Attack of the Food Bloggers

Bloggers get no love. Consider this headline from the Times Union:

Ex-blogger Arrested on Child Porn Charges

I like how they give blogger equal billing with child porn. “Child porn? That figures! Filthy blogger!”

So, when somebody treats local bloggers special, believe me, it’s a pretty big deal — like this week when Price Chopper invited a bunch of local food bloggers to the opening of their new Market Bistro store in Latham.

Price Chopper has smart PR people, so they know that if you schmooze a bunch of bloggers and feed them you’ll get results — like seven blog posts the next day. There may be more out there; these are just the ones I found in a two-minute search:

Tablehopping
The Angel Forever
Albany Eats
All Over Albany
Eat Local
Jon in Albany
CR Foodies

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s terrific that blogs are considered an important part of a media campaign — and it does seem to work. Now, if I can only get myself invited somewhere they have free food. I promise to write a blog post about it.

11 thoughts on “Attack of the Food Bloggers

  1. Blogs probably drive more clicks/views at the TU website than the ‘hard reporting’. One key difference I’ve noted is the blog authors seem to have better grammar and spelling, but then they’re not on deadline for content.

    1. That may be, but “hard reporting”? Good luck finding any hard reporting on the TU home page these days! 😉 It’s all SEEN galleries and other ridiculous crap.

  2. You forgot Burnt My Fingers: http://www.burntmyfingers.com/food-concept-market-bistro-latham-york/

    And I’d expect ones from:
    – Well, in This House
    – My 3 Ring Circus
    – I Heart NY Y’all
    – Mom Got Blog

    Even though I’m still in New Jersey and wasn’t able to attend in person, the FLB sent a correspondent who is diligently working up the story as we speak. As I was telling her, the benefit of being last is that we can look at all the other coverage and crib from them. No, no, no. That wasn’t it. I’m sure it was something though.

    This blogger press tour isn’t much different than traditional press tours. Our audiences may be smaller individually, but they are more engaged, and collectively a brand can reach those who have opted out of mainstream local news.

    Seems legit to me.

  3. Thanks for the Eat Local link! I’ll abstain from comment regarding the TU.

    I really do hand it to Price Chopper for opening their doors to bloggers, who have no obligations (generally) to powers of advertising, etc. I recently had a run-in with a restaurant that didn’t like something I wrote, then proceeded to tell me how “blogs don’t matter.” I’m glad to see that Price Chopper/Pierce Communications feels differently.

    1. Pierce is good! When I worked at WNYT, I was in charge of the ill-fated local news and culture blog 518 Living. The people at Pierce invited us to several food events — and that was over four years ago.

      The restaurant owner was right, blogs don’t matter. Until someone does a Google search on their restaurant…

  4. The secret is to write about food. I spend a lot of time thinking about food, eating food, and trying very hard not to eat food, but not as much writing about it.

    I do get occasional invites to brewery events on my work e-mail, so someone out there apparently thinks I’m a drunk.

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