When I first heard about Food Blog Forum Orlando I had no idea what to expect. I even thought it might be boring. Boring? I should have tried imagining a day spent surrounded by food lovers and food writers: Fan-friggin-tastic! It was exactly like my own little piece of heavenly Salted Pineapple Pecan Angel Slice: Simple fun with some interesting complexity thrown in.

Each attendee received an overflowing swag bag. There were so many goodies in there that I’m going to give some of them away here. Comment below with your favorite blogging or cooking tip by 11:59pm on April 26th, 2011 to be entered in a draw for some cool foodie tools.

Here are just a few of my favorite tips, thoughts and quotes from Food Blog Forum Orlando:

From Jeff Houck (Tampa Tribune) and Heather McPherson (Orlando Sentinel): Leveraging Traditional Medio: How to Get on a Food Editor’s Radar

• Even if a newspaper food editor tells you that he really likes Tazo Awake Tea, it is a bad idea to try getting onto his radar by sending him a box of it. Better bets: Be his friend on Facebook and Twitter, retweet his stuff and send him interesting tweets from time to time.
• Pitching ideas to newspaper editors may not yield cash but could result in a lot of good publicity if they use your idea or work you into a story. While newspaper readership may be down, the people who still read them *really* read them. Those who follow food columns are truly interested in food and are our target audience.

From Jaden Hair (Steamy Kitchen) and Scott Hair (Web developer and professional poker player): Building a Personal Brand & Beyond the Banner: Building a Blog Business

• If you want to blog as a business, you need diversity, such as diversity in income source.
• Be very specific. Find your niche and be the best at it.
• If you really want something, after you’ve figured out why you want it, write down 100 things that will move you in the right direction. Everyone out there thinks of the first 25-50 same ideas. It’s the last ones, those ones that are hard to come up with, that will set you apart and make it happen.
• Be your true authentic self. Align your cooking and your writing to who you are.

From Lindsay Landis (Purr Design & Love and Olive)

• Be consistent: Have a consistent look throughout your site (same colors, fonts, etc.) to reinforce your brand.
• Make sure that you have a search bar on your site and that it works. (I now have one but it isn’t very good. Must fix this asap!)

From Pete Scott (IZEA): SEO and the State of Social Media Sponsorships

• Be literal when writing your titles. Do your research. Find out what people are hungry for – not what they say they want but what they actually want.

From Helene Dujardin (Tartelette): Find Your Light & Find your Composition and Styling Voice

• Relate your light to the mood of the post.
• Shooting tethered teaches you how to style as you go. Then, when you’re not tethered you’re a better stylist.
• A food photographer’s toolkit contains many unexpected things. Note that the chopsticks are not used as eating utensils!
• “Be consistent, practice, breathe, take a step back.”
• “Imperfection is beautiful because we are all imperfect.”

From Dawn Viola (Wicked Good Dinner): Just Ask: How to Write for the Big Boys

• The best way to get more readers is to write for someone else (guest blog post, newspaper, anywhere).
• Pitch what you love because if things go well, you’ll actually have to write about it.



The other highlight of the day was meeting so many fantastic food bloggers over sandwiches, ridiculously good cookies, sangria and McCormrick and Schmick’s Kobe beef burgers with caramelized red onions and blue cheese topped potato chips. This meeting has begun a dialogue on Twitter which has spread to the formation of the Florida Food Bloggers Facebook Page.

Here are just a few links to some of the awesome bloggers I’ve had the chance to meet (in person or online) through the Food Blogger Forum. Check them out and tell them Chris from Cook the Story sent yah!

Cakeb0t

Food plus Words

Love and Olive Oil

Dinners and Dreams

Katie’s Cucina

Love and Confections

The Little Kitchen

Creative Kitchen

The Novice Chef

The Merry Gourmet

My Life as a Mrs.

Aggie’s Kitchen

Inspired Taste

Foods ‘n Brews

Seafood Lady Orlando

Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy

Droolius

La Diva Cucina

Flamingo Musings

The Village Cook

Creative Kitchen

Wicked Good Dinner

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Don’t forget to comment below with a cooking or blogging tip by 11:59pm on April 26th, 2011 to win some food blog swag.

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Check out other fab recaps of Food Blog Forum Orlando here.

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Stay tuned for my next post where I’ll share the recipe for Spicy Korean Tofu Stew from Jaden Hair’s beautiful The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook: 101 Asian Recipes Simple Enough for Tonight’s Dinner, which I was lucky enough to win at the seminar. Woohoo!

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And then: Cook the Story takes Jaden’s advice and finds a niche…enter The Roast Chicken Chronicles.

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Check out the Cook the Story Series page to see what else is coming soon.

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