Episode 783: Why Depth, Intention, and Real Strategy Matter More Than Ever With Christine Pittman, Meredith Kruse & Melissa Erdelac

EBT783 – Flavor Media Summit

[00:00:00]  Megan Porta 

Happy New Year everyone. Welcome to the first episode of 2026. So exciting. We are starting strong with a behind the scenes look at something really special. Flavor Media Summit. I am joined by my co founder, Melissa Erdelac along with two amazing past attendees, Christine Pittman and Meredith Kruse. In this conversation, we explore what happens when creators are immersed in a space designed for strategy, connection and elevation. Whether you attend or not, this episode is packed with insight and inspiration to help you grow with clarity and intention this year. I hope you enjoy the episode and again, happy New Year.

[00:00:42]   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.

[00:00:55]   Megan Porta

Hey guys. Welcome. So happy to have you all here. It’s so fun to see your faces all at once too. So to start, Christine, would you mind just telling us a little bit about you? Who are you? What is your blog?

[00:01:09]   

What do you create? How long have you been in the space? Give us all the goods.

[00:01:13]  Christine Pittman 

Yeah, so I started blogging in 2010, so it’s been 15 years and my first blog is cookthestory.com and then I started a second one in 2015 called thecookful.com and I also have a podcast recipe of the day and just launched a membership community called Cook for two. So we’re in all sorts of places.

[00:01:37]  Megan Porta 

Ooh, I didn’t know about the community or the membership. That’s exciting.

[00:01:41]  Christine Pittman 

Yeah, very excited.

[00:01:42]  Megan Porta 

Meredith, your turn. Give us the scoop on you. Sure.

[00:01:45]  Meredith Kruse 

I’m Meredith with our love Language is food. I am a new age blogger, I guess. So I started in 2020 with postpartum anxiety and needing a creative outlet. But I’ve been doing this for over five years now and it’s just, yeah, a lot of fun. I share a lot of midwestern family recipes and I do cooking, baking, drinks, the whole gamut and just want to make people feel confident in what they can do.

[00:02:09]  Megan Porta 

Awesome. And I guess, Melissa, I mean, if people aren’t familiar with you, just give us a rundown on your blog because you’re an awesome blogger too.

[00:02:17]  Melissa Erdelac 

Well, I started in 2016 and I guess I could say the same thing. Meredith. It was a postpartum post 4 kid partum project that I just wanted. I wanted to work from home and create my own business. So yeah, I share gluten free recipes on my website and then I aggressively went after my YouTube channel last year too. So that’s been fun.

[00:02:45]  Megan Porta 

And did you say the name of your blog?

[00:02:47]  Melissa Erdelac 

I don’t know. Mama Gourmand.

[00:02:49]  Megan Porta 

Okay, yes. Go check it out. Go check out all these vlogs. They’re all amazing. So next, I would love to hear from Christina Meredith, Flavor Media Summit. You both have attended and I think you’ve been happy engaging attendees. Thank you for coming. What was the initial draw to you to come to Flavor Media?

[00:03:13]   

Either one of you can start.

[00:03:15]  Christine Pittman 

So the first year, I’ll honestly say you guys invited me to speak, which was lovely, but I had not been to a conference since 2019. I was burned out on them pre Covid. I’d been to so many, wasn’t really learning very much. And I probably wouldn’t have gone if you hadn’t invited me because I just thought, ugh, conferences, whatever.

[00:03:37]   

But I wanted to go. You’re invited me, it’s in Colorado. I went. I was blown away. I learned so much. And I signed up for the following year as soon as you announced it and have signed up for the next year as well. So I would not have gone initially, but if anybody is doubting it, like, it was amazing.

[00:03:55]   

So that is what was the original draw. But the continued draw has been how good it was amazing.

[00:04:01]  Meredith Kruse 

I came to Flavor Media for a couple of different reasons. As a newer blogger, I got really engrossed in the tastemaker community right away, which was wonderful. But that conference has grown bigger and bigger and for me, that’s just a lot of people, even though I’m an extrovert and. And I also went on an Eat Blog talk retreat with Megan and got to know her really well and appreciate her outlook on things.

[00:04:24]   

So when you guys announced Flavor Media, I thought it was a really great opportunity to get together with a smaller group of bloggers, deep dive into some more higher level topics and then just enjoy, you know, a new place. Because we went to Denver the first year and then we got to go to Savannah last year, which was super fun.

[00:04:45]   

So there was travel aspect. And then once I actually got to the conference, I think I took like 25 pages of notes each time. I’ve taken so many notes. I can’t tell you how great all of the sessions were. They were super awesome and that’s what’s keeping me coming back.

[00:05:01]  Melissa Erdelac 

Nice.

[00:05:01]  Megan Porta 

Thank you guys for sharing that. So, Melissa, do you want to talk about why we started Flavor Media in the first place? There was a definite moment when we decided to go for this.

[00:05:15]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah. And I think Meredith kind of touched on it. Meg And I have both attended a lot of conferences too. And it’s just like the larger conferences, sometimes it gets. It’s hard to really narrow down on the content because you’re kind of approaching a whole group. And Megan and I were in this unique group that, you know, as a lot of us are, we’ve been doing this for a while, so we had moved past basic information, and we wanted things basically like, let’s level up our businesses and let’s all meet at the same place.

[00:05:50]   

So that’s where Flavor Media started from, where we just wanted to create this community of common ground where we can all share. And then the intimacy, I think we could all agree, of being at a conference. Like, the biggest aha moments come from when I’m eating lunch or like, I’m just having sidebar conversations with people.

[00:06:14]   

And I think people, when they’re in small, they’re more vulnerable, they’re more ready to share. So it’s just creating that. Just that more intimate community around bloggers where we’re kind of just like, okay, we’re not, you know, I know you. I know you. Because now we’ve crossed paths multiple times throughout the two days.

[00:06:36]   

And just making those genuine connections with people is so invaluable for me.

[00:06:42]  Megan Porta 

And the size of the group, we try to keep it under 60 attendees with the speakers and everything. It’s usually about 80, 85. And we just felt like that number was so magic. Like, you really can talk to everyone there if you want to and make connection, really deep connections with people that you sit at the table with or like you said, eat lunch with or have ice cream with or whatever.

[00:07:07]   

And that, that sets it apart, I think, from most conferences where you’re just like in the sea of bodies and you don’t really feel comfortable talking to everybody. So I feel like the intimacy was one of the things that we really wanted to nail.

[00:07:23]  Meredith Kruse 

I thought one of the wonderful things too, because it was a smaller group and you’re going over more detailed conversations or more detailed topics. You got to actually have in depth conversations with everyone, including the speakers. So I got to sit down with a couple of the different speakers throughout the, you know, couple of days were there and actually ask them very specific questions, which I don’t think you get to do when you’re in a huge group.

[00:07:49]   

And I thought that was, you know, a big, changing moment. And I got a couple aha moments just from those littler conversations because the opportunity was there because the size wasn’t so big. And I thought that was really special.

[00:08:04]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. We’re very careful about the speakers that we select, and we always try to choose speakers who are willing to do that and take the initiative to talk to people like you, attendees who really want information from them. So glad you got that from it.

[00:08:21]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah. And Christine could probably speak to that, too, since she was a speaker. Kind of how we approach the speakers a little bit differently. It’s not, you know. Well, you could. You could explain Christine, kind of like the process that we go through when we invite speakers through it. If you remember that.

[00:08:38]   

I don’t remember.

[00:08:40]  Christine Pittman 

I don’t remember specifically a lot about the outreach. I do remember that you wanted a lot from me. I don’t mean a lot, like, too much. I mean a lot from me compared to other conferences I’ve spoken at. You wanted a presentation ahead of time. You wanted to know that I was giving takeaways.

[00:08:57]   

You wanted, like, I knew what I was supposed to give and that I had to deliver it ahead of time, I believe. Whereas I’ve spoken at other conferences over the years, and I’m just like, on a panel and I show up and that that’s kind of it. Or not a lot of guidance.

[00:09:15]   

I’ve given my own presentations where nobody says, I could just stand there at a podium and ramble, or I could have a presentation. So it felt very clear to me from the very beginning that if I wanted to speak, that I was going to have to have a clear plan and have good deliverables, takeaways for the audience and make sure that I was meeting them where you.

[00:09:38]   

You thought they were at and where I was at.

[00:09:40]  Melissa Erdelac 

So.

[00:09:41]  Christine Pittman 

Yeah, that was very strong, I think.

[00:09:43]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah.

[00:09:44]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And we choose the sponsors the same way. We put a lot of intention into that. It’s not just like, hey, come invest money here. It’s, we need you to show up and add value to the attendees. If you can’t do that, then it’s not a good fit. And we are very careful about both speakers and sponsors, just making sure everything’s aligned.

[00:10:05]   

We never want people to feel like they’re like, quote, being sold to. Yeah. It’s something that we’ve really put a lot of intention and thought into.

[00:10:14]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah. Because, I mean, it’s. It’s smaller, so there’s a lot of integration throughout that. We want the speakers and the sponsors. They are very much part of the event. Like, we never want to put this elitist kind of stigma over. You know, sometimes there’s like, speakers and it’s like, well, I was asked to Speak.

[00:10:34]   

And then they kind of just keep to themselves where we want everyone to integrate and, you know, share value with each other, which is, you know, is kind of one of the pinnacle reasons why we created this.

[00:10:52]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And then can we just mention the fun, too? I mean, yes, it’s full of awesome speakers and information and value, and you leave with 25 pages of notes, but we put a lot of thought into. I feel like Melissa and I bring a little bit of a fun vibe, maybe. That was really important to us, too.

[00:11:09]   

So, Meredith and Christine, do you catch on? I’m sure you do. To the fun.

[00:11:14]  Meredith Kruse 

It was very fun. I think you guys are very intentional about bringing unique pieces to the conference. So I know last year you brought the woman who did, like, the whole music and sound bath, and it was wild and awesome, and everyone was just smiling because it was just a great way to wrap things up.

[00:11:34]   

But you also reach out to the community you’re in and bring in little local favorites. We’ve tried great ice cream and fun treats. And you bring a lot of really cool local pieces to your conferences, too, which I think is pretty awesome.

[00:11:47]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, we try to incorporate local stuff, which I think is so important. And then, Christine, do you have thoughts about how the event has. I mean, we’re only coming on year three, but did the event seem to grow or transform from year one to year two?

[00:12:07]  Christine Pittman 

Oh, that’s an interesting question. I felt it. It was the same energy. I don’t. I think maybe I feel like I’m supposed to say it evolved and changed and grew, but, like, it was cohesive and inspiring and lovely. I felt at home, like, I walked. It was completely different city, completely different venue, and I, you know, just felt very welcomed and.

[00:12:30]   

Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I would say.

[00:12:32]  Megan Porta 

I love. You weren’t supposed to say anything. That was perfect.

[00:12:36]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah. And we do have a high rate of returning attendees, which does make it nice because you guys do get to know each other, not only through the course of the two days, but, like, then we all see each other again a year later. So that is nice.

[00:12:53]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Meredith, was there anything that surprised you about the event? Maybe on year one? Were you like, oh, I wasn’t expecting this.

[00:13:00]  Meredith Kruse 

That is also a good question. I think. I wasn’t necessarily expecting big. You know, I consider myself a smaller blogger because I’m newer and I’m growing, which is great. But, you know, I fangirled over, you know, a couple of the attendees there, and they were so sweet, and they would talk to smaller bloggers, like, Me and I felt like everyone was an equal.

[00:13:23]   

Whether or not you make a million page views a month versus, you know, 50,000. I thought everyone was really open and kind and I think you’d expect that from this community. But in person, it was really cool to actually feel like you’re on the same level and you can talk to anyone there.

[00:13:40]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I agree. And for us too, we’ve had access to people that are like, otherwise we probably would not have been able to have conversations with. So that was an unexpected value for us too. Okay, so you guys mentioned value, like just learning so much from the sessions. Is there anything that you pulled away in either year one or two that has changed your business?

[00:14:03]   

Like you’ve dug into YouTube or I don’t know what it is, but something that’s just really transformed your business.

[00:14:09]  Christine Pittman 

Yeah, I mean, well, transformed and transforming. I can say for sure that it was on the bonus day, extra day last year that I was convinced by people to start putting my face on social media, which was something I knew I was going to have to do with the membership community that we’ve just launched, I knew that was part of it, but that kind of got me going quicker.

[00:14:34]   

And then similarly, we’re working right now. My boyfriend Marty and I are about to start doing live stream cooking videos, like long form and learned so much in the YouTube session that I have. Like, we’ve been applying it but nobody can see it yet because we haven’t done it. But yes, it’s all been there in the background for the last eight months.

[00:14:57]   

So very excited. Learned so much.

[00:15:00]  Megan Porta 

That’s so cool. I love hearing that. And Meredith, what about you? Anything you pulled away?

[00:15:04]  Meredith Kruse 

Yeah, I know we always talk about the YouTubers because Larissa and Andrew are amazing and we all want to be like them when we grow up. Right. But I mean, I actually launched my YouTube channel after the second year. I’d taken a ton of notes the first. First year, noodled on it, didn’t, you know, get the guts to do it.

[00:15:22]   

And I finally launched it after the second event last year and just, you know, just general tips and I don’t also like to put my face on all the videos. I like the hands and pans a little bit more. Even though I am pretty extroverted and will talk to anyone, I just don’t love being on video.

[00:15:39]   

So that’s helped me, you know, feel confident and push outside my comfort zone there. I got a lot of great nuggets on email and I think my email has grown a lot over the last year, my list has grown a lot, so that’s been really wonderful. And then, I mean, just general tips throughout.

[00:15:56]   

I feel like you can pull little nuggets from each of the sessions you go to. And it’s hard to say, like, oh, that’s the one thing that impacted my business, but I know all these little nuggets I’m getting have helped.

[00:16:08]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Well said.

[00:16:09]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah. And I just wanted to touch on. Christine mentioned the third day. So just to explain for anyone that doesn’t know what that is, so we. After the first year, we were asked to have. A lot of people were saying they just got so much from the conference that they wanted some extra time to kind of sit with it and work through it with people that were there.

[00:16:31]   

So we introduced this third day workshop, where if you have an event ticket to Flavor Media, then you can also sign up for this. And it was a space that Megan and I provided, and it had more food and workspace, and it was a. It was a even smaller number. So we just dug in a lot more.

[00:16:54]   

And that was. I felt, like, so transformative for me, because you share knowledge with each other. But on that third day was like, opening up everyone’s computers and looking at data and looking at back end and, oh, my God, this is my Google Analytics. And see this traffic? And this is where I get this.

[00:17:14]   

I had so many takeaways from that, and it was just kind of like digging in together, like, doing the dirty work of like, okay, now we have all these ideas. Let’s get started with it. That third day, I’m really excited about this space.

[00:17:30]  Megan Porta 

Oh, my gosh. First of all, last year’s third day was one of my favorite parts of the entire conference. And the third day is optional. I mean, it’s like, you can go or not if you have a ticket to the regular sessions. I learned so much shout out to sue, who sat down with me and showed me the nitty gritty details about what works on YouTube for her.

[00:17:52]   

Stuff that I never would have learned ever. Like, some of the stuff was like, you just don’t talk about this sort of thing, so it was high value. And the connection, like getting to know sue and so many other people there. I wouldn’t have done that otherwise. It was so amazing.

[00:18:10]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah.

[00:18:11]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I loved it. And I assume, Meredith and Christine, you enjoyed the third day as well?

[00:18:16]  Meredith Kruse 

Yeah, I loved the third day. And I. The moment you said, like, tickets are coming out, I was like, I’m gonna sign up right now. Because I got so Much value out of. Out of the third day. And like, kind of what you’re talking about. Everyone has their laptop open. You’re literally showing each other the screens, or you’re kind of holding each other accountable, like, oh, we’re both working on this similar item.

[00:18:38]   

Hey, let’s take 15 minutes, do it, and then show each other what we’re working on. And then you can literally turn and ask somebody a question, which you don’t always get to with blogging because, you know, we’re all at home by ourselves. So it’s kind of like the best co working session you’ve ever had.

[00:18:52]  Melissa Erdelac 

And it was a great day. Yes.

[00:18:55]  Christine Pittman 

I think I did less open my laptop, work on stuff as I did. Just settle in free form and talk to people. And I. I was really, really delighted to be at a table that had. A lot of people have been blogging for a long time, people closer to my age. Not that age is the relevant thing, but it was really beautiful to sit down with these people who’ve been doing this for so long, making a living doing it.

[00:19:21]   

It’s their career. Same kinds of ups and downs, same kinds of. How do you explain that you’re a blogger to friends, family, neighbors and have them respect that it’s a real job? How do you, you know, work from home and your kids are coming in and out now they’re teenagers. Like, the same kinds of life situations.

[00:19:39]   

We talked, you guys know, we talked about hiring, like, help in the home. Like, not just somebody to clean your house, but if you’re working from home, maybe somebody’s doing some other jobs and like, instead of hiring a va, you might do an alternative in that way. And it just, it felt like a very rare chance to talk with people who really understood my work life and my, like, work life balance.

[00:20:05]  Megan Porta 

Wow, I love hearing that.

[00:20:07]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah. And we do still. If anyone’s interested, we do still have some tickets. Enough. Not a ton, because it is an even. We take a small group and then make it even smaller. So we only release 25 tickets for that. And so we have a handful left. So if people are listening and they have a ticket to Flavor Media, then.

[00:20:26]  Megan Porta 

I would grab it while you can. Yep. And then, Melissa, talk about the space we have this year because it’s kind of magic. I mean, we don’t want to give away too much because we want it to be a little bit of a surprise. But yeah.

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[00:21:42]  Melissa Erdelac 

So we even mentioned where Flavor Media 2026 is in Austin. So Megan and I always try to find cities that just kind of like fun cities that people were like, oh, I’ve always wanted to go there, but maybe you’re not going to, like, intentionally plan a vacation there. So Megan and I were in Austin, I think, in September.

[00:22:01]   

We were doing, you know, work for this coming up. So one of the things was finding this third day space, which last year’s space. I was like, how are we going to beat this space? It was incredible. Like, jaw dropping, just awesome. And so my husband and I went out and did, like, we had a list of places we were going to go see, and we literally walked into the first place that was like two blocks away from our hotel.

[00:22:28]   

And I was like, this is it. This is. I mean, it’s even better than last year. It was crazy. So we went through the motion and we went through every single place. Megan had not seen it, just Ryan and I had seen at this point. And I kept going into the places and I’d be like, it’s okay, but it’s not a place that I saw. And Megan’s like, oh, my God. So then finally we got to go back and see it and it’s like, it’s like a botanical, magical, botanical oasis.

[00:23:05]  Megan Porta 

That is going to be so creatively inspiring. Your minds will be blown.

[00:23:09]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty cool.

[00:23:11]  Megan Porta 

I’m excited about it. Yeah, we’re super excited. So, yeah, come to the third day if. If it’s on your, like, maybe if you’re on the fence, just do it, because, I mean, who knows you’re going to get so much from it. And then I wanted to touch on the food because we know that food bloggers, you know, we are kind of particular about the Food that we eat.

[00:23:35]   

We love food, period. We want to feed you. And if you are going to pay to come to our event, we want to feed you. And not just that, but feed you well, give you good, yummy food, but also catering to, you know, allergies and sensitivities and all of that as well. So, Melissa, do you want to talk about that?

[00:23:56]   

Just maybe some of the food that we.

[00:23:59]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah, and I guess I will kind of weave in the elephant in the room at this point too, of like how the ticket to Flavor Media is a higher priced event. We kind of stand out in how much our tickets are in. This is not all of it, but it is a pretty large part of it.

[00:24:21]   

The catering cost for an event is. It’s large. It’s really large. But especially when you put a lot of importance on the food, which we’re all food bloggers. So who of us does not care about food? None of us. Like we. All our careers are based around it. So our food. I have a gluten allergy myself.

[00:24:49]   

One of my biggest pet peeves is going to an event and feeling like I can’t eat. I love to eat. It’s like the most exciting part of my day. I look so forward to it. If I’m standing in line and I’m surrounded on a, like a, you know, big spread of food and I’m looking at it and I’m like, I could only have the salad.

[00:25:14]   

It’s really heartbreaking for me. So I always want to be very inclusive of everyone’s dietary needs. We make sure all, like, even the special treats and stuff that we bring in, we always have make sure that there’s something for everyone. So we put a lot of thought into the food. We put a lot of thought into the cocktails are always so very important to me.

[00:25:38]   

But we also provide mocktails too, because I know everyone isn’t a cocktail enthusiast. But yeah, it’s a big part of our vet. We put a lot of focus on it and we get a lot of positive feedback on it too. You do not go hungry, that is for sure.

[00:25:55]  Megan Porta 

Do you guys have food thoughts? Meredith or Christine?

[00:25:58]  Christine Pittman 

I just remember liking everything, which is rare at any kind. Like you go to a wedding or you go to anything and half of the food you don’t enjoy. I remember enjoying everything, which I think is outstanding and rare.

[00:26:16]  Meredith Kruse 

Yeah, I would agree with that sentiment. Everything was good. I thought you guys got creative. So it wasn’t just sandwiches or, you know, it wasn’t a boring spread. And I appreciate that you have a snack bar out all the time because you could tell if somebody just needs a break for a little bit, they’re like, oh, I can just stand up and go graze and create a little, you know, snack mix or whatever.

[00:26:37]   

And I thought that was nice because that doesn’t happen at all the events you go to. So that was a cool thing. That was good. On top of already good food and already always having coffee, because there’s always coffee. I would say we’re a highly caffeinated group and it’s great. So that is always flowing, which is good.

[00:26:57]  Megan Porta 

Well caffeinated and well fed.

[00:26:59]  Christine Pittman 

And yeah, the cocktails, you guys do a good job with the cocktails. You know me, I like those.

[00:27:05]  Megan Porta 

We do our best. We have our priorities all lined up. Right.

[00:27:10]  Meredith Kruse 

But that is something that differentiates you too. You’re not only serving breakfast and lunch, you’re also putting together a full cocktail hour that everyone’s invited to. It’s not like you’re giving everyone one drink ticket or just saying, hey, meet us here. You’re providing that and creating another opportunity to chat that’s outside of an educational setting.

[00:27:31]   

So it’s a just another curated part that you guys have thought through really nicely. Awesome.

[00:27:37]  Megan Porta 

Love that. So along with the pricing, it is a little bit higher. Like you said, Melissa, we really do like to provide the red carpet treatment. Like, we want you guys to walk in feeling special from the moment you’re there until happy hour is done. Like the whole thing, we want to be just this curated luxury event.

[00:27:59]   

And it’s not just about luxury. That’s not what the event is about. But we want it to just speak that we are intentional and that we truly, truly care about you and your experience here and beyond the event too. So the high ticket is not just about the food and not just about luxury, but just making you feel like you deserve it because you do.

[00:28:25]   

You guys work your butts off all year. So this is the one time you can come and just feel like, okay, I’m here, I’m going to enjoy myself, I’m going to have a cocktail, I’m going to learn, I’m going to grow, connect. And that is our intention behind it.

[00:28:40]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah. And it keeps us focused. It keeps Megan and I focused on on our goal and make sure every decision and is made with and, you know, just intentional. Like, is this going to add value or not? Like we’re not just like, no. Okay, well, we’ll try this. Like, we think through everything because we know it was an Investment.

[00:29:04]   

And we never want people to walk away and be like, well, that wasn’t worth it. I mean, it’s. It kind of puts a good pressure on Megan and I. Yeah, it does.

[00:29:15]  Megan Porta 

And the swag bags, we put a lot of intention in those as well. It’s not just, here, let’s give you a sticker and a coupon for pizza and something that you’re going to throw away when you get home. We really want you to love every item, and they’re nice items that we put into the swag bags.

[00:29:33]   

Is there anything, Christine or Meredith that you guys have gotten from your swag bags that you just have adored?

[00:29:38]  Christine Pittman 

I don’t remember which year. There’s a. There’s like a wine travel mug. Is that right?

[00:29:46]  Megan Porta 

Oh, love that too. Oh, my gosh, I love mine.

[00:29:52]  Meredith Kruse 

My daughter has stolen the blue fuzzy blanket you had last year because it has little foot holes and, like, it’s the greatest thing ever. So it’s like, I don’t remember, you know, the robes you wear backwards or whatever, but for your feet. Yeah, it’s a whole thing.

[00:30:10]  Megan Porta 

What you. Melissa, is there anything that you still use and love?

[00:30:14]  Melissa Erdelac 

I mean, the vin glass that is like, I love it because I cannot stand drinking wine or cocktails of stainless. So it’s like a glass inserted thing I use. We did like, the Bluetooth eye mask. I use that for sleeping a lot because I could listen to, like, meditations while. And you know, my husband’s next to us, so it’s not that weird.

[00:30:41]   

Like, breathe softly, you know, like, so I could just listen in my head instead of just the whole room.

[00:30:47]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I too, use the blanket a lot. And the third day mug that we provided, the big. Is it Stanley mug. Is that right? I use that all the time. There are so many things that we put in our swag bags. Oh, the speaker from year one.

[00:31:03]  Meredith Kruse 

The little.

[00:31:04]  Melissa Erdelac 

Oh, yeah, I like that.

[00:31:06]  Megan Porta 

I can’t remember the brand. Yeah.

[00:31:08]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yes.

[00:31:09]  Megan Porta 

Love it. We use that all the time. We actually. We have two of them and we fight over them in our house.

[00:31:14]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah, we put them in their luggage. Like, we travel with them.

[00:31:17]  Megan Porta 

Yep. Very good travel speakers. So I want to talk about some of the topics coming up for this next year, but before I do that, is there anything I’ve missed, like, any highlights you guys want to mention or anything that has just been worth mentioning here?

[00:31:31]  Meredith Kruse 

I think in some of the talking points you set up, it’s like, what’s something that, like, kind of wowed you when you walked in that I’ve been thinking of and I. I think both years you guys have done a very lovely job picking a venue that kind of is a wow spot in itself.

[00:31:46]   

And then you don’t like over decorate, but you have flowers and like, it just makes you feel happy the moment you’re there. And I think that was something that was unique and I didn’t expect when I walked in.

[00:32:00]  Megan Porta 

I love it. Yes. The flowers are such a nice touch. I think people appreciate pretty flowers. Right. And then I don’t know if this.

[00:32:07]  Christine Pittman 

Is going to make super sense, but I think it will. I’ve been to a lot of bigger conferences and there’s often a lot of like sponsored events and things that some people are being invited to that sort of pull people away in different ways and feel exclusive or like this is just for those people.

[00:32:24]   

If you’re. It’s such a small event that I don’t know that anybody could get away with doing that. But it’s not happening. We are all there and we’re there for the whole time and nobody’s feeling that inequality, exclusion and feeling from that. And as somebody who has been pulled away for special things and then felt weird and somebody who has been in the room while other people are leaving, I’ve felt both sides of that and it’s nice that that isn’t happening.

[00:32:54]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I love to hear that as well. We are intentional about that. Should we talk about some of the things that are coming up? So we don’t officially have our speaker lineup set. We, we have it mostly set, but we haven’t announced exact speakers yet. But we do have some topics that we would love to just kind of put out there.

[00:33:14]   

If this is something you’re considering, maybe this would sway you, you know. Yes, I want to come. First of all, if you do want to come, you need to be monetized through either Mediavine or Raptive Ad networks. So what is that? 50,000 minimum page views. And you do need to fill out an application.

[00:33:33]   

So if you’re interested, go to flavormediasummit.net and go to the apply button and you can just fill out a short form there. So topics. I feel like we’ve been honing in on this. Every year we get a little bit better and better and better. The first year we were just like, okay, let’s do all of the things.

[00:33:55]   

And then we had a hard time kind of, oh, crap, we have a schedule we have to piece, like fit all these in. So year two we were a little bit better, but it was still like a little bit of an overflow, like okay, we have to double up rooms more than we wanted and all of that.

[00:34:08]   

So this year we’ve just been a little bit slower and more intentional about what we want to talk about and who’s going to be talking about it. So that’s why it’s taking us a little bit more time. But video is for sure. Yes. We know people are getting into long form video, also short form video.

[00:34:26]   

So we’re going to have sessions on both of those. Just thoroughly covering those topics. Melissa, do you want to talk about a few others?

[00:34:35]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah. So the Instagram strategy and this is something that we didn’t talk about but a lot of our topics that, I mean you could say this probably a lot of topics, but a lot of topics that it’s not a one size fit all approach but you get a lot of value from panels.

[00:34:52]   

Our panels are very interactive where it’s not just the speakers but it’s kind of more like brainstorm sessions. So we’re going to be doing a panel on Instagram strategy and then we also have one of our sponsors is Shannon McKinstry is she will be there to provide some insight on that as well. Will be doing a Pinterest panel because it is coming back. I could say yes. Mine is on the up and up and I feel like people are getting a little bit more positive about that. So we’ll be doing a panel on that and we have Christine Wheeler from Pentovation Media will be joining us too.

[00:35:34]  Megan Porta 

Yep. We’re also really speaking of panels. We’re also going to do an email panel because we know email is huge. People are really leaning into this right now. So we can’t not do that. AI. There are so many ways to use AI and I feel like it’s getting more and more common to just incorporate it not just into your business, but transform your life from it.

[00:35:59]   

So we’re hoping to have a really powerful kind of, I don’t know, like masterminding session kind of where we bring in the attendees perspectives too. Like hey, how are you guys using AI? Let’s talk about this. And really getting to the nitty nitty gritty of what is working beyond just like, oh, I create Pinterest descriptions like be way beyond that.

[00:36:21]   

Let’s really dig in and talk about how AI is changing your life. What else do we have?

[00:36:28]  Melissa Erdelac 

Well, SEO and yeah. And Ty Kilgore will be joining us again and last year he did some live audits that people really liked. I felt like that was. I added A lot of value. So now we’re just kind of like just let’s just start with that. Let’s get dig into that. So he’s going be doing some more real time recommendations for everyone in the group.

[00:36:58]   

Joe from Finite Solutions is joining us again. And in concurrence with that, we’re going to be talking about understanding analytics and interpreting trends and using data, which I feel like we are just inundated with data and what do we do with all of it. So kind of working through that as well.

[00:37:18]  Megan Porta 

And a note on Ty, we probably will have him give a brief update on SEO because I know people come just wanting to know what’s the state of SEO for food bloggers this year. So we will have him talk just really briefly about that. But the live audits did seem to be a favorite so we wanted to kind of put the focus there and I mean I think that covers the bulk of it.

[00:37:41]   

It’s going to be awesome. We’re super excited. And yeah. Meredith and Christine, do you have any thoughts as we talk through topics?

[00:37:50]  Meredith Kruse 

I think for your speakers specifically, I like that you bring unique perspectives in. It’s not the same five people you see over and over again kind of in our space. You know, they’re great too. But it’s kind of nice seeing a variety and I think even from year to year you’ve brought multiple email perspectives and multiple Pinterest perspectives and it keeps it fresh and it also maybe it can help spark, you know, different ideas and excitement because you’re not hearing the same thing over and over again.

[00:38:24]  Christine Pittman 

Yeah, just wondering, you said you don’t have the whole speaker list left. Do you have where, what are you, are you open to ideas for other things or is this not the right time for that?

[00:38:37]  Megan Porta 

I mean what else. Yeah, I mean let’s hear it. What else would you love to learn about?

[00:38:42]  Christine Pittman 

I’m like the more direct sale kind of aspect of things like the, that like the, I mean a little bit in the email, right? It’s going to be part of the email session. Probably it’s the selling but what sorts of things can people do? I mean I’ve told you I’ve flood the membership community but people do different things where they are selling things more directly and not relying on traffic, whether that’s traffic from their, from Google or from Pinterest or from, from other social media.

[00:39:10]   

There’s these different avenues. I’m fascinated right now and always have been about the different ways that people fuel their business and all the.

[00:39:21]  Melissa Erdelac 

Different directions I think that’s good. I will add that list. I think that is. Yeah. And I’m kind of diving into that myself and my own business.

[00:39:31]  Megan Porta 

Yes. So just to reiterate, if this is of interest to you and you meet that criteria that we talked about, so 50,000 page views monetized through Raptive or Mediavine, FlavorMediaSummit.net hit apply and we’d love to hear from you. We only have. We have single digit tickets left for the main event and a handful for the third day workshop.So get on it fast. This is going to be published. I think this is the first episode of 2026. So yeah, do it sooner rather than later. And the event is April 21st and 22nd 2026 and it’s in Austin, Texas like we talked about. The venue is amazing. Austin is so fun.

[00:40:16]   

We went there and got to ride around in the Waymo, the self driving car and that was quite an experience. And the food. Oh my gosh, the food is so diverse and good.

[00:40:26]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah.

[00:40:27]  Megan Porta 

Too.

[00:40:27]  Melissa Erdelac 

Yeah, it is.

[00:40:28]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:40:29]  Melissa Erdelac 

And we really appreciate you guys doing this. Meredith and Christine.

[00:40:32]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Thank you guys.

[00:40:33]  Melissa Erdelac 

So be able to see you.

[00:40:35]  Megan Porta 

Can’t wait to see you.

[00:40:39]  Meredith Kruse 

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity.

[00:40:41]  Megan Porta 

Well, thanks everyone. 

[00:40:45]  Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. If you are craving learning, connection and increased productivity at a low monthly cost, join the Eat Blog Talk Inner Circle. Go to eatblogtalk.com/focus to join. I will see you in the next episode.