We published the 132^nd episode of Chicago Bites this week. Our third anniversary was on February 13, and like good little foodies, Bridget and I went to Vivo Restaurant to celebrate the birthday of our dining podcast.

Three years is a long time for a podcast. Most shows fade away after ten episodes. Why? It takes a lot of planning, collaboration and effort to publish an independent show every week. There’s a whole checklist of things to do: work on the show format, select and dine at a restaurant, record the show, produce the audio file, edit the photography, build the entry, and promote the finished product. We enjoy doing all of it, but there has to be something more we get from the experience to justify the work.

In order to consider ourselves successful and growing, we need…

1. To meet people and grow our network – Talking about favorite restaurants is a wonderful way to get people talking and interested. I use Chicago Bites as a way to break the ice in all kinds of social and networking situations. We also dine out with a number of people who write in to the site or who we’ve met through Twitter. Based on the number of business cards we’ve collected, this has been very successful.
2. To expand our culinary horizons – We eat out anywhere from one to four times a week at new restaurants. It’s hard not to build some culinary experience from doing that. We also challenge our dining choices and work to order things that are out of our normal experience/comfort zone. I think this is becoming more and more the case as we dine out.
3. To play with cool technology – We didn’t upgrade our audio equipment this year, though we usually do. Sound quality is something every podcast should try to improve. Instead, I bought a new 100mm lens for food photography, and we bought a Flip Camera to try our hand at video. The video isn’t working out, yet. Give us time. On the social media front, we got serious about Twitter over the summer and have nearly 2,000 followers as a result. So yeah, go us!

Success, success, success — at this rate, we’ll be podcasting another three years! If you want help with your existing podcast or want to talk about starting your own, please drop me an e-mail. I’m happy to share my years of experience!

Diners at Vivo Restaurant.