Ep #51: Establishing Trust with Your Audience as a Food Blogger

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There’s a lot to think about as a blogger — the photography, the writing, the social media sharing, the monetizing. Sometimes it’s easy to get busy with all of that and forget about something so foundational and so important, like building and maintaining trust with your readers. That’s why today I’m talking with Sally McKenney of the site Sally’s Baking Addiction about establishing trust with your audience as a food blogger. It’s an important topic. Read on to learn more!

Sally McKenney of Sally's Baking Addiction is on the podcast today talking about establishing trust with your audience

Sometimes when you’re working on a blog, it’s easy to let external pressures change your voice, or the things you choose to blog about. Or even how you blog. That’s why today I’m talking to Sally of Sally’s Baking Addiction (see the link below) about why being authentic with your audience is one of the most important things you can do as a blogger.

Being real makes you trustworthy. It allows your readers to connect with you. — Sally McKenney #choppedpodcast Click To Tweet

When you hear about people making money from their blogs, it’s easy to let that become the focus of the work you’re doing. Sally said, “If you’re going to start a blog with money as your one motivation, you might as well not start a blog at all, because it has to be something you genuinely love.”

As a blogger I think trust is your most valuable asset. — Susan Palmer #choppedpodcast Click To Tweet

If one of your goals is to have readers who come back for more, being authentic is a big part of that. If people are looking for recipes, they can find those in lots of places. What they will come back for is you and so you have to find a way to present yourself on the page. Sally said it so well, “You’re not going to have an audience who comes back every day or every week if they don’t trust you; if they don’t depend on you.”

You're not going to create an emotional connection with your readers unless you're real. — Sally McKenney #choppedpodcast Click To Tweet

It’s easy to think that it’s all been done before. There’s a thousand recipes for chocolate chip cookies already out there so why even bother? But remember, your readers want your perspective on that chocolate chip cookie. So that first means you need to experiment and find your favorite way to make those cookies. That’s what will keep your readers coming back for more. Sally said, “Your readers want your recipe for chocolate chip cookies. They don’t want the rest of the internet’s recipe. They want yours because they love you and they want to get your take on it.”

Our goal at ChoppedCon is to help you be your best. We hope these tips on establishing trust with your audience with Sally McKenney is helpful to the important work you’re doing every day!

Now, go forth and Be Your Best You!

Featured Content – Establishing Trust With Your Audience

Here are some of the highlights of my discussion with Sally, where we discuss:

  • Learn about why Sally started her food blog
  • Sally talks about how she started her blog and the process of taking her blog full-time
  • Sally talks about her learning curve with food photography
  • We talk about the topic of trust and why that’s important for bloggers
  • Sally believes transparency is very important for bloggers
  • We talk about the challenge of writing from a spirit of authenticity rather than perfection
  • Sally has some tips for making her writing sound authentic…you’ll love these!
  • We talk about finding ways to be vulnerable as a writer
  • Sally talks about how she handles comments on her site
  • Sally talks about her schedule for post and for preparing those posts
  • Sally talks about how to handle the common recipes that everyone is searching for
  • Sally talks about her process for creating and publishing a post
  • How Sally ascertains reader feedback to deliver the content her audience is looking for

Show Notes

This episode includes references to some resources you might find interesting. Here they are:

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Posted in Food Blog Resources, Food Blogging, Podcast