Food Blogger Connect London 2013 - My talk on Breathing life into your brand identity

Just over a week ago I did a talk on 'Breathing life into your brand identity' at this years Food Blogger Connect Conference in London. 
Like last year, it were fun food filled days and even the sun came out to play.  A few people who were there and a lot who missed the conference emailed or tweeted me to ask me to write about my talk, apparently branding your blog is a thing a lot of you think about these days. And I get it, us blogger have to be writers, photographers, stylists, web developers and why not also graphic designers.
I had the advantage of being a graphic designer myself, my husband is an art director/ illustrator and we have our own company specialized in unique branding and graphic design called The Tiny Red factory. Although I enjoy photography and writing more than graphic design these days, it will always be a big part of who I am.
So here are my views on branding your blog.

Branding is about asking questions and getting the right answers 
to build your strategy on.
First ask yourself this question:

Why do I blog?
Is it to build a business, to get some kind of income out of it or out of pure fun?
This will determine what kind of blog and branding you are building. Asking yourself questions and thinking about the answers will make for a more solid brand.

Food Blogger Connect - Back to the Victorian school

Ellen Silverman at the photography workshop

When I started this blog not a bone in my body imagined that I would also gain so many friends.
It all began with Food Blogger Connect last year, I arrived at the conference without a twitter account, instagram or even Facebook page. To be honest I only knew of a few people's food blogs and I was almost convinced I was the only food blogger in Belgium...

This conference has changed my life, it has shown me that there are still people who are selfless and kind. People who are driven by passion and creativity. I was embraced by a community and went home with friends from all over the world.
I speak to them nearly every day trough various social media platforms and we see each other as often as we can. We travel to each others homes and have a taste of each others cultures, leaving to go home again full of inspiration.

As a first time attendee of the conference last year, a world of SEO, social media and photography opened for me. I discovered that (food) photography is my real passion in this world -other than this blog of course but they are entwined anyway-

The Ragged School room, our venue. picture www.sarkababicka.com

You get a taster of different kind of things, you enrich yourself with knowledge. What a lot of people don't realize is that as a (food) blogger you have be a storyteller, photographer, SEO-geek, social media expert and occasional web developer.
Luckily Food Blogger Connect offers talks and workshops on all these subjects.
Last year Jaden Hair from Steamy Kitchen explained to us how to create solid foundations for our blog and branding, Fiona Beckett from The Guardian told us to write something every day even if we don't publish it, Food and Travel editor Alex Mead gave us some pointers about pitching to magazines and Béatrice Peltre shared her knowledge on food photography.

Last year the venue was a posh hotel, this year it was the Old Ragged School of Beaconsfield. A Victorian school building and railway arch that made my heart skip a beat. How romantic, having a weekend of lessons in a Victorian school... For three days I was trying to imagine how the school would have looked in bygone times.

Food blogger connect 2011 London

The fabulous venue

So there I was, London.
I was very nervous before I arrived at the Hempel hotel for Food blogger connect.
It felt like the first day of school.
Some people allready knew each other, some were newbies but nevertheless as soon as the canapés arrived and everyone hauled out their camera, the ice was broken.
We were amongst our own kind.
We started to review the food and soon tips for making the best falafel were exchanged.
Suddenly the mood had changed from the first day at school to a high school reunion.
Smiling faces everywhere, everyone excited about what was coming.

The waiter looked very nervous with all the foodies taking pictures!