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Have dreams of making it big as a food blogger? There’s a science to it. Photo: Lumina/Stocksy
Food blogging as a career is, for some, the stuff of daydreams. Yet more
and more, one-time hobbyists are turning their blogs into full-fledged,
money-making ventures by attracting the attentions of big-name
sponsors. One blogger, who we’ll call Mallory, has done particularly
well: Last year, she made more than $150,000. This year, she expects to
clear a quarter of a million.
“You’ve
got to decide: Is this a personal thing or is this what I want to do to
make a living?” Mallory told Yahoo Food. Her blog is a few years old,
though she only began making big bucks last year when she signed with an
agent, which helped her land deals with major grocery store brands
looking to reach a digital audience.
Most
often, she’s paid to write a recipe post using the brand’s product —
something that, not long ago, the same brands might have recruited
bloggers to do for as little as $50. “I won’t do a post for less than
$3,500 now,” Mallory said. “My average is about $5,000, and my high is
$10,000.”
“Large
brands were not thinking this way a few years ago — it’s a definite
shift not only in terms of their spending, but their mindset,” said
Raina Penchansky, the chief strategy officer of talent agency Digital Brand Architects.
Although she doesn’t represent Mallory, her boutique firm handles about
a dozen food-focused bloggers and social media personalities, including
former Yahoo Food Bloggers of the Week Claire Thomas of Kitchy Kitchen and Love & Lemons’s Jeanine Donofrio.
“There’ll
always be print media, and there’ll always be television,” Penchansky
said. “But traditional brands are definitely seeking out opportunities
with bloggers, because that’s where the audience is. And you have go
where the audience is.”
For
Mallory, that audience is in large part her robust social following on
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest: She boasts roughly 300,000
followers combined across all four platforms. There’s no magic formula
to gaining a loyal following, she said — it’s simply the result of being
active on social media, both by posting frequently and replying to
readers. And we mean frequently — Mallory tweets, Facebooks, Instagrams,
and pins multiple times throughout the day, Monday through Friday.
That’s in addition to posting two to three new blog posts a week, each
of which require at least three rounds of recipe testing and numerous
staged photographs. It’s a full-time job.
Being active on social media is key to growing a loyal readership. Photo: Jovo Jovanovic/Stocksy
Election 2015: Voters 'left in the dark', says IFS
Four of the major parties have not provided "anything like full details"
on plans to cut the deficit, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said.
"Broad outlines" of the choice on offer were on show, it said, but
voters were "somewhere in the dark" over cuts planned by the main UK
parties and SNP.
The Conservatives would have to cut services and Labour borrow £26bn a year, the independent body suggested.
It said the difference between the two approaches was the biggest since 1992.
The two largest parties again attacked each other's economic plans.
The
Conservatives said a Labour government backed by the SNP would be
"deeply unstable", as Labour said the Tories planned "the biggest cuts
in the developed world".
In other election news:
The coalition received a pre-election boost with official figures showing it beat its target for reducing annual public sector borrowing for the latest financial year
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said her party would prop up a minority Labour government even if the Conservatives had a 40-seat lead
An east London election was declared void and will have to be re-run after the mayor was found guilty of corrupt and illegal practices
The head of the UK's returning officers' organisation said the number of uncontested seats at some local elections has reached "epidemic proportions"
The IFS report comes after it analysed each of the party manifestos.
The
think tank's deputy director Carl Emmerson said: "There are genuinely
big differences between the main parties' fiscal plans.
"The electorate has a real choice, although it can at best see only the broad outlines of that choice."
NHS executives 'earn £35 million in pay rises' despite funding crisis
Some hospital bosses took home more than £1 million pounds last year, while
others were accused of exploiting loopholes to maximise their pay packets
By Telegraph reporter
11:41PM BST 19 Apr 2015
NHS executives earned more than £35
million in pay rises during the worst funding crisis for the health
service in a generation, it has emerged.
Some hospital bosses took home more than £1 million last year, while
others were accused of exploiting loopholes to maximise their pay
packets.
Analysis of trust accounts by the Daily Mailrevealed that the number of executives paid more than the Prime Minister rose by 30 per cent last year to nearly 600.
Nearly 50 hospital bosses pocketed more than £400,000 last year despite standards of care slipping, the figures showed.
Some were found to have played the system by ‘retiring’ for a day, then
returning to their posts full-time, allowing them to claim a huge
pension lump sum early.
Others were reported to have avoided tax on their earnings by channelling their salaries through private companies.
Professor Sir Brian Jarman, a senior Government health adviser, called
for a public inquiry, saying bosses were manipulating the system.
He said: ‘It is wrong. It is as simple as that. They should be putting
their attention on to lowering their death rates or seeing if there’s a
problem with the quality of care rather than getting themselves higher
incomes. That should be their priority. It is very worrying.”
Last night Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said a future Conservative government would launch an inquiry into the claims.
Exclusive: William Shatner’s $30 Billion Kickstarter Campaign to Save California
William Shatner. Wow. He’s 84 years old, looks 65, and juggles a schedule that
would exhaust a team of 10. Book projects, TV projects, tech projects,
horse-riding projects, charity projects. And his willingness to embrace
the tech world is impressive; he’s got YouTube channels, he’s conducted
Kickstarter projects, and he has a huge Twitter presence: more than 2
million followers. (He’s tweeted 30,000 times so far — and yes, it’s
really him.)
The hour he spent with me in a Yahoo Tech Mix interview wasn’t even enough to scratch the surface.
We’ll
post more of that interview shortly, but this bit couldn’t wait:
“You’re gonna get a scoop here,” Shatner told me. This is it.
“California’s
in the midst of a 4-year-old drought,” he said. “They tell us there’s a
year’s supply of water left. If it doesn’t rain next year, what do 20
million people in the breadbasket of the world do? In a place that’s the
fifth-largest GDP — if California were a country, it’d be fifth in line
— we’re about to be arid!What do you do about it?”
Here’s the plan:
“So
I’m starting a Kickstarter campaign. I want $30 billion … to build a
pipeline like the Alaska pipeline. Say, from Seattle — a place where
there’s a lot of water. There’s too much water. How bad would it be to
get a large, 4-foot pipeline, keep it aboveground — because if it leaks,
you’re irrigating!”
And where would this water pipeline go?
“Bring it down here and fill one of our lakes! Lake Mead!”
I was a little skeptical. It didn’t sound doable. The political hassles, the fights with local towns, the environmental impact…
“No,
it’s simple,” Shatner replied. “They did it in Alaska — why can’t they
do it along Highway 5? This whole area’s about to go under!”
Shatner
conceded that even if he’s not able to raise the money, the effort will
at least raise consciousness about the severity of California’s
drought.
“If I don’t make 30 billion, I’ll give the money to a politician who says, ‘I’ll build it.’ Obviously, it’s to raise awareness that something more than just closing your tap … so why not a pipeline?”
China jails journalist over leaked 'state secrets'
Authorities say Gao Yu leaked a sensitive document that was then widely reposted abroad
China has jailed a top journalist for seven years for leaking a confidential paper to a foreign website.
Gao Yu, 71, had "illegally provided state secrets to foreigners", the court in Beijing said.
China
has not confirmed which document the case relates to, but it is thought
to be a Communist Party strategy paper known as "Document No 9".
The paper is said to call for aggressive restrictions on democracy, civil society and the press.
Amnesty International called the sentence "an affront to justice".
Gao
was "the victim of vaguely worded and arbitrary state-secret laws that
are used against activists as part of the authorities' attack on freedom
of expression", said William Nee, China researcher at the rights group.
Shang Baojun, one of her lawyers, said they were "very disappointed" with the verdict and would appeal.
Analysis: Celia Hatton, BBC News, Beijing
Gao
is a rarity in China - an outspoken reporter who chose to work outside
the mainstream state media outlets. She filed Chinese language stories
to overseas media outlets that were eager to publish her insights.
She
was also unusual because she appeared to have access to relatively
high-level information about the Chinese government and the ruling
Communist Party. Though that does not mean, her lawyers insist, that she
is guilty of leaking state secrets.
Somewhat ironically, the
internal Communist Party memo Gao is said to have leaked warns of the
dangers posed by "Western-style" media outlets.
"Some people, under the pretext of espousing 'freedom of the press' promote the West's idea of journalism," the document reads.
"The
ultimate goal of advocating the West's view of the media is to hawk the
principle of abstract and absolute freedom of press, oppose the Party's
leadership in the media, and gouge an opening through which to
infiltrate our ideology."
'Confession'
Gao
was detained in April 2014. Weeks later, state television network CCTV
aired a video of Gao, her face blurred, admitting she made a "big
mistake".
There was tight security outside the court as the verdict was due to be delivered
Police stopped this Japanese journalist and deleted images on his camera
Gao's lawyers said she made the statement after police threatened her son. She was then put on trial in November.
Another of her lawyers, Mo Shaoping, told the BBC the forced confession was invalid and would form the basis of the appeal.
The highly respected journalist, who has written for media in Hong Kong and elsewhere, has already been imprisoned in the 1990s.
She was convicted of sending party documents, including a speech by then-President Jiang Zemin, to a Hong Kong newspaper.
Gao's sentencing comes amid a widespread crackdown on freedom of speech in China, reports the BBC's Celia Hatton in Beijing.
According to media advocacy group the Committee to Protect Journalists, she is one of 44 Chinese journalists behind bars.
The group says that China now has more journalists in prison than any other country.
Understand deforestation risk, benchmark your policies and collaborate effectively with NGOs
14th-15th April, 2015, Washington DC
This global event combatting deforestation - a follow up to a London
meeting in October 2014 - is designed to be an annual meeting place that
discusses the trends, debates the issues, connects the key players and
drives change. Through an interactive and engaging agenda, and by
bringing together the corporate practitioners and NGOs that make a
difference, the conference is designed to bring maximum value - and
maximum action.
The legal risks of not knowing your supply chain – The latest trends and what they mean for business
How business is responding – Hear how leading firms are putting targets into action
Develop credible policy – Find out how to fit deforestation into your sustainability framework
Beyond certification – In-depth critical analysis of certification’s limits, and how to go beyond them
Leverage supplier engagement – Learn how to communicate with and incentivize your suppliers for improved traceability
Successfully engage with government – How can business effectively engage with government to close the enforcement gap?
Speakers include
Mark Buckley
Vice President for Environmental Affairs
Staples
Christine Riley Miller
Senior Director, Corporate Social Responsibility
Dunkin' Brands
Katherine Neebe, director of sustainability, stakeholder engagement, Walmart
Dr Simon Lord, goup director for sustainability, New Britain Palm Oil Limited
Paige Goff, vice president, sustainability & business communications, Domtar
Ben Vreeburg, sustainability director, IOI Loders Croklaan
Dr. Beth Stevens, SVP environment & conservation, Disney
Jean B. Sweeney, vice president, environment, health and safety, 3M
Stephen Rumsey, chairman, Permian Global
Leela Barrock, group head communications and corporate affairs, Sime Darby
Erik Wohlgemuth, COO, Future 500 Simo Honkanen, senior vice president sustainability and public affairs, Neste Oil Michiel Hendriksz, director of sustainability, ADM Eric Boyle, senior manager sourcing, Hershey Company Who is attending?
Attending will be 150 senior professionals representing large
corporations from corporate responsibility, sustainability and supply
chain job functions. We’re also bringing together the NGOs that can help
you make a real difference. We’re actively restricting the number of
service providers to ensure a minimum of 80% of attendees are corporate
practitioners and key NGOs to ensure the conference delivers maximum
value – and maximum action.
Conference Objectives
To explain why deforestation is one of the top business issues in the next decade.
Analyse the latest trends, campaigns, and what business is currently doing to tackle deforestation
To explain how to design and implement better anti-deforestation policies and practices
To showcase and debate current best practice in removing deforestation from corporate supply chains
To highlight the partnerships that help deliver that
To understand the regulatory environment around legality and sustainable forestry
Feedback from London "The London forum not only provided a platform for a frank and
honest exchange of opinions but laid out in clear and simple terms what
steps responsible businesses should be taking" Simon Lord, group director for sustainability, New Britain Palm Oil "The format allows to get straight to the heart of the issues and
creates a safe discussion zone where constructive exchange of ideas can
happen" Bastien Sachet, director, TFT "A first rate conference with many take outs and options for solutions" John Clague, technical manager compliance, Waitrose "The right people from a broad range of backgrounds were gathered
to have a rich, challenging debate on policy, practice, partnership and
campaigning" Mike Barry, director, Plan A, M&S "The event brought people together in a way that encouraged blunt speaking and action-oriented dialogue" Richard Donovan, senior vice president, Rainforest Alliance
Deforestation: The business challenge of the next decade
If you are looking to learn more about what business and government
can do to end deforestation amongst the key stakeholders in the space,
then this is the forum for you. For the full background and all the info
on our expert speakers and detailed agenda, download the brochure on
the right hand side now.
Any questions, please do get in touch! Oliver Bamford
Innovation Forum
+ 44 (0) 203 780 7431 oliver.bamford@innovation-forum.co.uk Link
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