well, thank you for having me and for being interested.

[00:01:16]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, absolutely. So to start, Lindsay, before we get to any of that, do you have a fun fact to share with us?

[00:01:23]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Yeah. I was thinking about this earlier today and I came up with two. So I’m going to go on a on the fly which one I’m going to choose. So I’m going to choose it because it just happened eight years ago. Last week, I was asked to host the world’s premiere of A Bad Mom’s Christmas.

[00:01:39]   

My company was a parenting company, and we were hosting events all across the country. And because of the engaged community that I had created here in Chicago, they were hosting it here in Chicago. And the promoters who I had worked with on other activations reached out to me and they said, we would like a partner in this in this world premiere. And we want to surprise an audience of 500 moms with the cast of A Bad Mom.

[00:02:05]  Megan Porta 

Wow.

[00:02:06]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

And so for 10 weeks, I held this secret. I didn’t even tell my mom. My husband knew that was it. And we put together this amazing event. And. And before the movie started, I said, and I have one more surprise for you guys. And I was like, everyone get on their feet and welcome to the stage, the cast of Bad Moms.

[00:02:26]   

And it was Kristen and Katherine and Mila and Cheryl. And it was very fun and it was a very fun event. And it’s top of mind because I talked about it last week on social media.

[00:02:36]  Megan Porta 

Oh, I love that.

[00:02:37]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

That’s a fun fact about me.

[00:02:38]  Megan Porta 

Oh, that is an amazing fun fact, one that has never been shared. So thank you. Okay, next, I would really love to ask you about your business. Tell us a little bit about your business and how it transpired and all the juicy stuff.

[00:02:52]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Yeah. So when I was newly pregnant, I started a company called Bump Club and Beyond. It was a parenting community that connected moms and moms to be with the best products, resources, information, and most important, with each other. So we started hosting events here in Chicago. And very quickly. This was before social media.

[00:03:10]   

This was in 2010. Very quickly, word spread and I had women from all over the country asking me to host events in their communities. I actually expanded to Minneapolis. That was my. One of my first cities in Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco. And we started hosting events in 35 cities across the country over the next decade.

[00:03:29]   

We were working with Target and Nordstrom and every brand in the baby space. There was a lot of. There was a lot of blogging involved because at the time, mom bloggers were the influencers of the space, basically. And 10 years later, I sold it. So I sold the company to a large agency holding company, and I went and worked for them for two years.

[00:03:50]   

It was not the best experience. I mean, this is not the. This is not the conversation we’re having today. So I’m not going to talk about the sale of my company, but it was not a great circumstance. And I made the decision after two years to exit. And when I exited, my goal was to really help other female founders and women business owners to build and grow and scale and maybe one day sell their own businesses.

[00:04:13]   

And so I left and I started taking clients. It was very simple. I was like, I’m taking clients. I can help you with marketing, with your social media, whatever it might be. But I took a really good, hard look back at what I had accomplished and what I had done with Bump Club.

[00:04:30]   

And I said to myself, what was it that made it successful? Like, why did it grow so fast? I bootstrapped the whole thing. I never received a single dollar of investment. I didn’t have an ad budget. Everything was done very simply. And when I took a look at what I did, it really was that I started this company as a pregnant woman.

[00:04:51]   

I put myself out there and on the stage before influencers were a thing. And I shared my story and I shared my pain points and I shared what I was going through as an expectant mom and, and I did this very simply. And over the course of the decade, I really started to add to social media and I put a lot of content on our website and I had a really robust email marketing campaign.

[00:05:17]   

And of course we were an events based company, so we did a ton of events. I started doing TV segments and I was being asked to be interviewed by many press outlets as a parenting expert. And then I also had a lot of partnerships, both paid and unpaid, and that eventually became what is now known as my SWEEP method.

[00:05:37]   

And that is how I built my company. And so when I left and I started this 2.0 of mine, I started Dear Found Her, which started as a podcast, a podcast for women business owners over 40. And from there that podcast became a group mentorship. We have an online networking community, we have events for women business owners.

[00:05:59]   

And the whole goal of all of it is to teach women business owners over the age of 40 how to market their business simply. And it’s really, really, it doesn’t have to be complicated. And if you don’t have the foundation of these simple marketing tactics, you really can’t do things like sales funnels and ads and all of the more intricate, complicated marketing strategies that are out there.

[00:06:25]   

You can, you really need to have that foundation. And so that is what I teach at Dear FoundHer. And Dear FoundHer has become a premier community for women business owners over the age of 40.

[00:06:33]  Megan Porta 

I love that story. Thank you so much for sharing that. What would you say the main pain point is that led you to create the SWEEP method?

[00:06:42]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

I would say the main pain point is consistency. And when I say consistency, I don’t just mean consistency on social media. And I think that that is often the takeaway, especially today. Right. Like social media plays such a big role in what we all do as business owners. Whether you’re a creator, a blogger, whether you own a medical practice, whatever it might be, it’s consistency.

[00:07:09]   

And I think the other thing too, that kind of dovetails along with the consistency piece is consistency in multiple places. And that’s where SWEEP comes in. The biggest compliment that people give me is they often think that I have a huge marketing team and I don’t, especially right now. I mean, I’m starting over.

[00:07:27]   

I’m three years into the, four years into my 2.0 and it’s just me and I have a couple of vas. But I have this system. And because I have this system, it allows me to be consistent. And I would say the number one thing that my clients, bloggers, creators, people say is the consistency issue.

[00:07:45]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I hear that all the time. It’s not just what you’re hearing. I hear it too. People have such a hard time and like you said, not just on social media, but with all the things they have to do. So it’s about picking, you know, a cadence that works and your system is going to help us as well.

[00:08:02]   

So tell us about the SWEEP system and just the power of it.

[00:08:08]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Yes. So SWEEP stands for social media, website, emails, events, partnerships and publicity. So the goal of SWEEP is that when you have a piece of content or a message that you want to get out to your community, that you SWEEP it through all of those touch points. Now some business owners might not have some of them and that’s okay.

[00:08:35]   

I always tell my clients to start with at least two or three and you build up to really using SWEEP as an all encompassing method. Now I, the biggest thing I want to say with SWEEP is that if all of these pieces are not working, it doesn’t work. So like if you only are doing social media, it doesn’t work.

[00:08:54]   

If you’re only doing email marketing, it doesn’t work. Sweep really helps to take whatever it is you’re trying to communicate and amplify it. It amplifies it across so many touch points that so many more people see it than if they were just reading an email or consuming a social media post. So that is the basis of SWEEP.

[00:09:14]  Megan Porta 

Okay, well let’s talk through some of the points. So starting with S social media, can you touch on that?

[00:09:21]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Yes. So social media is really what, what I look at as the, the free awareness player. Right. So like I, I always tell my clients, especially those who are like social media verse, which there are a lot of people out there who want to just write or who want to just run their business and they don’t want to put things on social media.

[00:09:41]   

But it’s free. And so I think it’s really important that you pick two platforms that you can actually master to put your content out on. And the goal, the I want to back up for a second. The whole thing with SWEEP two is the, is repurposing. That’s what it is. It’s taking something and repurposing it.

[00:10:01]   

So let’s use a food blog, A food blog as an example. So if someone writes a blog entry, they have their blog entry and then how are they going to put it on social media? There are so many different ways that you can do that. And if you have more than two platforms great.

[00:10:16]   

But if you don’t pick two and try to, try to stick to those two, like for me, I use Instagram and LinkedIn and I would basically take a piece of blog content and I would put it on Instagram as a carousel or a reel. Or I might put it in my stories as well.

[00:10:32]   

And then I would write a LinkedIn post about it and I would share it there. So social media is that free awareness player that everyone should be embracing to some degree.

[00:10:43]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I appreciate the perspective tweak instead of being a burden because a lot of people see it as, oh my gosh, I have to go post on social media. It’s a free awareness tool. It’s free marketing and advertising for the stuff you’re already creating.

[00:11:00]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Exactly. And I will say too, if you are already creating something, like if you have a blog post already, the work is 90% done. All you have to do is take it and tweak it for social media. And truly in today’s day and age, you can take your blog post and drop it in ChatGPT and ask chat to come up with a great social media post using your content.

[00:11:26]   

It really doesn’t have to be hard. And that’s not cheating. I mean, it’s your content, right? And it’s just taking it and splicing it and putting it out there in a different way. It’s being smart about your content.

[00:11:37]  Megan Porta 

How much do you recommend that we repurpose each? Let’s like your, let’s use your example about the blog post. So you’ve published a blog post, you want to put it on Instagram and LinkedIn. Do we do that just once? Do we keep coming back to it? How much do we do that?

[00:11:53]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So I would say that if you are putting out a blog post every week, you should be repurposing at least two to three times. At least. I mean, you have to remember you have this piece of content that’s written for you that you’ve written. There is no reason not to really blow it out and maximize it.

[00:12:10]   

You want to make sure it’s a cadence. Of course that works for you, but you have the content already. And I want to some perspective about social media that I think is really important is like you could have 10,000 followers on Instagram and you could share something on Monday at 9:00am well, 3% of your people are going to see it and you might share it in a different way on Wednesday at noon and three different percent of your people are going to see it.

[00:12:37]   

And so I think it’s really important to note that not everyone sees everything. And that is why it is so important to take the content that you are already creating and really maximize its awareness by sharing it repeatedly. I even go back into old posts on social media. Like I’ll look back like three, six months ago, sometimes a year ago, and I’ll see what worked and I’ll literally copy the exact post and I’ll change the caption a little bit, especially if it’s like a timestamped caption and I reshare it. And no one knows.

[00:13:09]  Megan Porta 

Little to no effort involved in that.

[00:13:11]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Correct. No one knows. And it’s you putting a piece of content out that you might not have put out otherwise. And you’re getting in front of people that you might not have gotten in front of otherwise.

[00:13:23]  Megan Porta 

Right. And you have the data that it worked so you can use it again. Love that.

[00:13:27]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Absolutely.

[00:13:28]  Megan Porta 

So let’s move on to W, which is website.

[00:13:32]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So W is your website. And I always say that if you can put a piece of content on your website, go for it. And for your community, that is not hard because they are bloggers. So, you know, that is the piece of content that is there already on their website. And that is, you know, it makes total sense.

[00:13:48]   

You have a piece of content that’s on your website. It’s great for SEO. And I also think that having a website, and I’m just, I’m going to just throw this in there, even though most of your community does have a website, but it’s really important that every business owner have a website or a landing page to send people for more information.

[00:14:05]   

And for your community, I think it is. So it should be so intuitive that when they’re sharing things on social media in an email or at an event, when you’re speaking, to call out your website and to make sure you are directing people towards your website, especially in your business, in the business of the, of the community members that you have.

[00:14:26]  Megan Porta 

Don’t assume right. That people know. I think that’s easy to do. Like, oh, people know about my website. I don’t need to mention it. But not necessarily true.

[00:14:34]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

No, people do not know. And you have to really tell them where you want them to go. And you know, on that note, I think it’s very important that every single piece of social media that you put out has a call to action. And for a blogger, 75% of that call to action should be go to my website.

[00:14:54]   

And here’s the link. You know, I mean, that’s, that’s how your community makes money is through their blog. So it’s, you really just have to over communicate that and tell people what it is that you want them to do.

[00:15:05]  Megan Porta 

And then once people go to your blog, what is a good call to action there?

[00:15:09]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So a good call to action on your blog would be to either follow you on social media or to sign up for your e-newsletter. If you have a newsletter. And I know we’re going to talk about emails next, but you know, I think a great call to action for a blog is at the end.

[00:15:22]   

Do you like content like this? Make sure you sign up for my newsletter so you get my notifications whenever I drop a new blog post or whatever it might be. I also think it’s very important and we can. Are we going to move on to email? Because.

[00:15:35]  Megan Porta 

Yes, perfect timing. Okay, let’s move to E.

[00:15:37]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So I think it’s really important that you are always trying to gather people’s email addresses. You have to remember social media, you don’t own it, it’s not yours. You do own your website, but it is a place where people go for more information about you. And it is very important that you are able to get in touch with your community.

[00:15:56]   

And the best way to do so is through email. You want to take every opportunity to build that email list of yours because you own it. And I will tell you, the most transactions that you will ever receive will be from an email. It won’t be from social media. And so to my point previously, I think it’s a great call to action, especially for a blogger who is creating content that people are reading to then say sign up for my newsletter or sign up for my email list.

[00:16:24]   

Never miss another, another blog post that I put out and really to take that email list and do something with it. And whether that is once a month sending, you know, a recap of what you’ve already posted, eventually hopefully you’ll have some kind of offer to sell them. You can send that to your email list.

[00:16:42]   

It doesn’t just have to appear on your blog. And it really opens the door to communication. Email is the number one way you will communicate with your community, period. And, and I also think people, I think people, especially younger people, like I’m 45, I do think that sometimes younger people think like people don’t email anymore. They do.

[00:17:03]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:17:04]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

And most people actually, and the statistics show it. And I actually, I don’t have them in front of me, but I do in my keynote. But the statistics show that actually people check their email before social media in the morning. Most people.

[00:17:15]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And like social media, you can repurpose with email too. Especially food bloggers who have so much content.

[00:17:24]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So thank you so much for prompting me on that. Yes, every time you have a new blog post, you should be sending out an email that has a teaser in the top and a link to the blog to follow up for more. I mean you already have the content as a blogger and there is no reason why you shouldn’t be putting that in your community’s inboxes.

[00:17:45]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, and there’s so many different ways to package your content too. I love roundups. I mean you could even do holidays are coming up, so dishes to serve with your turkey. I mean there are endless ideas for holiday content alone. So have ChatGPT help you if you don’t really know how to package things, start there I would say.

[00:18:07]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

And I will say like as we’re kind of working through SWEEP and I’m sharing this like a big piece of this is not just repurposing but it’s consistency and it’s really over communicating. And I, and I think it’s really important to point this out. I think a lot of times people think like, oh, I just shared this or I just posted about this or I just emailed about this.

[00:18:29]   

To my point about social media, not everyone sees everything. And so it is so important that you really capitalize on the content you’re creating. And your community is a very unique community to people that I talk to because I don’t talk to creators all the time. Oftentimes my business owner clients are like struggling because they’re not creators.

[00:18:49]   

Your community are creators and so they have the content. And so it should be a no brainer to on repeat be putting the content in front of their community because the more you do it, the larger your community is going to get, the more engaged your community is going to become and the more response you’re going to get.

[00:19:05]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I totally agree. And for food creators also, we’re in the kitchen a lot and we have a lot of opportunity for kitchen fails and kind of real life situations and people love that crap. Like they love it. So behind, behind the scenes, cook days, film days, things like that are so engaging and fun too.

[00:19:29]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

And those are, that’s all content too that you can create out there and people want to see, they want to connect with you.

[00:19:34]  Megan Porta 

I totally agree. Especially now I feel like things are moving more in that direction where it’s like, okay, let’s not be so polished, let’s be a little Bit more real. So lean into that because it’s less burden on you. It takes so much pressure off.

[00:19:47]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Absolutely.

[00:19:49]  Sponsor

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[00:20:18]  Megan Porta

Let’s move on to the next E. What is that one?

[00:20:20]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So that is events and you kind of just touched upon that even with like being in the kitchen and whatnot. But here’s the thing. Events are magic and I think a lot of people really kind of forego this because sometimes it takes planning and it might feel cumbersome. An event doesn’t have to be something that is, you know, a ticketed experience that is, you know, in a fancy kitchen space with a theater.

[00:20:45]   

It doesn’t have to be that. All an event is is you connecting live with your community. That could be online. That could be just like in a demo kitchen where you know, where you’re demonstrating some kind of recipe or a group of recipes. You know, it could be just a meetup for people to meet you and to talk to you and to ask questions of you.

[00:21:06]   

Here’s the thing with events. Events expedite the connection that you have with your community because all of a sudden you’re, you’re in front of them and you’re your knowledge and you’re sharing your expertise and people all of a sudden have access to you. Yes, social media is great. Yes, email is great for all of the reasons that I just shared with you guys.

[00:21:26]   

But when you have an event, you are creating that engagement and that two way street and you can’t really do that digitally. You know, it’s, it’s a little, it’s, yes, there’s engagement, but it’s a little one sided or delayed. It’s not having a conversation. I will say that every single time I have an event in my space which I host networking events for.

[00:21:46]   

Dear found her very simple. It’s literally like I have a space. I say come, we’re going to serve breakfast and we’re going to network. Without fail, I get two to three people signing up for my networking group. I mean it’s, and it pays for itself and it’s because I am in front of them and I’m talking to them and I’m answering their questions and it’s the same thing for a blogger, and I would say even more so for a blogger, because you are a content creator that people are subscribing to and coming to and they want to have access to.

[00:22:15]   

So if you put yourself in front of people in that way, the magic really just happens.

[00:22:21]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And you have new friends. Right. I mean, the perk of it all is that you come away with new connections and people you can go out to coffee with or whatever. Like, those connections, I think are so huge.

[00:22:34]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

It’s so funny because when I was host, I mean, I hosted, I don’t know, 2000 events with Bump Club in the course of a decade. I mean, it was a lot. And some of them were during COVID and so those were online, obviously. And when I left, I was like, I never have to host another event again.

[00:22:52]   

Well, I mean, that’s wrong because when I started, Dear FoundHer within three months of the podcast dropping, the listeners were saying, can you put something together so we can meet people in person? We want to network in person. And so, you know, I point that out because people want that. And the minute I started doing it, Dear found her went from here to here in terms of amplification and engagement and listenership and word of mouth marketing.

[00:23:19]   

Like, when you host an event like your word of mouth is times 20, you know, I mean, it’s. It really helps your business. And so I, I would challenge anyone who’s listening to think of something very simple that you can do live and in person. Doesn’t have to be complicated to get yourself in front of your community.

[00:23:38]  Megan Porta 

Can you talk through maybe a very. Just bare minimum example? Because I know a lot of food creators that are like, sounds great, but I’m really shy or I don’t like to put my face in front of, like, I couldn’t put myself out there in that way. What is a way to do it that doesn’t seem super overwhelming?

[00:23:56]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So I think the easiest way that wouldn’t be overwhelming is to partner with someone. So I actually had. I had two women who are in my mentorship, and this is in the food space, so it works perfectly. One of them is a functional medicine coach, and one of them is a food. A food blogger and a food creator.

[00:24:14]   

And they created a program where basically they were doing swap outs on traditional holiday recipes. I just went to this a couple of weeks ago. They were doing swap outs to make them healthier. And so they did it at a local temple. And they ended up using like, they had some tech, so there was some cameras involved and they had a screen.

[00:24:36]   

But if you’re in any test kitchen, all of the test kitchens have that kind of technology. And they basically tag teamed. And Nicole did all the food preparation and she talked about the recipe preparation and Rebecca talked about what we were swapping out to make it easier, I think. And I’m sharing this example because it was the first time Rebecca had ever done something like this.

[00:24:58]   

Not Nicole, but she told me that she felt so much better having a co-captain. And if you’ve never done this before, find someone else to do it with. Find another food creator that you can do it with. I’m sure someone else will want to join you. And I think the best part of all of it is that when you join forces with someone else in this capacity or really in any capacity, you, you are tight.

[00:25:20]   

You are, you are doubling your community exposure, you’re sharing each other’s communities, and then all of a sudden you have this amazing partnership where you’re reaching their people and they’re reaching yours and everyone’s happy and everyone wins.

[00:25:32]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:25:33]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

And so, you know, I don’t think, like I said, it has to be something huge and like with, with tickets and sponsorships, all it has to be is something very basic where you can actually meet people that are in your community and, and maybe if, if they don’t want to prepare food live, maybe it’s a simple Q and A.

[00:25:52]   

And that’s another opportunity where maybe you find someone who will interview you and you have someone interview you to a community or you know, of people who want to learn about what you do or your tips in the kitchen or whatever it is that is your area of expertise.

[00:26:07]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I love those things.

[00:26:08]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

That’s the simplest way.

[00:26:10]  Megan Porta 

Plus I think partnering, which is your next p. But partnering, partnering with somebody just boosts your confidence. Like you have that, I don’t know, just built in boost of like, okay, we can do this versus I have to do this alone, Right? Yeah. So talk about P. The last.

[00:26:27]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So partnerships are what I built my entire first company on. And it really showed me that you don’t need an ad budget to get things done. So when you partner with another entity, like I just said, you are sharing their community and they are sharing yours. When I started Bump Club, what that looked like was I did prenatal workouts with a local boutique fitness company.

[00:26:50]   

They sent it to their people, I sent it to mine, and we filled two rooms. That was my first event. We filled two rooms of pregnant women who had never stepped foot in this studio. For the most part. And everyone won. They got introduced to Bump Club, and she got all of these new clients for her workout, which was pregnancy safe, and she just wasn’t marketing it that way.

[00:27:11]   

So partnerships could be a whole other episode. Megan. I mean, really and truly, I talk about partnerships all the time, and partnerships look very differently. You could partner on an event, you can partner on content. You and I, right now, we are having a partnership because you are having me on your podcast, and I’m going to share this on social media and talk about it and put you in my podcast as well and say, make sure you listen to this podcast episode.

[00:27:34]   

I did. That’s a partnership. So, you know, a partnership is really working with someone else to borrow each other’s communities content. Like I said, is one events is one. You could do something like an email swap. Like, I’ve done that with clients, where I’ve introduced clients to each. I’ve had clients introduce each other through their email databases to drive sales.

[00:27:55]   

I mean, that’s a partnership as well. But I have, like I said, I built my whole first business on partnerships, and it worked so well. And it’s something that if you are not partnering with other businesses or creators or brands, you are missing the boat, because you are missing the boat on free awareness.

[00:28:14]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And also the relationship aspect, too, which is something that is so undervalued, I think, but so important.

[00:28:24]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So something I want to say about that. Thank you for saying that is. Most of my first guests on My Dear Found her podcast were partners of mine from Bump Club.

[00:28:35]  Megan Porta 

Oh, nice.

[00:28:36]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So when I started Dear FoundHer, it was like, I want to share the stories of all these women. These, like, badass women that I have worked with at Bump Club on my podcast. And so, you know, these. These women were not just people I like, did business with. They became friends, they became confidants, which I also think is very important in this space, especially when you’re working alone, to have people that you can count on and call on.

[00:29:02]   

And they were women that I ended up then featuring, and now I work with them in a different capacity.

[00:29:08]  Megan Porta 

Exactly. Yeah. It evolves. And those relationships are so huge. And I want to talk about. So TV is big for food bloggers because they can go on, they can talk about a recipe, maybe promote a cookbook or their website, whatever, but also podcasts. And I think a lot of food bloggers here, you should go on a podcast.

[00:29:27]   

And they shy away because they think they don’t have anything to add or like, they’re what what can I talk about with food? But I think podcast guesting is so huge and underutilized.

[00:29:40]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

So huge. And so something I want to say before we talk about the last P, which is publicity is all of these things, like events, publicity, your email, like you can talk about all that on social media, right? So I just want to point out this is how SWEEP works. Like if you’re hosting an event, you’re going to promote it on social media.

[00:29:57]   

So it gives you content to share on social, it gives you content to share on your website, it gives you content to share in your email. So my challenge for you is when you’re doing any of these things, how can you really SWEEP it through all of these tactics? And so when you get to publicity and you decide you want to generate buzz, like I, and I always say that, like, I think that people often think of publicity as traditional media, right?

[00:30:22]   

Like you just said, like TV, newspaper, magazine, et cetera, publicity is simply generating buzz, meaning people are talking about you. So you want to be showing up in all of these places so that you are generating buzz and people start sharing your story and people start talking about you. Now to your point, the number one way to do that right now in today’s day and age is through podcasts.

[00:30:47]   

When you are on a podcast, you are in the listener’s ears. I don’t care if there’s five listeners, that’s five more people who now know about your business because they subscribe to the podcast that they’re listening to. And so I think for a food blogger, it’s really important to get their story down pat, like who they are, what they do, how they do it, why do they do it, and really pitch that hook to podcasts.

[00:31:12]   

Now you could be a food blogger in, you know, in, I’m going to just say, like healthy food. And you can go on podcasts that are like, about health and wellness. They don’t have to be food based. And so I want you to think a little bit outside of the box about where you can share your message and what niches are going to be receptive to the type of food blogging that you do.

[00:31:37]   

And I think that that’s really important. But anyone can show up and share their story and talk about what it is they do online every single day. As a content creator. And that is what I think is so important to point out to food bloggers. I know a lot of your community is preparing and cooking and taking pictures and showing what those recipes are and maybe, you know, writing a book and Maybe aren’t as extroverted as you and I are talking about right now, and you need to be.

[00:32:05]   

But you all know your business and you all know what you do on a day to day basis. When you show up on a podcast, it’s not to sell anything. It’s to talk about yourself and your business and your area of expertise. And that is what is so important. And so you, you know that.

[00:32:22]   

And I think that we were talking a little bit about like consistency and imposter syndrome and whatnot. Like you got to get over it. And also, unless you’re on a video podcast, which I know this is video too, but you might not knowing a lot of people won’t even see your face.

[00:32:35]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, yeah, no, those are all such great points. And again, the relationships, right, with the podcasts and the.

[00:32:44]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Yes, so. Well, the other thing I want to say too is when you are on a podcast, you all of a sudden have all this content to share. Like you can pull quotes that you said on the podcast, you can pull sound bites that you said on the podcast, share them on your social media, you can share in your email that week.

[00:33:01]   

Make sure you check me out on Megan Porter’s podcast. You know, I mean, there’s so many different ways, so many spread the word. And ultimately what that does is it builds your authority, it builds your trust because someone else invited you on the show. And to your point, with relationships, the relationships that I have with the guests who have been on my show, I mean, I’m on tour with two of them right now.

[00:33:23]   

We’re doing this big event. I, you know, I have done, I have had some of them hire me as a marketing consultants, like I have. I do so much with the women who have been on my show. It’s not just a one stop shop. And it’s the same thing when I’m a guest.

[00:33:38]   

Like you and I, this is not our last conversation. This is just the beginning. And that’s really how I look at all of this.

[00:33:43]  Megan Porta 

I was going to say too, about your like, you know, repurposing with podcast episodes. If you can get a hold of a transcript, I feel like that is gold. You can put that into ChatGPT and say, how can I repurpose this? You can pull quotes out, you can create social media graphics or clips or whatever.

[00:34:01]   

There’s so much you can do with one single transcript. Yeah, okay, so great. Anything else about.

[00:34:09]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Absolutely. And I mean, a podcast is so much content.

[00:34:12]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, totally agree.

[00:34:14]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

I just said a podcast is so much content.

[00:34:17]  Megan Porta 

Do you have anything else for partnerships and publicity, or was that. Did that wrap us up?

[00:34:23]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

No, I think that’s a good. That’s kind of a good timeline.

[00:34:26]  Megan Porta 

So your SWEEP framework, I love it. This whole system can pull us out of that. I don’t know. Like, not having the confidence to get through things, the consistency like you talked about, not feeling like we’re consistent with things. How do you recommend we get started with it? Is it something like we do all five things? S W E E P. All five things right away? Can we ease into it? What do you think?

[00:34:51]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

I. I think you absolutely can ease into it. And this is what I teach in my mentorship. So what I would do is I would sit down, start with a blog post. You have this blog post and think to yourself, how can I SWEEP this blog post and write out. Sweep and write out how you are going to take that blog post and share it across all of these different tactics.

[00:35:13]   

You might not share them in all of them. And that is okay. If you don’t have an email list right now, don’t worry about it. If you don’t have an event where you can talk about whatever it is in your blog post, that’s okay, do what you can. But the big thing is to create a process.

[00:35:31]   

So, like, when I get a new podcast episode every week from my producer, I sit down and I have a process for how I share it on social media, how I put it in my Substack, how I think about, how I’m going to talk about it at my networking event. Am I going to use this as content in my networking event?

[00:35:49]   

And then I look at it and I say, okay, is there another way that I can expand on this partnership, especially if I have a guest? So that’s. I don’t really use publicity so much in that, unless it’s like a really big guest. And I might not really touch upon events every week, but I have a process.

[00:36:05]   

And so I think it’s really important to sit down with your blog post and say, okay, this is how I’m going to use it on social media. This is how I’m going to email it. This is where I’m going to put on my website. Is there an event opportunity here? What about partnerships and publicity?

[00:36:20]   

Every situation will be a little bit different, but you want to train yourself to think in doing it like that and really to SWEEP it across as many aspects as possible. And that’s how you get started. And then all of a sudden you have a process. And like, I don’t have to sit down anymore and be like, okay, like, this is where I’m going to put my podcast episode, like every week.I know when I get the episode, this is what I do or this is what my VA does. And now they have the process as well.

[00:36:46]  Megan Porta 

I love it when things just fall into a groove like that and you’re like, oh, I’m. I’m in the system. It feels so amazing to be there, doesn’t it?

[00:36:55]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Yes.

[00:36:56]  Megan Porta 

Love that feeling. Well, thank you, Lindsay. This was amazing. I think this episode is going to inspire a lot of people to just, you know, hop out of the inconsistency and be a little bit more consistent. Do you have a top tip for food bloggers?

[00:37:12]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Yes. And actually this is a top tip, really, for anyone who’s trying something new, whether it’s using SWEEP or whether it’s blogging or whatever it is. And I always tell everyone, just get started. It is never going to be perfect or the right time. Things aren’t going to always be set up. Like, you could look at SWEEP and be like, oh, like, I can’t do that.

[00:37:33]   

I don’t have an email date of I like, you know, and there’s so many excuses. Just get started and do the best you can. It might be messy, and that’s okay. Over time, you will slowly evolve and you will be able to perfect whatever it is that you’re doing and get better at it.

[00:37:49]   

But if you don’t start, you will never know. And I know that sounds cliche, but I think sometimes people just need that push to just do it and really just get over whatever is holding them back and get started.

[00:38:01]  Megan Porta 

So simple, but so powerful. Love it. Thank you so much. We will put together a show notes page for you, Lindsay, if you want to go peek at those. We’ll have all our notes from today, everything we’ve talked about at eatblogtalk.com/DearFoundHer. Will you reiterate where people can find you, Lindsay?

[00:38:20]  Lindsay Pinchuk 

Yeah. Thank you again so much, Megan, for having me. This has been such a fun conversation. You can find me at DearFoundHer on Instagram. You can find my substack at FoundHerFiles.substack.com and you can find me, find me on my website at www.dearfoundher.com.

[00:38:37]  Megan Porta 

Thank you so much for being here, Lindsay. So appreciate you and thanks for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:38:45]  Outro

Thank you so much for listening to Eat Blog Talk. The best way to support this show is to share it with another blogger or friend who could use encouragement today. Let’s share the love.I will see you in the next episode.