Social Media and Photography Tips from Allrecipes

This is the first post in my new “Learn from the Best” category. I think one of the best ways to learn is through the examples of others!

Last week I met up the Seattle Bloggers Unite community at Allrecipes.com. Allrecipes headquarters are located here in Seattle, Washington. It was a fun event with great food (naturally), new friends, and some great blogging advice.

Allrecipes is one of the largest recipes/meal planning sites on the web! Clearly, they have a few tricks up their sleeve when it comes to building a great web presence. Two of their employees spoke to us on social media and photography. Here is a recap on some of the things I learned while hanging out at Allrecipes.com

Food photography tips for Bloggers

The photography portion of the discussion was given by Anna Berman. Anna is a Culinary Editor and Food Stylist for Allrecipes. She also has her own food blog, Snacking in the Kitchen. These tips were styling food, but are applicable to all object/product photography (except maybe the 3rd bullet)

• Use props, but make sure the eyes are directly drawn to food. Don’t use to distracting of backgrounds or accessories.
• Take straight down shots of the food. Anna says she’s always on a chair up above the food.
• Sometimes photo shoots take a long time, spray some water or olive oil on the food to bring it alive.
• Add natural ingredients as an accent. Examples: parsley, sea salt, cinnamon sticks, etc.

Social media tips for Bloggers

Social media is one of the biggest parts of blogging (if not the biggest). We were lucky enough to talk with the Allrecipes social media team about this big aspect of our lives. It was hard to pick just a few of her pointers:

• It’s not the best idea to share the same thing on all social sites, think about what is important for the platform.
• When sharing, link directly to the post, not another social media site.
• With Pinterest, don’t post the same pin on different boards all in one stream.
• Pinterest is for planning! So, make sure you are posting things when people would be planning for that subject.
• Use a content calendar for social media.
• Take lots of breaks for engagement. Don’t just share you content, engage with  your readers.
• There isn’t a magic time to post. Know your audience and you’ll know when to post.
• Stay current on trends
• Always check current events before posting
• Use social media analyitcs to see what is working and what isn’t.

Thank you Allrecipes for hosting us! It was a fun event and a great way to talk about the online world.

Which website or blog do you look to for the best online practices? Are there any blogs you would like to learn from? Let me know, I’ll reach out to them!