chicago gourmet

Want to know how Chicago Gourmet went down? Listen to the ups and downs of Chicago’s showcase of cuisine and talent in our podcast. We also posted a series of stories for Menupages that detail the cooking demos, opening night happenings, seminars, and reactions.

The entire photo series of the event can be seen here.

Local First Chicago hosted a panel of local Web experts to discuss various aspects of creating and marketing online content for small businesses.  I was there to introduce podcasting, talk about my experiences with using it to build an audience on Chicago Bites, and talk a little bit about the reaction to reviewing/rating businesses via this medium.

I was given a list of questions in advance, but since we didn’t into great detail, I thought I’d answer them here.

What is a podcast?
A podcast is an online radio show that is pushed to services like iTunes.  Listeners can then download the show onto iPods or similar devices or listen to it via their preferred service.  If listeners don’t use portable devices or services, they also have the option of returning to your site to listen to the show through a Web browser.

What equipment do you need to get started?
You can start very easily by buying a hand-held digital recorder or USB recorder and then convert the files using free software like Audacity.  The key is end up with files in MP3/MP4 format — this is what most devices like iPods play back. 

I’ve found that over time, the limitation of these starter options becomes apparent — the sound quality isn’t all it could be.  Most podcasters graduate to quality microphones and mixers if they’re serious about the medium.  Since we get asked a lot about it a lot, I put together a list of equipment that we use for the Chicago Bites podcast.  It’s all available for purchase through Amazon.

Is podcasting an alternative or a supplement to blogging?
I think the first question to answer is what you want to communicate to your audience.  From there, you can decide if a podcast is the best format to deliver your message.  For example, we felt the audience for Chicago Bites could be defined as people who were interested in the local food scene and would have the time to listen to a short-format show on their way to and from work.   We then created a 15 minute show about restaurants in and around Chicago.  We later added supplementary information to our site like photographs and written ratings for people who didn’t listen to the show but were still interested in what we had to say about area restaurants. 

I would say that podcasting and blogging can be done as complimentary activities, but the communication goals need to be understood in order for either to be successful.

What makes a successful podcast?
If you have talent and something relevant to say, you can start a podcast.  What I find is that people start out strong with a show, but fade after ten or so podcasts.  It takes time to build an audience for a show, so you need to have a passion for your subject and a willingness to talk about it over the long haul.  Your audience looks for consistency.  You also really need to think about how the show will flow, what are the intros and outros — again, consistency in the show format will set expectations and help build an audience.   And, if possible, be funny and sociable.

It’s also important to have a clean, consistent sound.  Our first podcasts were horrible to listen to — I wish we’d learned more about equipment and sound levels before we’d started.  We were lucky enough to have a few listeners who stuck with us, gave us feedback and advice while we went through our growing pains.  Eventually we moved on to a nicer sounding show.  

Still, I know we gained listenership because of the content of the show.  Good content will take you a long way.

The complete panel session, including conversation about SEO, community building, and marketing, can be found on OnSiteTV.

The folks at Pushing Daisies want to give me pie in the hopes of having me watch their show.

One of the main characters in the series is a pie maker. And as part of the ramp up for season 2, promoters are going around the country in a mobile pie hole delivering pie and pushing the series.  They’re trying to get the word out via targeted folks and reach people who may be interested in the show.  I find the criteria for their objectives to be dubious and ill-considered.  I would know — they’ve tried three different social media outlets to reach me.

First, I received an email through via our podcast account, Chicago Bites, asking us to promote the tour.  Chicago Bites is a restaurant review site — we don’t promote food events and/or television shows there.  We do talk about pie on occasion, so I can see where they thought we might be a good target.  I guess we need to put a FYI up for media/promotion types so we don’t get these types of requests.  I doubt it would’ve deterred them since the email we received was boilerplate and didn’t reach out to us as podcasters.

Second, Pushing Daisies started following Chicago Bites on Twitter. I’m pretty sure they did a search on Twitter for pie, foodies, restaurants, cupcakes, desserts, etc. and started following the heck out of anyone who used those terms.  Since we already got an email about the promotion, I’m not certain what this was meant to achieve.  They didn’t send out a personal message or check to see if the folks listed on their email campaign were the same folks they were trying to reach via Twitter.  This attempt was pure twittering to advertise.

Third, MobilePieHole added me as a contact on Flickr.  Again, the show apparently tracked down anyone who had tagged a photo with the word pie and started adding them to the account.  I have my Chicago Bites and Twitter affiliations listed on my profile, but they didn’t start there since this was the third attempt.  It would’ve been nice if they’d checked to see if I’d already been saturated with their pie, so to speak.  They also didn’t have a good shot of their pie in their Flickr stream, which was disappointing to me as a food photographer.

I like pie.  Since I have some free time, I might go by the Mobile Pie Hole and get a slice.  I may even take a picture of the pie.  However, I dislike Pushing Daisies.  The show is overwrought, sappy, has horrible narration, an overdone theme song, and a dubious premise.  This social media campaign, while comprehensive in tapping me as a foodie, can in no way succeed in making me like that dumb-ass show.  Fail, fail, fail.

To the Pushing Daisies folks — thanks for the free pie and insight into your show’s promotion.  For season 3, try a listening campaign — monitor social media outlets for positive mentions of your show and then reach out to those people specifically.  If you’ve figured out how to set up accounts on these services, then take the next step and use them strategically.  Blanketing everyone with your pie can cause more ill will than good.

petal pusher bike bicycle
I love this bike!

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