Okay so, as you’ve seen we’re moving the Blog to LA for a week or so. I will be reviewing some of the fantastic restaurants around here for a change!
But, to further confuse things, I’m briefly diverging from the restaurant posts to bring you some fun coverage of the International Food Blogger Conference, sponsored by Zephyr Adventures and Foodista. The PR agency I work for headed up media relations for the conference, so I was fortunate enough to attend!
I was able to enjoy a few sessions. Matt Armendariz’s session on food photography was fantastic. I am a complete novice, and I left with a much better understanding of the importance of lighting… and white foam core! Matt can’t live with out his handy piece of foam core for fill. It makes such a difference.
In addition, two of my fantastic colleagues presented on how Bloggers and PR people can work together, an evergreen topic. From a public relations perspective, it was interesting to see that many food bloggers have trouble understanding our goals. As PR folks, it’s our job to spread the word about our clients. For instance, say I represent Bing cherries. I pitch you a story about cherry pies for the holidays and I offer you some cherries if you’d like to make the pie for the holidays and blog about it. Well, you don’t like pie… but you do like cherry relish with your turkey. As a PR person, I’d LOVE to hear that. And, odds are, I would be happy to send you cherries for your relish, for you to blog about your recipe!
A good PR person wants to work with you to make a story that you like for your blog. The next time we pitch you, take a moment to think about how you can work with us. I know we’d love to work with you! As PR people, our goal is to make it as simple as possible to for you to write good content for your blog.
On the flip side, PR people need to be sure that they are easy to work with! Treat bloggers with respect and provide them with the images and product that they need. Our panel had a unique perspective, because one of my colleagues has a fantastic food blog of her own, Top of the Apple.
I also really enjoyed Michael Moore’s dinner on Saturday evening. His deconstructed beef chili was to die for. And, he had to cook it in the Doubletree’s kitchen, without his staff. Incredible. Dessert was pretty spectacular too!
