Episode 699: Feeling Alone as a Blogger? How to Find Your Tribe on Food Social With Reed Dunn

EBT699 – Reed Dunn

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

[00:00:37] Megan Porta   

Do any of these issues feel real for you? Creator Isolation? Feeling like you’re doing this all alone and that nobody else in the world understands what you do? Maybe looking for additional monetization or additional traffic for your blog and looking for brands to work with who are authentically looking for creators to work with.If any of those issues are problems for you in your business currently, I might have the perfect solution for you. Reed Dunn from Pesto and Potatoes joined me in this interview and he talks about a platform called Food Social that has filled all of these gaps in his business and life for him. It sounds like a dream come true.

[00:01:24]   

Food Social is free. It’s a community that is created by creators for creators and has so many perks and benefits and goodies inside and I think after listening you are probably going to join immediately like I am here in a little bit. On top of that, Reed is just a lovely human to talk to and it was so good to connect with him.

[00:01:48]   

I think you’ll find everything that he says very inspiring and encouraging and I really hope you love this episode as much as I loved recording it. It is number 699. 

[00:02:00] Sponsor

Food bloggers. Do you want to see the conversations behind the mic? Eat Blog Talk is now on YouTube featuring edited interviews with expert guests. Head over to YouTube and search Eat Blog Talk, hit subscribe and join the conversation in the comments. Let’s connect and grow together.

[00:02:19] Megan Porta   

Reed Dunn’s journey in the kitchen began as a young child in small town Kansas where he spent hours learning how to cook by digging through cookbooks and mimicking what his mom was doing.

[00:02:27]   

In 2018, after a month of sharing what he was eating on Instagram, friends and co workers encouraged him to start an account dedicated to his recipes. Pesto and Potatoes was born and it’s where he shares his passion for cooking through wholesome, plant based and pescatarian recipes inspired by the Pacific Northwest and the many regions in which he has lived well.

[00:02:50]   

Hello Reed, welcome to the podcast. How are you today?

[00:02:53]  Reed Dunn 

I’m great. I’m so excited to be here and to meet you, Megan. It’s been probably a long time coming, but super excited.

[00:03:01]  Megan Porta 

So happy to meet you and glad you’re here. Today we’re going to talk about you finding your creator community through Food Social, which I know absolutely nothing about. So you’re going to teach me a lot today. But first, you know it’s coming. I’m going to ask you to share a fun fact about yourself.

[00:03:18]   

So what do you got?

[00:03:19]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah, this is hopefully a fun fact in relation to blogging. I started my career as a journalist and more specifically, sort of a pop culture and celebrity journalist. So my kind of parlay into blogging in general was in early 2003, I guess I started writing an American Idol blog, which started with season two.

[00:03:44]   

And for several years, I wrote sort of the unofficial, official American Idol blog. And I had like, behind the scenes secrets, show notes. I interviewed tons of folks who had been on the show. So it was kind of my. It kind of tied into my career, but working with the blog network and I knew way too much about American Idol and what was going on in those days.

[00:04:08]  Megan Porta 

That’s so funny. It was so big back then when it first started.

[00:04:12]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah.

[00:04:13]  Megan Porta 

Do you still keep up? Is it still a thing?

[00:04:16]  Reed Dunn 

I think it’s. It is still on. I sort of stopped watching it after I. I sort of finished the blog. I’d done it for so long and I was writing like five posts a day.

[00:04:28]  Megan Porta 

Oh, my gosh. That’s a lot.

[00:04:29]  Reed Dunn 

It was on so many days a week. And, yeah, there was so much to, like, write about and the eliminations and who was making it through. And it was kind of. It was a little bit of overkill. American Idol overkill. So, yeah, I don’t watch it.

[00:04:44]  Megan Porta 

A little bit of a drain I can see or sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was so big for a while, and then I think a lot of people just kind of slowly lost interest and kind of fell off the bandwagon. But I loved it. I was super into it as well.

[00:04:59]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah.

[00:05:00]  Megan Porta 

Very cool. All right, well, you have a blog, Pesto and Potatoes. Would you mind just telling us a little bit about that?

[00:05:08]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah. So, you know, I mentioned I was blogging about American Idol, and then from there I kind of started my own blog. And I. It was just a lifestyle blog. And I realized recently when I was looking back at super old posts that are now hidden from the Internet forever, that I was writing a lot about food.

[00:05:28]   

But it was really not until 2018 that I launched Pesto and Potatoes. And this. The whole idea was that I had done a round of Whole 30, and I was using Instagram to keep myself accountable with what I was eating and posting my breakfast, lunch, and dinner and not attractive photos by any means, but just accountability photos.

[00:05:50]   

And my coworkers were like, oh, my gosh, this looks so good. I need your recipe. Well, I didn’t use recipes. I was just the home cook cooking meals. But I realized that people didn’t know where to start, like how to boil water, essentially. Right. So I taught myself to write recipes. And I launched Pesto and Potatoes in 2018 with a focus on pescatarian recipes.Because I’m a pescatarian. I live in Seattle. I’m surrounded by the best seafood, and I love a good farmer’s market or Pike Place Market. You know, it’s a tourist hotspot, but you can really shop there for groceries. So I just was sharing what I was loving and enjoying and creating recipes, and it kind of took off from there.

[00:06:36]  Megan Porta 

That’s so great. I’m looking at your site now. It is just beautiful. Your photography. Do you do your own photography?

[00:06:41]  Reed Dunn 

I do. I actually take all of my own photos on my iPhone. I don’t even use a real camera. Everything is iPhone photography.

[00:06:50]  Megan Porta 

I love that. I love that so much. I’m into simplifying these days. Like, I don’t. I take all of my process and ingredient shot with my phone. And then I started a second blog last summer, and all of those are on my iPhone. And it’s so, so nice. And you really can capture such beautiful images still with an iPhone.

[00:07:10]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I studied photography in college as part of my journalism degree, and I. So I understand framing and all of that. And you really can do so much with an iPhone. And I stopped using a real camera, like the last time that people were using film cameras. Like, really? And I just.As the iPhone has gotten better, I’ve just learned the tricks and I make it work.

[00:07:36]  Megan Porta 

Okay, we should have another conversation about that because you have some tricks. I don’t know. Looking at your photos, I’m like, wow, those are really good. Amazing. Okay. So inspiring. So I know that you had this. Did you have kind of a moment or was it a culmination where you were just like, okay, I am so isolated being a creator because it is so isolating at times.How does that story go for you?

[00:07:59]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah, I mean, for me, really, there are some. You know, we have some mutual connections. Who I’ve laughed about this with now, but I was in Seattle and there are a couple of really well known food people in the Seattle scene. I mean Kenji and you know Matt Broussard who’s like huge on TikTok.

[00:08:18]   

These folks exist in the sphere. But I really thought I was the only person doing what I was doing because it’s not like you go into an office and find your colleagues or it’s just such a different food blogging is such a different thing. And I laugh about it now with Seattle area food bloggers who I’ve met because there are so many of us, but I thought I was the only one because you’re sort of in this bubble.

[00:08:44]   

And so even though I had all these followers on Instagram and I had that community, I didn’t have the sort of traditional co workers and I really do so much better creatively when I’m surrounded by like minded people. And I was just searching for that and I never, I just didn’t know it existed.I didn’t know. I mean you do so much tremendous work around this space and connecting our community of food bloggers. And there, you know, there’s conferences and other things that I just didn’t know. I didn’t know how to find them and I quite frankly didn’t even do a Google search for them because it didn’t occur to me that that existed.

[00:09:24]   

So I struggled like I was struggling to sort of stay motivated on what was new or fresh. And I was just, I was an Instagram blogger really. Like I was putting recipe and caption. I had the blog as a platform but I wasn’t using it in the, in the sort of quote unquote correct way.

[00:09:44]   

I wasn’t taking advantage of the opportunities to share my content in that way. And it was because I didn’t, I just didn’t have those connections and so I was like seeking that out. And I had been doing this for several years but it wasn’t only recently that I kind of found that community and that community sort of first came to me through connections through the Whole30 and doing recipe development for Whole30 and meeting other creators through like these occasional virtual happy hours or calls or whatever.

[00:10:19]   

But that was like such a one off and I didn’t really, there was no follow up. There might be an Instagram DM but there was no connection. And Food Social came into my like life a few years ago and I really have started finding this community of like minded creators who have the same struggles like chasing the Instagram algorithm, understanding what we should be focusing on like getting feedback on like my photography or my recipes or does this sound good or what, what headline should I use for this?

[00:10:54]   

Or what should I call this recipe? So that has been, I mean, it’s been great. Food Social really like, was the connector for me. And then through that randomly I’ve started meeting all these Seattle based creators who aren’t necessarily even on Food Social. But somehow it opened me up to like the realization that there are a ton of us out there looking for community.And looking.

[00:11:19]  Megan Porta 

Looking for each other.

[00:11:20]  Reed Dunn 

Yes, and looking for each other. And Food Social just happened to be the connector that was like the big link that kind of got things started for me in building community.

[00:11:30]  Megan Porta 

Okay, that is so cool. I think we can all relate to this kind of isolation. Am I doing this alone? Are there other people out there sort of thing. I don’t know much about Food Social aside from what Taryn, our mutual friend has told me. So can you explain what Food Social is?

[00:11:46]  Reed Dunn 

Absolutely. So Food Social, it’s a platform and now a mobile app as of recently, that is a recipe site, but it’s a site for creators that was developed by creators. And the whole idea was people getting fed up with the algorithms of social networks and not being able to control their content or own their content in a way that was meaningful.

[00:12:12]   

And so Food Social brings together home cooks, which are those folks out there looking for recipes, creators, us and brands. And so it’s a lot of brands. There’s a marketplace on the, on the Food Social network. And that marketplace has a lot of brands that people are familiar with, but tons of brands, dozens and dozens of brands that are like small startups, really incredible brands, but they’re just getting out there as well.

[00:12:41]   

And they’re looking to connect with those same kinds of folks. They’re looking to connect with creators, they’re looking to get their brand story out there. So it’s sort of these three buckets of people coming together, but the focus is really around the creator and you really have a seat at the table. Like, if you’re like, hey, I don’t really like how this works, the product, the Food Social sort of tech stack is being built in real time literally by creators.

[00:13:08]   

Like the ownership model, the ownership group, like they’re, it’s creators that, that created this. And Bill and Haley Staley from Primal Palette are owners in the organization and they, they drive a lot of what the product is. And obviously they own a, they own a brand as well, but they’re creators and they started as creators and they’re. And they’re quite large, but their frustrations or were among many. And so that’s sort of how it all kind of comes together.

[00:13:37]  Megan Porta 

I love it when things are built for creators by creators, because then they know the exact pain points that we’re feeling. Right. So it’s like. Because so often it’s like a random tech team or something builds something for us. And I was like, no, you don’t really understand what we’re struggling with. You don’t align.It just does. It doesn’t feel like a. I don’t know, like a match, I guess. So I love that it’s made by creators. And then if there’s another platform to like compare it to. Is there. Is it like, like Substack? I’m just trying to imagine, like, is it a discussion forum or how does it work?What do you see when you go into it?

[00:14:17]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah, I mean, it’s. It’s sort of like Pinterest, if Pinterest was only recipes. And it’s just a short form. It’s a short form. Like, so there’s just a paragraph about the recipe, the photos, the ingredients. Creators can link. If they have a blog, they can link their, you know, the backlink to their.Where the recipe was originally published or if they, if they’re publishing it on the blog. Like me personally, like, I’ll publish something on the blog and then almost if I’m going to put it on Food Social, I instantly put it on Food Social and include that link. You can put videos for like, if you have something on Instagram, if you have like an Instagram reel, you can put that into there as well.

[00:15:04]   

So it sort of connects everything together. So I say it’s kind of like Pinterest in the way that like you can go on there as a, as a user, as a what Food Social calls a home cook and search for recipes. You can build collections and meal plans. So it’s really great for people who are kind of getting started or who are looking for a way to like repurpose content in a different way if their blog isn’t serving that.

[00:15:30]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:15:30]  Reed Dunn 

And if someone’s just doing recipe and captions still on Instagram, it provides an opportunity for that person to have their recipes live somewhere and they still have ownership of that content.

[00:15:44]  Megan Porta 

Okay, so do you get much you can link, right? You said to your blog. So do you get much traffic from the platform?

[00:15:51]  Reed Dunn 

I do. I mean, I get pretty good traffic. The one thing that I really love, and this is something that several creators kind of brought up. And because it’s being built in sort of real time and these updates and changes are happening, there’s an analytics backend so you can see your traffic, you can see what recipes are coming or what, how recipes are performing, how many page views you’re getting and you can kind of make some content decisions around that.

[00:16:19]   

You know, just like you would if, if you’re doing like Google search, like Google console search or something along those lines. You can look at that and be like, oh, this potato recipe is doing really well. Maybe people want more scalloped potato style recipes or maybe there’s another a thing in my niche that I can kind of go after.

[00:16:40]   

So it’s sort of great to have those analytics and, and, and kind of see that and you, they’re updated daily and you can see them month over month and search just like you would like Google Analytics or something like that. But they’re really buttoned up to your food social content.

[00:16:58]  Megan Porta 

Okay, amazing. And even if it’s a minuscule amount of traffic that you get from Food Social, I always say at least you’re getting something like to have a hundred views a day or whatever it is over time that adds up to something significant. So yeah, I think people are really looking for other sources of traffic right now, so why not?

[00:17:21]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah, it’s a great, I mean it’s a great, it’s sort of a great add on. And I mean there’s a revenue component. You get paid for page views, there’s affiliate programming through the marketplace. You get connected to these brands. There are regular activations as well. So like right now they’re just, this activation is just wrapping up.

[00:17:40]   

But brands that are on the platform who are in the market, in the food social marketplace, they sponsor these activations. They send product out to creators, creators create with them and then those go onto the platform and it helps drive visibility for the brand. It drives the best visibility for creators. For me personally, when I do those brand activations, it’s great because I get introduced to a new brand, I get to have fun in the kitchen and recipe test something that maybe I wouldn’t do.

[00:18:13]   

Like I recently, this recent activation is in conjunction with Profanity Jam, which is a spicy habanero jam company. And so I created, I used it in a, in my sort of like individual no bake cheesecake recipe. I zhuzhed that up for it. I made a pasta salad with a habanero jelly vinaigrette and I made a sort of a jam jar style Margarita.

[00:18:38]   

So it was, like, fun to kind of play with recipes that I wouldn’t necessarily develop for my blog, but it makes sense for Food Social. And quite honestly, like, that margarita recipe was like, the best, probably the best margarita recipe I’ve ever created, and I’ve created several over the years. So it’s like the opportunity to kind of like, get your creative juices flowing just in a different sort of in a different way

[00:19:03]  Megan Porta 

When you wouldn’t have otherwise, maybe.

[00:19:07]  Reed Dunn 

Absolutely.

[00:19:08]  Megan Porta 

Well, that’s cool. Okay, so I didn’t realize about the monetization opportunities. So brands, you said affiliates as well.

[00:19:14]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah. So you can. So you can do. When you’re a creator on Food Social, once you become a featured creator, which I think it’s just 10 recipes. Like, once you’ve uploaded 10 recipes, you become a featured creator, which makes you eligible for these monetization opportunities. And so there’s a little bit of money coming from page views, so you can earn revenue from page views on your recipes.

[00:19:39]   

So if you’re driving traffic from traditional social channels or wherever else to food social, you get a little revenue from that. You can have a discount code, like a traditional affiliate, like, if you use pesto at checkout. For me, that’s, you know, I get. I get a little commission on any purchases when people use that discount code and they get 10% off of the market or that kind of varies by product, but it’s.

[00:20:06]   

It’s usually at least 10%. And then you get that commission as well. And then there’s just other. There are other opportunities. Like I mentioned these activations, so it’s a really good chance. And that’s sort of where the whole community thing for me came together, is like, these activations. The earliest activation I did was connecting with other creators to create, like, a meal plan based on a product.

[00:20:30]   

And so I got to work with these people. We set up zoom calls. I kind of really got to know them, and they became friends. And we created this collection, this menu, this, like, sort of brunch menu using these products. And from there, kind of. That’s sort of where it, like, bubbled up.

[00:20:47]   

And I just continued to get more and more involved because I was finding community and the connection that I’d been looking for for so long.

[00:20:55]  Megan Porta 

That’s so great. I love this story. It’s like one thing kind of has led to another, and then, I mean, I feel like people. People are everything. If you have more people in your circle, the more opportunities are going to come your way. I’ve just always believed in that. And it sounds like this is kind of what the whole premise for Food Social is like. Put the people, the right people in the right room and see what can happen with your business. And not just your business, but it sounds like you’re more fulfilled as a creator and an individual as well.

[00:21:27]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah, I mean, you know this, but when one of us, you know, when one of us is rising and we’re, we can kind of carry each other along and, and Food Social is very much not a competitive landscape. It’s, it’s a creator first landscape where it’s all about helping each other all succeed.Because isn’t that what we all want?

[00:21:47]  Megan Porta 

That’s what it’s all about. I absolutely love it. 

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[00:23:31]   

So is this mobile only? Do you only access Food Social on your phone or is it something you can access on your desktop?

[00:23:35]  Reed Dunn 

On the desktop. I actually use it mostly from the desktop. The mobile app is very new, so it’s been. I actually don’t remember when it launched, but it’s been just a couple of months. The mobile app added some great features with like obviously notifications. That’s helped me gain a bigger following on Food Social because it’s pretty new.

[00:23:55]   

I have a couple hundred followers or more, but I get a couple new followers every day. And they’re followers that I wouldn’t have gotten from social media. I’m finding them through other creators or they’re finding me through. Through discovering Food Social in that way. But the desktop version at foodsocial.io is really sort of my go to.

[00:24:17]   

That’s where I upload my recipes. That’s where I search for other people’s recipes or create collections or meal plans. And then connecting with the community happens sort of outside of the platform in a lot of ways as well. There’s a Slack channel. There’s regular opportunities for meetups, virtual meetups, like weekly things and quarterly town hall meetings and things like that.

[00:24:40]   

But in app, you can, you know, you can comment on other people’s recipes and some of those traditional things. And more of that is happening sort of in real time because, you know, as creators, I’m pretty vocal about Food Social to the Food Social team. And I’m like, hey, it would be really great if we could do this.

[00:24:59]   

Like, I would love to have this feature on the platform. And sometimes they happen within a day. It really is being built open source in real time. And then other things, like opportunities for monetization that are like, I’d love to be able to teach like a virtual cooking class. And there’s not a great platform for that.

[00:25:21]   

That’s not super structured. And I think, like, Food Social is a great sort of opportunity and audience for that. So it’s growing in a lot of interesting ways. But, but to kind of get back to your question, the desktop version on my laptop, that’s. That’s where I spend.

[00:25:39]  Megan Porta 

That’s where you go.

[00:25:40]  Reed Dunn 

Time. Yeah.

[00:25:41]  Megan Porta 

Okay. And then how big is the community right now on Food Social? Are there. Yeah, like hundreds or how many people.

[00:25:47]  Reed Dunn 

You know, that’s great. I really am not 100% sure. What I can say is I know there are almost, I think There are almost 9,000 recipes on the platform from the creator community. And it’s getting like, it’s getting millions of page views. So it’s.

[00:26:04]  Megan Porta 

Oh, wow.

[00:26:04]  Reed Dunn 

It’s. It’s a pretty good. It’s a pretty good network. There’s over. There’s well over a hundred creators on the network, but I have. I’m not really sure how many it is.

[00:26:16]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that’s okay. I’m just trying to get a scope. Yeah.

[00:26:18]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah.

[00:26:19]  Megan Porta 

And then you mentioned earlier the happy hours. Is this something that you do on Zoom or how do you guys meet?

[00:26:26]  Reed Dunn 

Yes. Yeah, there’s a weekly Zoom happy hour and it happens on Fridays and it’s, it’s during the day or I, because I’m in Seattle, it’s like at 10am for me. But it’s just an hour long Zoom call where we kind of come in and talk about like what we’re working on or what project.

[00:26:44]   

Like, if there’s a new brand that has joined Food Social, the owner of that brand might come in and introduce the brand and share a, a link for getting free product to try. Or it might just be like we’re all talking about like what we’re doing for the weekend or it’s sort of like an unwind, a time to unwind.

[00:27:04]   

And I, I really like that for me was, you know, I say I found my community at Food Social. Like, that’s where I really found it. Like those weekly happy hours came into my life at a time where I was really like, am I going to quit doing Pesto and Potatoes? Like, what’s the… Like, is anyone even making my recipes? Like, I just felt like really lost. And it was therapy for me, which I, I like kind of joke about still to this day. But like, I’ve attended more of those happy hours than I think any other creator on the platform. But for me, I was like needing that.

[00:27:41]   

I needed that accountability and consistency and it, it was, I was able to carve out the time from my day job to be able to make it work. And I’ve just been really consistent with attending them because I get a lot out of it.

[00:27:56]  Megan Porta 

I was going to ask you that. I know there’s a lot of burnout and frustration in the creator space right now. Just with all the stuff going on, everything so feels so volatile. So it sounds like this would be a good option for those people who are just like, should I throw my blog away?

[00:28:15]   

Should I run away from this business? This might be a really great just kind of avenue to get people back into feeling like they’re worthwhile again.

[00:28:25]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah, I, I would definitely, I would definitely say that. I mean, I like my, my traditional blog. I mean, pestoandpotatoes.com I just recently redesigned it and launched it with a redesign. And before that, and I’m talking two months ago, before that, it was, it was basically looked like an Instagram feed with more words because I started on Instagram and I realized that Instagram and caption or recipe and caption wasn’t it.

[00:28:56]   

Like people couldn’t go really cook from those very easily. And so that’s why I had started the blog. And then I never really did any of the things, even though I’m a marketer by day. But, like, I wasn’t doing my own. I wasn’t doing SEO. I didn’t have any intentions to monetize the blog in any way at that time.

[00:29:18]   

And then I realized that I was just missing this huge opportunity. But I know that the burnout is real and it’s sort of like finding purpose in what you’re doing. And I do think, like, something like Food Social is a great opportunity for people who, like, feel like, I mean, I think about this, I’m like, talking to you.I’m like, I think most people listening are probably like, oh, good, another thing.

[00:29:40]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, right.

[00:29:41]  Reed Dunn 

But what I think Food Social actually can be is, like, if you’re looking for community or you’re struggling to find, like, sort of purpose in what you’re doing, it’s a great chance to have, like, a network of people where you can say, like, is this crazy? Should I quit? And someone is always energized by something, and they’re energized by what you’re doing.

[00:30:04]   

And so maybe you can recycle some of your old content. It’s a good, a good way to, like, bring new life to a recipe that you really love. Like, it’s been on your blog and maybe Google isn’t giving it any love, but throw it on Food Social and see what happens. I just think it’s a great, like, for that alone, I think that is a great way to, like, kind of pour your own love into, like, what you’re doing.

[00:30:30]   

I write recipes mostly not for Google. I write them for things that that I want to do. Like, I want to create this recipe or I ate this and I thought it was really delicious. Let me remake it a few times and perfect it so it can be a recipe.

[00:30:45]   

I don’t spend a ton of time being like, what am I going to call it? For Google, I’m like, what am I going to call it? So it sounds delicious and so that people want to make it. Because that for me is what I care about. I care about community across the board.

[00:31:00]   

I care about the people who. If someone’s going to take the time to come to my website and look at a recipe or make it, I want them to be successful at it. But I also just, I’m doing it out of love. And the reason that I ever started it was to share and inspire people to get in the kitchen.And I don’t want to lose sight of that.

[00:31:21]  Megan Porta 

I was just going to say that too. We tend to lose sight of that over time as we do start writing more for Google and we kind of frame it as, like, I’m writing for the user. But really, we so often are in the rut of writing for Google and that’s not coming from a place of love always.

[00:31:40]   

So it’s really good. It’s really refreshing to hear you say that. I think a lot of us, myself included, need to get back into, like, why did I start this in the first place? What did I actually love about cooking and baking? Do I love to share with people instead of I need to find the exact right keyword for this recipe that feels.That just kind of feels icky. But unfortunately, it’s where we’ve evolved as a food blogging species.

[00:32:10]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah. And I. And I do think one thing that is great about Food Social is for someone who, you know, isn’t an SEO expert putting your recipes on Food Social, like, for that person, like, it’s doing a lot of that work for you because you’re not just putting it on one site. It’s like a site with tons of creators and tons of their recipes.

[00:32:31]   

And so the SEO of it all is, like, naturally happening and the team is obviously looking out for that as well. So, like, those. You’re not having to spend tons of time, like, searching, like, what keywords work. You’re going to have visibility because the newest recipes show up at the top of the feed.

[00:32:50]   

So, you know, I think that’s a big bonus for people who are sort of in that burnout phase of, like, I can’t possibly do another keyword search to see how to get this recipe to be successful.

[00:33:02]  Megan Porta 

Right. Is it hard to get onto. I know a lot of platforms are like, oh, my gosh, it takes. So, like, you have to fill out this extensive profile and, like, that can be a hurdle. How easy is it to get set up?

[00:33:14]  Reed Dunn 

I mean, it could not. It literally could not be easier, which was why I joined it to begin with, because I was like, what do I have to lose? Like, I just join. And so if you go to the Food Social site and literally click the join or the register button, you just choose that you’re a creator, fill out a short form that has your information, upload your photo and start literally inputting your recipes.

[00:33:40]   

And once you’ve gotten your first 10 recipes on, there’s like a recipe uploader. So if you do have a blog and you’re like, I want to, I want to transfer over these 25 recipes. There’s a, you know, if you have a traditional recipe card, you can just copy and paste those links into this like Google sheet and submit it.

[00:33:59]   

And then they go into draft form. On the back end there’s a little bit of manual effort. So it’s not instant, that part’s not instant. But you can, then you have all these recipes in draft form. You can edit them and publish. I think it’s like it’s sort of a low hanging fruit to use an overused term to get started.

[00:34:19]   

There’s like low, there’s sort of low commitment to great. Which, which I think is like really. That was what was really appealing to me because I joined the platform earlier on and my big thing was I was like, I don’t, I’m already struggling. I was like, oh good. Another thing, like every time a new social network comes out, I’m like, I do, I don’t know how to, like, I can’t do more.

[00:34:43]   

But at my core I’m still like, I built my audience on Instagram. That’s where my audience is. But now, because I know what I know about the algorithm and like, not necessarily having that control over my content, I put a lot of energy into Food Social because I know no matter what, like, I can get the recipe up there faster than creating a reel for it.

[00:35:09]   

And if I don’t want to create a reel to get it to have traction and I just want to do a, a nice photo and my recipe, I can put it on the blog. And then Food Social feels like another place where I can get some traction. And again, like a little bit of monetization, which I’m not currently getting that much from my actual site.

[00:35:29]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, it feels like it hits a lot of gaps for people. Like the, the isolation piece, the burnout piece, possibly finding your people piece, potential monetization piece, the just feeling like you’re serving your people. It feels like a no brainer. And I’m assuming this is free, correct? Or is there a paid version?

[00:35:53]  Reed Dunn 

It is free to join. I mean, that’s the. Like, it’s literally like, it’s such a beautiful thing. I mean, it’s. For me, like I, I feel like I’m like the evangelist for Food Social. But the thing is, I think I, you know, when we, as you mentioned Taran before, like when I was telling her about it, I was like, I was.

[00:36:10]   

It sounds too good to be true. I think for a lot of people. Maybe it’s not for everyone, but I think there’s so much like for me, the value in the community. I was like, I’m willing to give a little extra time to upload my recipes to another destination because I’m getting a lot of value out of it.

[00:36:32]   

And I’m gaining traction. I’m getting, I am getting traffic and that traffic is translating to website traffic. I’m seeing it happen, you know, in real time and that I’m not getting. I’m not necessarily getting that from Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest or any of the other places that I’m spending time on.

[00:36:52]  Megan Porta 

So if people are interested, they just go, Is it food social.com?

[00:36:57]  Reed Dunn 

It’S FoodSocial IO and if they go to. Okay, if they go to Food Social IO Food for f creators that will take them directly to the creator. Like the, it has all the information about like sort of what Food Social’s about for creators. And the registration button is right there.

[00:37:19]  Megan Porta 

Food Social is probably going to see a huge influx after this episode airs. I hope so. I mean it sounds like such a positive, uplifting, generous space. And I’m, I’m kind of like you read where I’m like another thing. Really, do I have to do this? But it does seem like a no brainer, so I might just have to head over there myself.

[00:37:41]   

Sounds pretty amazing. Is there anything else you feel like we should know about Food Social before we start saying goodbye?

[00:37:47]  Reed Dunn 

I mean, I think that, I think the biggest other thing that we haven’t talked a ton about and it’s, it’s mostly like it’s happened more recently for me, but like getting connected with these brands in like a more meaningful way. Like I do a good amount of brand partnerships for social media for my social media platforms, but it’s so transactional and like to be able to get to know these brands as human beings and hear their passion about their product and their stories.

[00:38:16]   

I love that having been a journalist, I’m like, everyone has a story to tell. So I love that. Like I sort of love the old school recipe blog writing style where it was like, my grandma used to make this recipe. Like, I love that because those things mean a lot to me. And that’s where my recipe, I mean my recipes come from.

[00:38:37]   

Growing up in the Midwest and growing up in a small town in Kansas and like going to the kitchen and that was my creative space. So like that for me cooking is so important. The story is so important about it and the same is true for these brands. You know, like, yes, you can walk into any grocery store and pick a brand up off the shelf and buy that product and be like, yeah, this is great.

[00:38:59]   

But like, it’s rare that you get to really hear those backstories and like, really meet the people who are making the products. And I think that’s super valuable in connecting to our food and where our food comes from. And there’s such a variety of brands on the platform and if you go to the market on Food Social, you’re going to see brands that, you know, you’re going to see very popular brands, but you’re going to be able to discover a bunch of brands that you haven’t seen.

[00:39:29]   

And for me, as a creator, I love to work with new ingredients and new products, and especially I love to do that when I know that, like, where that product has come from and the work that went into creating it. And as creators, as recipe developers, we know that too. Right. Like, a recipe isn’t generally just born out of like one little idea and then, boom, it exists.

[00:39:53]   

It’s like, it’s an over time thing. So for me, that, like, I don’t know, I’m really passionate about that and like, supporting these brands and like helping lift them up. Because when we, when one rises, we all rise.

[00:40:07]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And approximately how many brands are we talking that are on the platform?

[00:40:13]  Reed Dunn 

There are over. There are well over a hundred brands.

[00:40:17]  Megan Porta 

Oh, wow.

[00:40:17]  Reed Dunn 

I think so. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s. The brand category on the market is growing very rapidly.

[00:40:24]  Megan Porta 

That’s awesome.

[00:40:25]  Reed Dunn 

It’s been really. There’s been very robust growth in the market in the last year, I would say. So it’s, it’s really been quite remarkable.

[00:40:36]  Megan Porta 

That’s amazing. So people who are working with brands or seeking that as another opportunity for their business. Definitely. I mean, for no other reason than that, get on Food Social and check it out. Incredible. All right, well, thank you. This was a very enlightening chat. I was hoping to learn everything I needed to know about Food Social and I think you taught me everything.So thank you, Reed, for being here.

[00:41:00]  Reed Dunn 

Good.Yeah.

[00:41:01]  Megan Porta 

Well, I like to end by asking my guests if they have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration. Do you have either to share with us?

[00:41:09]  Reed Dunn 

I do. I wrote this down and I feel like because of this community, a lot of folks, maybe this has been been talked about and other people have shared this, but I think it’s always worth sharing again. Ina Garten is like a hero to so many of us. But I recently got one year closer to 50 and as I’ve gotten older in doing food blogging, I always think about like, I always think about her because she’s, you know, so adamant about being like, I didn’t, you know, be ready when the luck happens.

[00:41:39]   

And that didn’t happen for her until she was 50. But her husband Jeffrey has always said, do what you love. If you love it, you’ll be really good at it. And I just think for me at this point in my life, like to be focused on finding my passion in food blogging and staying connected to those reasons of, of sharing like family driven recipes or food as love and celebration and getting people back into the kitchen.

[00:42:08]   

That just really spoke to me and it continues to. And so I wrote it down here and I have it written on my desk at work just as a reminder to like stay focused in loving sort of where you are in life.

[00:42:23]  Megan Porta 

I absolutely love that. What a great way you rounded this out so nicely, Reed. Just such a great coming back full circle. So we’ll put together a show notes page for you. If anyone wants to go look at those, you can head to eatblogtalk.com/pestoandpotatoes aside from your blog, is there anywhere people should go find you on food social?

[00:42:44]   

Obviously, Right. Anywhere else?

[00:42:46]  Reed Dunn 

Yeah. So find me on food social. I’m on all the traditional social media platforms. Pesto and potatoes on Instagram is where I’m most active. But I’m obviously on Pinterest and TikTok trying to dabble and figure all of that out and Facebook and all those good things. But yeah, definitely PestoandPotatoes.com you can find all roads lead to those other spots from there.

[00:43:09]  Megan Porta 

Well, thank you again so much for being here Reed and thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:43:09]  Megan Porta

If you enjoyed this topic, you’ll also love the episode I recommend in the show notes. Click on the episode description to find the link. Thank you and I will see you next time.