Monetization Strategies for Food Bloggers
WHY Join the EBT Community Platform
Let us know what questions you have about the Eat Blog Talk community platform! Leave a comment on this post. Go ahead, ask away!
Are you ready to feel connected and confident? We hope so because that is what is waiting for you inside the Eat Blog Talk community platform. Say goodbye to loneliness and being so overwhelmed that you don’t even know where to begin.
Megan has been a food blogger for 10 years and guess how many of those years have involved community and confidence? ONLY 2! Read her story below to hear what helped her to stop spinning her wheels. Learn from her mistakes!
Hey, guys! It’s Megan here. I’m so happy you’re here reading this blog post and I want to share with you my personal food blogging story in a nutshell. My 10 years of being a food blogger are proof that we need to lean on each other if we want to move the needle forward.
Take it from me. I understand being lonely and overwhelmed and how damaging this can be for a food blogger trying to run a successful business. After 8 years of spinning my wheels, I got connected in the community and this helped me to feel so much more confident about the work I was spending my precious time and energy on.
Pretty quickly after I started blogging I fell in love with Pinterest. Pinterest and I just clicked. We understood each other. For the first 8 years that I was a food blogger, Pinterest sent me most of my traffic and therefore, really, ALL of my revenue. I was happy with that. I thought I was doing great and felt like I didn’t need to branch out and I also didn’t need connections with other food bloggers.
Then literally overnight I lost 80% of my traffic because of a Pinterest update. Not only did most of my traffic come from Pinterest, most of my traffic came from 2 of my recipes on Pinterest. Talk about having all of my eggs in one teeny tiny lonely little basket.
After that traffic loss I was devastated and confused. I’d worked SO HARD for 8 years. I felt like I had been moving in the right direction because during those years I was always working and I was always busy. In retrospect, this was definitely true. I WAS always working and I WAS always busy, but I had been working on all the wrong things and I hadn’t made a single connection with anyone in the food blogging community.
At that point I knew I had to get myself to a conference, so I attended an amazing food blogging conference where I started connecting with other food bloggers. This was a turning point for me. I saw people bouncing ideas and strategies off each other and I quickly realized how much I had been missing out on. There was SO MUCH MORE than just Pinterest. I felt like such an idiot when I came home from that conference, but that quickly turned into a determination to dig into food blogging in a new HUGE way.
Suddenly (and FINALLY!) SEO, UX design, diversifying, email marketing, video, Instagram and so much more were on my radar and I invested time and energy in all of those things for the first time ever. More than all of that, though, I invested time and energy in people and making connections. The connections I made at that conference and after I started the Eat Blog Talk podcast gave me clarity about what was missing from my business and they gave me the confidence to move forward in a new way.
If you are feeling lonely, isolated, overwhelmed, disconnected or all of the above.. I FEEL YOU. I have been where you are at. You are not alone and this job was not meant to be navigated alone.
xo Megan
Don’t just take it from us! See what this experienced blogger has to say about how making connections has positively impacted her food blogging business!
“As I look back on the growth of my blog over the years, I can pinpoint the most growth to the times that I connected with bloggers and brainstormed ideas together. I finally found ‘my people’ who shared the same passions and the same frustrations. Not only was I inspired but we shared ideas and strategies with each other that were mutually beneficial. Connecting with like minded people isn’t something that just happens; it requires action. You have to get out of your comfort zone. You have to be proactive in seeking out people that have the same goals. That’s where growth happens. Surround yourself with people that know more than you do. Surround yourself with people with different perspectives.
As the old African Proverb says, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.'”
Christy Denney
The Girl Who Ate EverythingOk, let’s hear your questions!
Now that you understand why a community like this one will benefit your food blogging journey, let us know what questions you have about the Eat Blog Talk community platform! Leave a comment on this post. Go ahead, ask away!
Questions You Have Already Asked (and Our Answers!)
What is the investment to join the Eat Blog Talk community platform?
The investment is $16.99/month or $170/year (17% savings for annual sign-ups!).
What if I sign up and realize the platform is not a good fit for me?
Membership can be canceled at any time, and you can check it out for one month free using the “1monthfree” discount code at checkout!
Who created the platform?
The EBT community platform was created by Megan Porta (food blogger at Pip and Ebby) and Bethany Smith (UX design expert at Food Blog Usability and Cadia Marketing). Both of them were already immersed in the world of food blogging and recognized a huge need for a platform like this one.
The platform runs on WordPress and is built utilizing the BuddyBoss theme and plugin which allows for more social and community integrations.
How involved is the Eat Blog Talk team going to be on the platform?
This platform is built to encourage peer-to-peer interaction of our members. The focus is not about having the Eat Blog Talk team simply share all our knowledge in a top-down approach. It’s about encouraging everyone to get connected, grow and learn together.
That said, Bethany and Megan are committed to being inside the platform daily in order to answer questions and ensure the community vision and values are honored and upheld within the community.
Will there be a place I can promote my own services for bloggers?
Yes! Not only is this a platform for food bloggers, but it is also a platform for people/businesses who support food bloggers. Inside the platform, there is a service providers and resources directory where you can promote your offerings to bloggers!
You can also share your “wins” within the specified forum category, so no more holding back with sharing the things you’re proud of!
How are the mastermind groups set up?
While there are many types of “Masterminds” out there, ours focuses on peer-to-peer mentoring. We will run three mastermind sessions per year – fall, winter and spring. They will all run about eight weeks and each group will have 4-5 people.
Each mastermind will have questions and guidance from us at Eat Blog Talk for each of the eight weeks, but ultimately, your group will decide what works best for you. One peer from each group will be a group leader (you can volunteer when you sign up) to help facilitate and guide discussions.
Will there be opportunities for “live” meetings?
There will be monthly AMAs (Ask Me Anything) with experts in different areas. The AMAs will be delivered in video format and community members can attend live to ask questions to the speakers.
If you see a need for live meetings in addition to these AMAs, we’re always here to listen to what you want!
What other questions do you have? Ask away!
