AskPat 433 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 433 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. We have a great question today from Nicholas, but before we get to that, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is LegalZoom.com, a company I've used for several different things.

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Alright. Here's today's question from Nicholas.

Nicholas: Hi, Pat, my name is Nicholas. I have a website called InformationalCuisine.com. My question is: How can you build a following when your focus is on food? And I'm trying to understand Pinterest. It's its own beast, of course. Do you know any steps that can help me improve on Pinterest? I mean, I have a lack of information in social media. Do you know any advice, Pat? Thanks for listening, man. Anything helps.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Nicholas. Thank you so much for the question. You know, Pinterest is one of those things that I have yet to really take a hardcore look at. But I still wanted to answer this question for you because I think there are some other things you can do. I think it's smart that you know Pinterest is something that's important.

And there are a lot of great articles out there that I recommend you read. There's some great articles on SocialMediaExaminer.com, a site run by my good friend Michael Stelzner. A lot of experts in social media actually post about Pinterest on SocialMediaExaminer.com. I would definitely check that out. Especially in the food space, I know a lot of people are using it as well to get traffic, to get people to buy courses and products and recipe books and those sorts of things. So I think it could work out very well. And when you have great images, those tend to get shared and posted on Pinterest, in which case, other people who follow those people will be able to come back and see you and your stuff.

The magic that happens with Pinterest is when you get that viral effect, when people start to re-pin things. So they take your image, and they share it with their followers or they put it on their websites, and it always comes back to you and your website to give you credit and drive traffic to your site. I know a lot of people whose primary traffic strategy is Pinterest, so it's definitely something, like I said, you should look at as well. I cannot provide you step-by-step information on it because I just haven't done that yet. I wish you all the best with that.

There are other things you can do as well because food is something that, obviously, everybody's interested in. The food blogging community is an amazing one. I know that through talking with a lot of them that they're very friendly. And if you could join communities and forums where other food bloggers live and hang out, you'd be able to learn a lot and pick up a lot of best practices from them as well. I don't know, Nicholas, how well-connected you are with other food bloggers, but that's where a lot of magic happens. It's very similar to the personal finance industry, which I'm very involved with. I'm going to FinCon. I'm actually there right now as people are listening to this when the date at which this episode comes out, which is the Financial Blogger Conference. In that community, they're so closely-knit and tight with each other. They share strategies and they help each other out. The same thing happens in the food blogging industry as well.

I'm actually speaking in May next year. I don't think I've announced this yet. But I'm speaking, I'm doing the keynote presentation at a blogging event for food bloggers. So you can actually check that out very soon. If you go to FoodBloggingConference.com, you'll see more information about that there. That would be a great place to connect with and speak to other food bloggers. Also PinchofYum.com is a website where the owners who were featured in . . . let me see what episode . . . Pinch of Yum, Smart Passive Income. This would be a great place to listen actually. This is episode . . . Lindsay and Bjork in episode 148. If you go to smartpassiveincome.com/session148, that is titled “(By Popular Demand) The Story Behind The Success of Food Blog Pinch of Yum with Lindsay and Bjork.” Again, that's episode 148 of the Smart Passive Income Podcast. I highly recommend you check that out because they talk about everything that they've done to become successful with their particular food blog. Again, they're going to be at the Food Blogging Conference and so am I. Hopefully, I'll get to see you there. That'd be awesome.

There are also some traditional blogging strategies that you could use that work in any niche that you're in. So guest posting is working. Also I would recommend guest podcasting, so going on other people's shows. And I think in the food industry, this is something that could be done a lot more, even in many more industries as well. It definitely happens in the online entrepreneur business space, but in other industries, it could be done with a lot of success, too. It's like how if you go on YouTube and you follow certain personalities, you'll see that oftentimes they bring guests on their YouTube shows. Then a lot of times, you'll see that person on that other person's show. So it's kind of a share-for-share, S for S. You see this on Instagram as well. People in the fitness industry use this strategy very well. But it's called basically “share for share.” If you offer to give some value to another person's audience, they're gonna come and give value to you. You just grow together. That's how a lot of people in the personal finance industry have grown so big.

I'm reminded of J.D. Roth from Get Rich Slowly. He and Trent over at Simple Dollar started at the same time. They both grew together because they kept showing each other's stuff. They formed a mastermind together and helped each other out and that sort of thing. So those are quick, easy strategies that you can use to get more traffic to your site, to get more exposure out there and build a following. Also, putting your personality into your work is gonna help you a lot, too, because there's obviously a lot of food blogs out there, a lot of competition. But when you put yourself into your own work, you're 100 percent original, as Chris Ducker says.

You gotta make sure that you put your personality into your work, in what you do. Don't be afraid to share a little bit about yourself. This is why I feel Smart Passive Income has grown pretty large over the last number of years because I am not afraid to inject my personality into my work and sharing little bits and pieces of my family life and my hobbies and random things that happened in my life with my audience. Those are all things that make me me. So why not share those things that make you you? If that makes sense. So don't be afraid to do that. When you do that and your personality shines, then it's much easier for people to connect with you on some level beyond just the content that you have. But because it's you, Nicholas, and that's how you build raving fans. That's how you create fans for life, that's how these fans that you create, based on their love of you and your personality, in addition to the value that you're providing to them, that's when they share you with their friends. There is no better recommendation than one from a trusted friend. That was a quote from Mark Zuckerberg. That's why Facebook has grown as well.

Again, keep those principles in mind, Nicholas, moving forward. I believe that will help you quite a bit. Then just keep growing from there. I wish you all the best of luck with Pinterest and those other strategies as well. Hopefully this has been helpful for everybody else, too. And Nicholas, since your question was featured here on the show, we're gonna send you an AskPat t-shirt, and you'll hear from my assistant in the next couple weeks to collect that information from you so we can send that to you free of charge. And everybody, everybody out there who has a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com, and you can ask right there on that page. We'd be more than happy to listen to your question. Obviously, I can't feature them all because this is only five days a week, and we literally get dozens of questions a day. But Jessica does a great job of filtering through those questions and sharing the ones with me that would be great for the show. I look forward to answering your question potentially. Again, head on over to AskPat.com, and you can just press the record button on that page and start talking into whatever mic you have.

I also want to thank today's sponsor again, LegalZoom.com. They've helped me with trademarking. They've helped me with incorporating Smart Passive Income and Flynndustries, LLC. They've helped me with things like wills and things like that, all the legal stuff that is involved in your personal life as well. Again, check it out. Yes, lawyers are great, and that's probably the best thing to do but they are incredibly expensive and getting something done is better than getting nothing done, of course. Especially when it comes to legal stuff for your business or your life, you gotta check out LegalZoom. They make it super easy. They walk you through step by step, the whole process, and everything you need to do in order to get these things done, from incorporations to LLCs, trademarks, last wills, living trusts and more, they are definitely the smart choice and the economical choice as well. Don't let these legal hurdles become an excuse. Go to LegalZoom.com today and start building your own future the right way. Again, remember they're not a law firm, but they do have a network of independent attorneys that can help you by giving you the most straightforward advice that you need. Go ahead and check it out. Save even more by going to LegalZoom.com and entering the promo code “Pat” during checkout.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you listening in. As always, here's a quote to finish off the day. This is from Brian Tracy. He says, “A clear vision backed by definite plans gives you a tremendous feeling of confidence and personal power.”

I wholeheartedly agree. Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Thanks, everybody.