Perks of being a food blogger
The origin story of how Drool Worthy World came to be
I’ve got a confession to make. The reason I started my food blog was purely to get free food. Fast forward two years, and I’m happy to say that I’ve achieved this and so much more. I’ve met a whole community of amazing people and learned about the complexities and innovation of Sydney’s dynamic food scene. How did I get here? What tips for success do I have for any budding food bloggers wanting to make it big?
I’ve always loved the concept of having a blog — a platform to share my thoughts and ideas in a somewhat anonymous manner. During my final year of university, I had a placement in Melbourne and there, I met my best friend’s older sister who had been running quite a successful food blog at the time called Miss Potato Princess. I was amazed by the quality of her photos, the detailed descriptions and the organised layout of her blog and wanted to channel this into something of my own. We dined out one night in Melbourne and I saw her in action, stylistically re-arranging the plates and taking photos of food with her pro camera. Amazed, I returned home to Sydney to tell my sister of how great it would be to have our own food blog. That’s when we started, Salivate Sydney, a rather short-lived food blog featuring only two posts due to our lack of time and academic commitments.
“I’ve always loved the concept of having a blog — a platform to share my thoughts and ideas in a somewhat anonymous manner.”
The following year, I graduated and started working full-time. Weekend brunches and dining out became the norm what with my now plentiful disposable income and spare time. I also started dating my boyfriend around this time and we flirted with the idea of starting a food blog together. That’s when Drool Worthy World came to be.
We started off as a Tumblr, just to try something new as we had previously used Google Blogger. So how exactly did the name come about? I had originally typed in “droolworthy” as my username but sadly, this was taken and Tumblr had generated a few alternatives, one of which, being “droolworthyworld” and voila, our new food blog was born.
Our first post was at Mr. Crackles and looking over it now, it’s incredible how much our blogging style has changed. Our inaugural post featured a dialogue between us, LeeLoo and Tommy H and our comments on all the dishes. Suffice to say, we weren’t impressed with the box of pork crackling that they were known for. Thereafter, we were blogging practically every meal we ate and linking the posts to our Urbanspoon (now Zomato) profile. Our number of followers on Instagram were slowly creeping up too. Yet, there were still no invites.
Our lucky break would have to be when we commented on an food photography event hosted by a PR company and that’s when we started getting noticed. The PR company subsequently invited us to new restaurant openings and menu launches and at these events, we met other food bloggers who had already hit stardom and were getting invites practically every night. So if you’re after free food, make yourself known to the PR companies whether it be commenting on their Instagram posts or tagging them in your own posts.
It’s all about the photos when it comes to food blogging which is why Instagram has really taken terrain over food blogging and verbose food blogs have fallen by the wayside. My small Sony RX-100 wasn’t enough so I purchased an Olympus OM-D E-M10 and a 17 mm , f/1.8 lens to take pro photos. Although the quality is not quite that of a DSLR, it is much more portable and inconspicuous.
“It’s all about the photos when it comes to food blogging which is why Instagram has really taken terrain over food blogging and verbose food blogs have fallen by the wayside.”
With the success of our Tumblr-based website, we decided it was time for us to own our own dot com site and after much deliberation, we decided to use Wix. However, after several comments from my friends on how slow our site loaded, we decided it was time for another change. I noticed that Medium now had the option of “Publications” which made it much easier to categorise our blog posts instead of the usual chronological order. It’s only been a week using Medium in “Publications” mode but I am definitely impressed and going to stick with it and progressively transfer my old posts here. Hopefully this will be our last time changing to a new platform.
Aside from invitations from PR companies, we have also attended some foodie events run by established organisations in Sydney such as Food Critics and Bloggers Australia, Washoku Lovers and Food Porn Australia as well as more casual foodie meetups organised by Robbie from It’d be Rude Not to, Asian Food Ninja and Eat Woo Events. One thing I’ve learnt about food blogging is: the more the merrier. The more people there are, the more dishes there are to sample, photograph and include in flatlay shots. The best thing about these events is that everyone is so respectful of each other when it comes to getting the perfect shot — we patiently wait for everyone to get their perfect shots before digging in. If the food hasn’t gone cold, then it’s not time to eat it yet.
“One thing I’ve learnt about food blogging is: the more the merrier. The more people there are, the more dishes there are to sample, photograph and include in flatlay shots.”
Some restaurant owners take the initiative to email us directly to invite us to review their food and I really these dining experiences as they are usually more personable — the owners are always very eager to share their own restaurant origin stories, hear about ours and make excellent recommendations on what to eat.
So that’s where our blog is after its inception in February 2014. We now have just under 9000 followers on Instagram and 430 followers on Facebook. Reflecting back on our progress, we’ve certainly come a long way and I’m excited for what the future will bring for Drool Worthy World. I truly hope we keep delivering good quality blog posts on restaurants we visit, meet more like-minded food fanatics and continue growing as a blog.
