I do a lot of stalking of creative businesses and here are some quite surprising finds I am going to bore you to death with again about why creative businesses should be blogging.
The creative food industry is huge and because both my sister, a publisher specializing in food and drinks books, and one of my daughters currently doing extremely well becoming a food stylist and food content creator, I watch this industry closely.
Blogging for Food and Drinks Creatives
This week my daughter was enlisted by a writer of Spanish recipe books to help test recipes and create content as she had unfortunately broken her arm.
Not only hugely proud of my daughter, whose work is beautiful, but curious as they are working on a book for my sister's company and it involves Spanish food. Win win for me!
So off I go down the stalking route to see the companies involved and here are my findings.
One doesn't even have a website so stalking finished there and then.
Another has a website and I was excited to read their blog, apart from a Welcome to my Blog and a few posts that weren't on the blog page, nada (Spanish for nothing!)
Don't have a Dead End in your Creative Business
Let's take a look now as a potentially interested audience as to where I am left at.
I have hit a dead end.
There is no sign ups as far as I can see about being kept in the loop about their food Photography space in London, and very few blog posts about the food writer's books, recipes and inspirations.
All I have now is to be able to follow them on Instagram and it is highly unlikely unless I engage on Instagram I will see their posts.
Creatives don't want to Market their Businesses
The only reason I can see is they don't need to.
I discussed in a recent post that networking and collaboration are the backbone of a lot of businesses.
You can read more about this here.
They are all members of the British Guild of Food Writers yet they don't write for their own businesses.
It seems contradictory that these brilliant food creatives and stylists don't write for themselves but produce books and content for companies.
They are losing out on so much potential to create awareness of their work and other income streams.
Blogs and Substack for Food Writers
Creating your own blog should be the first port of call. Don't take anyone who shows an interest in your business on the 'dead end journey'.
Substack could be another port of call and your posts get sent automatically to subscribers which makes it easy plus you can get paying subscribers if they want to read more of your posts.
The opportunity to create affiliate links in a blog for food writers is huge.
There are so many more options of creating memberships, selling recipe books and opportunities to build brand collaborations are massive.
If you are 'stuck' on creating a business in-house first with a blog, and using Pinterest, consider joining my next Blogging Brilliance course and community which starts again on the 15th September 2023.
Link to sign up for more info and to be kept in on the loop is here.