Food Blogging is a popular trend in the food industry. It has become an effective way for food entrepreneurs to promote their products and services. It has also helped to create a movement in which people share their love for cooking with the rest of the world in an exciting and creative way. If you are interested in becoming a food blogger, there are some things you need to know before you get started.
What Are the Basic Requirements to Start a Food Blog?
First and foremost, is to figure out what direction you want to take for your blog. What kind of food are you going to share with the world? What is your cooking style? Your blog's focus can determine how people find it on search engines like Google.
Once you've determined the direction for your blog, the next step is figuring out what to call it! You should try to be as creative as possible when naming your blog because it's an integral part of how people will find it online.
Next, after coming up with a name for your website and its theme, the next thing you'll need to do is set up a domain and hosting service. The domain name will go hand in hand with your email address so make sure that both are professional-looking!
When setting up your website, remember that design is key! You want this site to represent who you are and what you're all about. If it's not easy on the eyes or hard on navigation, people won't stay long enough.
Once you have sorted the above out, you will have to figure out the equipment and software you will require to convert your recipe from an idea into a visual media representation for your viewers.
Here are 7 things we use and you can too, for starting your own food video blog in 2022!
Mobile Phone and Laptop
In today’s age of superior smart phone cameras, you don't require an expensive DSLR camera to record your food recipe video. The mobile phone in your pocket is sufficient, assuming its the latest Android or iPhone. You will also need a laptop while recording(production) as well as for editing your videos (post-production). The use of laptop while in production as well as post-production is explained below.
Wooden Workbench and Vinyl Adhesive Sheet for Furniture
Your kitchen bench-top will be mostly made of stone or granite. Although they look stunning in your kitchen, it is better to avoid them to use them as a backdrop for your food videos. This is for a couple of reasons because they reflect or absorb light (depending on the colour of your bench-top) and can make your food video look bad and also since you can't change them, having the same backdrop for all the videos will make it boring after a few videos.
You can use a used wooden coffee table top, which you can buy from Facebook marketplace. You can wrap one side with Vinyl Adhesive Sheet for furniture having wooden grain design or marble design. You can flip between wooden background or vinyl design between videos and make your videos look appealing to the eye.
Articulating Arm Mount and Ring-Light
You can either use a tripod but we find articulation arm more convenient as it comes with a clamp/clip which grips onto the side of a table and prevents shaky videos while we create videos. Another option is to use a goose-neck style holder but we found it difficult to position overhead exactly parallel to the workbench.
If you have a low-light kitchen, it's better to have a ring light, so that the recipe videos appear bright and pleasing. Nobody wants to see dark and dull recipe videos.
Apps for Mobile
We found two apps that are a must have for your mobile phone while creating recipe videos. Vysor & Bubble Level. Their usefulness is explained as below.
Vysor is a great app to help you mirror your mobile onto a laptop. It is free and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Vysor allows you to work on your phone with a mouse and keyboard.
As the mobile phone is attached to the articulation arm and is facing downwards, you will not be able to control the phone for e.g. start/pause/stop recording and perform other phone functionality. Also, as the phone screen is facing upwards, you won't be able to see whether the recipe you are recording is aligned correctly.
Vysor acts as a video field monitor and helps us control the phone, as well as check if the recipes that are being recorded are aligned correctly.
Another app that we found useful is Bubble Level. Since we use a top-down approach, we have to make sure that the phone is completely horizontal to the workbench, else the recipe videos come out tilted. Bubble level helps us to maintain a 0° horizontal perspective.
Portable Induction Cooktop
Ideally, you would use your own cooktop or stove to record video, but we found that using an existing cooktop creates space restrictions to record videos. Having a portable induction cooktop gives us the flexibility to use it on the workbench, where we can adjust lighting, angles etc. We would highly advise you to invest in a good portable induction cooktop.
Post-production softwares
The editing software you use will depend on your needs. Most of the OS come bundled with free video editing software, for example if you are a Mac user, you can use iMovie, Windows has Windows Movie Maker and Linux users can use ShotCut. There are also other web based video editing softwares for e.g. Canva is a graphic design website that has a variety of features and tools for creating professional graphics. They have an easy to use online editor with many different templates and icons to choose from.
We at Hautepot.co use iMovie for video editing, Canva for creating thumbnails, teaser etc. You can choose one as per your requirements and budget.
Website
You will need a blog to get started, and your website is the most important part of that. A website is like an online shop where customers can browse and buy your products. It's also where you can post recipes, photographs, videos, and other content related to food.A food blog website needs to be unique in order for customers to find it with ease when they search online. Use the right keywords in your domain name: if you're a vegan chef, "veganchef," "vegan," and "food" are all great words to include in your domain name.
Keep in mind that blogging is time consuming work; it may not be worth starting one without a budget for hosting fees and design costs for a professional looking website. You'll also want space on your site for advertisements so you can make money from providing valuable content to readers who enjoy both reading and watching cooking videos!
The most popular blogging platforms are WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr. There are many websites that offer free blogs, but they often come with ads on the side of the page. Each site has its own set of pros and cons, so it is best to compare them before selecting one!
Conclusion
We have followed our passion into food recipes and are excited to share our tools and tips with future food bloggers. If you have an idea for a food blog but are not sure how to go about starting it, then you are in the right place! This post contains everything you need to know to embark on your blogging journey; including what type of camera to use, what gadgets are essential and what the best software is for video editing.
Are you ready to kickstart your career as a food blogger?
Here is the list of 7 things you will need and your future food blog will be off to a great start. After all a job well begun is a job half done!
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