‘My blog has grown big enough to support me’ says food blogger Becca Pusey
Blogger Spotlight with Becca Pusey, author of Amuse Your Bouche, a food blog that specialises in providing simple vegetarian recipes. Becca spoke to us about quitting her job as a teacher for the ‘perfect job’ – blogging, pushy PRs that put her off and why she prefers Facebook over Twitter for outreach.
Why should people read your blog? What makes it different? Many people are trying to cut down on their meat intake these days, but a lot of the vegetarian recipes that are available are complicated or use ‘weird’ ingredients that are hard to find. Not on my site! Amuse Your Bouche focuses only on the simplest vegetarian recipes, made quickly with ingredients you’ll find in any supermarket. They make it easy for vegetarians and meat-eaters alike to eat meatless meals that are tasty, satisfying, and straightforward.
How do you measure the success of your website? An obvious quantitative measure is the number of page views that the site receives, but actually in recent months I’ve been paying less attention to my blog traffic, and more attention to qualitative measures like the lovely comments that I receive from my readers. If someone tells me that they made a recipe and that it was a huge hit with their family, even their fussy two year old… that’s a success to me!
What’s your favourite blog and why? I love Pinch Of Yum – I’m sure it’s a favourite for many people, for any number of reasons. It’s got creative recipes, beautiful photography, super helpful blogging tips – not to mention the fact that Bjork and Lindsay are two of the nicest people on the internet. I think that goes a long way!
What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a blog? Have patience! Success (however you measure it) doesn’t come overnight, and if you’re starting a blog because you want to get rich quick, you’ve not chosen the right career path. The most successful bloggers start super small, and gradually build their blogs over many years. You need to love blogging enough to stick with it through the slow periods!
How do you work with marketers and PRs? If a PR is promoting a food-related product that I think is relevant for my blog’s readers, I’ll use the product in a recipe as part of a sponsored blog post. I love sharing cool new products with my readers, and showing how the product can be used in a recipe. Recently I’ve also been on a few press trips to Sweden, Denmark and France, which is a really lovely way to learn about a new product, and also helps me put a face to a name. After working with certain PRs for months on end via email, it’s so lovely to get to meet them in person.
How do you use social media to promote/share content? What are the challenges? My favourite form of social media is Facebook. A lot of bloggers love to complain about Facebook these days, but I still find it brings great engagement and interaction. The key is to put a bit of personality into your posts – nobody’s going to be interested if you just drop a link and run. Asking questions, offering opinions and anecdotes, and really building a community around your Facebook page is the best way to improve your reach. On the other hand, I hate Twitter! I find it so impersonal.
What can PRs do in working better with you? I love it when PRs aren’t pushy. If a PR has very strict demands about exactly what coverage their product needs, on which date, in which forms… that’s going to put me off. After all, the blog is something I’ve built up with years of hard work and dedication, and ultimately I’m going to make the final decisions about what I put on there – my readers expect everything to come from me, so I make sure everything does. If a PR sends a product sample out of kindness and says that any coverage is up to me, that’s absolutely lovely, and I’m going to be a lot more keen to share it with my readers.
What has been your blogging highlight? Being able to quit my job as a teacher is definitely the best thing that has come from blogging. I never enjoyed teaching, and now that my blog has grown big enough to support me, I am able to spend my days doing what I love – creating great content for my lovely readers, and working with awesome brands on some really fun campaigns. It’s the perfect job.
What will be big in your blogosphere in the coming months? I’m really trying to branch out in the ingredients I use, so perhaps you’ll see some more varied recipes from me – still using easy-to-find ingredients, of course! As usual, I’m constantly striving to improve all aspects of my work, so hopefully things will continue to get better and better.
Editorial information on Becca Pusey, Amuse Your Bouche and thousands of other media/blogger contacts and outlets, can be found in the Cision Media Database.
Excellent post, I did write an essay but it’s deleted. Really please to see a blogger doing so well by giving people interesting recipes using accessible ingredients.
Georgia, that’s such a lovely comment, thank you so much :)