Tag Archives: Google Analytics

My blog is important, because I have an opinion!

On Tuesday a blogpost on FoodBlog.Cape Town, entitled “My opinion is important because I am a blogger”, caught my eye, and was reTweeted by a number of bloggers.  On reading the blogpost a number of times, it appeared to focus on the ethics of both restaurants and bloggers in respect of free meals, and pleaded for blogs to be respected as a viable source of information.  Tongue-in-cheek, we have turned the title around in this blogpost!

In her blogpost, Kayli highlighted the poor image she feels bloggers have, with the strong statement ‘People hate bloggers’, and ‘People are bloggist’ (meant to imply anti-blogging).  She does not explain her view, nor does she give examples of such negative sentiments.  I have only seen one article that was anti-bloggers, written by Mandy de Waal in Mail & Guardian about a year ago, and  was an attack against food bloggers, and the threat that they pose to the traditional food writers in mainstream media, especially magazines. The reality is that blogs are gaining in popularity, with ordinary citizens from around the country and even internationally reading blogs, and participating in the dialogue on blogs through Comments.

We have previously written that the output of food bloggers appears to be on the decline, well-known local bloggers such as Andy Fenner (JamieWho), David Cope (‘The Foodie’), and even the polemic Spill blog publishing blogposts less frequently compared to when they started.  However, blog readership must be on the up, as more and more readers get hooked on the views of their favourite bloggers. The lack of statistics about blog reading and publishing makes it impossible to quantify the size of the blog market, relative to readily available figures about mainstream media circulation and readership.  Each blogger can read his/her readership on Google Analytics, but cannot compare this with that of other blogs.

Kayli attacks restaurants for offering free meals to bloggers, in the hope that a positive review will be written.  She told the unbelievable story of a restaurant to which she was invited, and that she had to endure the presence of the manager throughout the meal, who encouraged her to eat more and more, and then had the ‘pleasure’ of having the bill presented to her!  There must have been a serious communication problem for something so unreasonable to have happened.  One wonders why Kayli did not dispute the payment, and why she did not ‘name and shame’ the restaurant concerned.  Sharing the details of this incident, which sounds far-fetched, has no value if the perpetrator is not mentioned.  Is this a criticism one can level against the majority of bloggers – that they are trying to be too nice, and thereby compromise their own ethics by glancing over the flaws of the restaurant experience?  If ‘honest reviews’ are written for the public, as Kayli claims in her blogpost, then she must be true to the honesty she emphasises. ‘Honesty’ does not mean that faults should not be mentioned – in fact not mentioning them would be dishonest to the reader!

No blogger is obliged to write about a product or service they have experienced, as much as a mainstream media journalist is under no such obligation.   A restaurant invitation is no guarantee of any, or even of positive, coverage.  Many bloggers don’t want to offend their hosts, and would rather not write a review, than have to criticise the meal or service.  Every blogger is under the obligation to disclose the free meal, and it is likely that the blog reader will evaluate the information about the restaurant differently to the restaurant review of a meal that was paid for by the blogger.  Ultimately an anonymous visit to the restaurant is the best way to write a review, but taking photographs of one’s food and asking lots of questions can give the game away.

Kayli also mentions ‘hot-shot’ bloggers, who she says are loved, have been around for a long time, and inspire others, but then attacks them for implying that they are better because they have worked in restaurants or have trained as chefs.   I have never seen any such criticism from bloggers, and perhaps Kayli, who describes herself as a younger and newer blogger, may be over-sensitive on this issue.

Bloggers need restaurant news to feed their blogs, while restaurants (usually) benefit from reviews that are written about them. The restaurant-goer Googling a restaurant has one of five options in being informed about the restaurant:

*  Reading a short write-up on Eat Out, usually high up on Google’s page one for the restaurant

*  Similarly, reading a short write-up on Food24

*  A review by Rossouw’s Restaurants‘ owner JP Rossouw, but increasingly one picks up readers’ reviews via Google because of a special security sign-in procedure, not being conducive to JP’s own reviews being read.

*   The restaurants’ own websites, which rarely feature on the first page of Google, because they don’t have one (mainly being listed on Dining Out), or because they don’t update their websites regularly, to obtain a SEO benefit (via their own blog, for example).

*   The remaining five – six reviews on the first page of Google will be by bloggers, and would not feature on Google’s first page if they are not read regularly.  Obviously a first page Google review will ensure more frequent readership than those on subsequent pages, which means that bloggers need to get to write the reviews first, or have a huge readership to ensure that their reviews land and stay on page one.  I have never heard anyone discount a restaurant review written by a blogger, because the writer is a blogger.

Ultimately bloggers will only have their blogs read if they remain relevant and interesting to their readers. Bloggers blog because they love to write.  Blogging takes up a lot of personal time.  The dedicated and regular bloggers will be those that will retain their readers, as will be the bloggers who have an opinion, and are not afraid to express it, even if they know that they may never return to a specific restaurant because of their opinion!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage

Passionate plea by Swirl! and ImNoJamieOliver bloggers to be oneself in blogging!

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meeting, held at Den Anker last night, and addressed by Matt Allison of ImNoJamieOliver Blog and Nikki Dumas of Swirl! Blog, was characterised by PASSION: not only in terms of the blogger speakers, but also in the fantastic food paired by Den Anker with six excellent Jordan wines.

Prior to the speakers sharing their blogging passion, Robyn Martin, the most charming, organised and passionate representative for Jordan wine estate, took us through the tasting of the first three Jordan wines.  Being the organised person that she is, she had prepared a tasting summary for groups of wines.  The first three wines tasted were white: the Jordan 2009 Riesling, being ‘aromatic and appley’, and a winner of the Old Mutual Trophy, SA Terroir, and the Five Nations awards, was paired with just-seared sesame-coated tuna, one of the highlights prepared by Chef Doekle Vlietman at Den Anker.  On the same plate was the sweetest presentation of truffle-enhanced scrambled egg served in an egg shell on a bed of coarse salt, paired with creamy and toasty Jordan 2009 Chardonnay.  Wrapping up the trio was a beer-poached katifi-wrapped prawn, draped in a saffron beurre blanc, paired with the tropical green notes of Jordan 2010 Sauvignon Blanc. 

Nikki Dumas, another highly organised lady, presented each of the attendees with a sheet of her ‘Twenty-one Commandments’ on how to blog successfully.  She passionately expressed her love for wine, and all things related to it.      Nikki’s suggestions for successful blogging are: 1. write something useful  2. write something unique 3. write something newsworthy  4. write something first   5. write something that makes those who read it smarter  6. write something controversial  7. write something insightful  8. write something that taps into a fear people have  9. write something that helps other people achieve  10. write something that elicits a response  11. write something that gives a sense of belonging  12. write something passionately  13. write something that interprets or translates news for people   14. write something inspirational   15. write something that tells a story   16. write something that solves a problem   17.  write something that gets a laugh   18. write something that saves people time or money   19.  write something opinionated  20.  write something that is a resource  21. write something about something ‘cool’.

Nikki’s passion for her own brand ‘Nikki Dumas’ came to the fore, and she is a confident blogger, who knows exactly where she is going.  She has two blogs – Swirl!  is a blog she uses to document information about the wine industry, coming from PR agencies, for example.  She does not allow comments on this blog.  Winestyle.biz is the blog on which she writes her own blogposts, with about 4000 hits since she started it in April. She allows comments on this blog, even if they are controversial, to create debate.  She emphasised that she is not a writer nor journalist, and that she will only write about something she judged to be good.  Everything she experiences in terms of food and wine she evaluates against her career in restaurant management.   She likes using Google’s Blogger platform, saying it is user-friendly.  Her blogpost attracting the largest number of hits is the anonymous survey she conducted on restaurant listing fees for wines.  She said she is a ‘Mac junkie’, and evaluates her blog performance through all the statistics that Google makes available, including Google Analytics, AdSense, and more.  She knows exactly where her traffic is coming from, and which keywords are used to get to her blog (wine, winestyle, wine journal, Nikki Dumas).  Nikki  was asked to share her background, and she told us that she moved to Cape Town from Johannesburg ten years ago.  She started Moyo in Norwood, and opened Vilamoura in Camps Bay, and then moved to Belthazar and Balducci.  Nikki offers restaurant wine training, is a wine consultant in designing winelists for restaurants, assists wine estates in getting better sales in restaurants, and sells branded Wine Journals. Nikki told us that 60 % of wines in supermarkets are by Distell.  She feels that the wine industry should teach the consumer more about wine.

The next stage of the food and wine pairing was a lovely plumy and stylish Jordan Merlot 2008 paired with the most ‘butter-tender’ peppered fillet, and the rich Jordan Prospector 2008 Syrah, which was paired with venison served with sauce bordelaise.  Robyn told us that the power of Social Media was demonstrated when more than 6000 persons protested against the planned mining on the Jordan wine estate.  The threat was withdrawn, and in gratitude Gary Jordan named his new Syrah, launched last year, The Prospector.  With our yummy chocolate ravioli with pomegranate jelly the flagship Bordeaux-style Jordan Cobblers Hill was served. 

Without any notes, Matt Allison spoke from his heart, reflecting his passion and principles.  With careers in the wine trade, as a graphic designer, and first as a musician and then as a music producer, Matt realised that he was spending too much time away from home, not what he wanted with his new baby boy.  He realised he needed a change, and became a rare ‘house-husband’, spending almost all his time with his son at home.  He loves food, and became the cook for the family, and his blog ‘ImNoJamieOliver’ was born a year ago when he decided to cook all 60 recipes of a Jamie Oliver recipe book in 90 days.  He lost twenty days when he had his kitchen redone.   We laughed when he told us that his mother had engendered independence amongst her children, and it was a matter of ‘cook or die’ in their household.   He has since blogged a further 60 recipes from a second Jamie Oliver recipe book.  Matt presented who he is honestly, and described himself as a person with a 30’s nature, a 50’s style, living in 2011.

Matt told us that blogging for him is a means to an end, and he has changed direction in that his interest now is the provenance of food.  He has rented a piece of land from the City of Cape Town, and now grows 40 vegetable and herbs, not counting different varieties.  This has led to seasonal eating, fresh out of his garden.  He does not grow potatoes and corn, as these take too much space.  Matt is critical of Woolworths, for their vegetables sourced from countries such as Kenya.  On a Wednesday afternoon he sells his vegetables he harvested an hour earlier, between 4 – 6 pm at Starlings Café in Claremont.  He told us horror stories about supermarket vegetables being picked unripe weeks earlier, and artificially ripened.   Matt also would not touch fast-food any more, and expressed concern that so many people grab a McDonald’s in-between meetings. There are no TV dinners in his home.  He would like people to question where their food is coming from.  He believes that obesity and diabetes can be fixed via ‘healthy food’.  With his help, Cape Town and Winelands chefs at restaurants such as Societi Bistro, Warwick wine estate, El Burro, and Franschhoek Kitchen at Holden Manz wine estate, are moving to sourcing their herbs and vegetables from small ‘bio-dynamic’ (he does not like the word ‘organic’) producers, or planting their own.   He likes restaurants that serve local, seasonal, and sustainable food, and operate ethically in all respects.  Matt has about 5000 unique readers of his blog per month, and about 1300 Twitter followers, but his readership is of no consequence to him.  He is ruthless in unfollowing and blocking on Twitter.  He recently changed his Twitter name to @MattAllison, to build his own brand.  Given his focus on the provenance of food, he will be launching a new blog “Planting Thoughts” soon.  One of the most exciting experiences for Matt is that he has been selected as one of 250 chefs and urban farmers to attend a symposium in Copenhagen, organised by the chef/owner Rene Redzepi of the world’s number one restaurant Noma, the only South African hand-picked by Redzepi.   The symposium takes place next weekend, and co-incides with the world’s largest food festival, the MAD Food Camp, also organised by Redzepi, with more than 10000 visitors expected!  Matt says we pay too little for our food in South Africa, and told us what it costs to raise a chicken.  He buys his meat from Gogo’s Deli in Newlands, or directly from farmers.  Matt encouraged us to ‘think about your food’, that one should not evaluate a restaurant if one has not been a chef and a waiter, given that most chefs put their heart and soul into their meals.  For him a good restaurant is one in which the chef comes out of the kitchen, offers great service, and has staff who love what they do.   He encouraged one to do one’s own blogging and Tweeting, to reflect one’s personality, and to not outsource social media. 

Dusan Jelic of wine.co.za, who has been a passionate supporter of the Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club since its inception, was wished well, who will be returning to his home country Serbia in September. 

The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club was formed to reflect the tremendous growth in and power of food and wine blogs in forming opinion about food, restaurants and wines.  Most bloggers do not have any formal training in blogging, and learnt from others.   The Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club aims to foster this informal training, and to serve as a social media networking opportunity.  Each of the two bloggers talk for about half an hour about their blog, and what they have learnt about blogging.  The Club gives fledgling as well as experienced bloggers the opportunity to learn from each other and to share their knowledge with others.  Attendees can ask questions, and get to know fellow bloggers.  The Club meetings are informal and fun.

   Future Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club meetings have been organised as follows:

      *   21 September:  Chef Brad Ball of Bistro 1682, and Anetha Homan, Marketing Manager of Steenberg, at Steenberg

      *   19 October:   Roger and Dawn Jorgensen of Jorgensen’s Distillery, and Anthony Gird and Michael de Klerk of Honest Chocolate, with a chocolate and potstill brandy tasting, at Haas Coffee on Rose Street. 

   *   12 November: Visit to new Leopard’s Leap tasting room and cookery school in Franschhoek   

Food & Wine Bloggers’ Club. Bookings can be made by e-mailing whalecot@iafrica.com.  The cost of attendance is R100.  Twitter: @FoodWineBlogClu  Facebook: click here.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Public Relations consultants: feedback from a blogger!

Having blogged for almost three years now, we receive an increasing number of media releases from PR agencies.  Having run a food PR consultancy before starting our Whale Cottage Portfolio, I have long wanted to write a blogpost about how we view PR consultancies, and the recent Mail & Guardian article, pitting food journalists against bloggers, and detailing how PR consultancies have to deal with the blogging politics, has been a further inspiration to do so.

Our observations are as follows:

1.  As the representative of the client, we are surprised about the spelling and grammatical errors that we see in media releases sent by PR consultancies.  One would expect clients to sign off media releases, and they too do not seem to pick up the errors.

2.  In the era of social media, everyone knows where bloggers are, as they like to Tweet about it.  One of the biggest problems this causes is that bloggers know when they have been left off the invitation list for a lunch or launch, without explanation or warning.  While one understands that not everyone can be invited to all functions, there is an automatic affront if one is left off such a list, and one picks up from Twitter who is present.  This is a minefield for PR consultants.  One would think that they would rather host a small number of events with bloggers and journalists who tolerate the presence of others than invite all of them to one function. To be sent the media release about the restaurant/product after the lunch that one has not been invited to is adding insult to injury!  No PR consultancy should pander to blogger or journalist egos in dictating who they want/don’t want to be in a room with at a function! 

3.  My biggest issue with PR agencies is their inability to say ‘thank you’ when one has written about their clients’ brand, whether it results from an invitation to attend a function, or is a spontaneous visit to a restaurant and it receives a good review.  Not saying thank you for coverage received is as rude as a blogger/journalist not thanking the host and PR agency for the invitation!  As a blogger we are spending our own money and time to evaluate a restaurant or product, and are not remunerated for this by an employer.  In the pre-Social Media days, our PR company subscribed to an agency that tracked all coverage we achieved for our clients, especially in print.  It was difficult in those days to track TV and radio mentions.  To pick up Social Media mentions, one can subscribe to Blogs that one expects coverage from and to whom one sends releases, check Hootsuite for mentions on Twitter (via keywords reflecting the clients’ names/brands), and via Google Alerts for the client name/brand.  One should not have to write the PR agency’s Twitter handle into the Tweet linked to the blogpost about a restaurant/product, for the agency and/or its client to pick up the coverage.  Blogging has an important role in gaining awareness for a new brand/restaurant, and bloggers with high readership can get the product/restaurant onto the first page of Google, the ultimate goal for any brand, with resultant financial benefit if it leads to bookings.  We rarely receive feedback about the business that is created for the restaurants we write about.  An exception has been De Huguenot, which is tracking via Google Analytics where its website traffic is coming from, and could tell us how many hits it had received from our write-up about their launch lunch.  An absolute no-no is a PR consultancy requesting that one informs them when the blogpost about their client’s brand has been published!

4.  What is surprising is how few PR consultancy staff appear to read the Blogs they send media releases to, firstly in not picking up the coverage their clients’ brands achieve, but also in asking for coverage in our ‘events diary’, something we don’t have.  This means that everyone on the media list receives the same release and request for coverage, making the PR consultancy look unprofessional in not understanding the bloggers’ writing interests (we are all diferent), and the media release will be deleted as a result.  One cannot help but think that media consultants are still old-school, valuing print coverage more than coverage in blogs.  Part of the problem is the valuation of the coverage, the measure PR consultancies use to prove to their clients how good they are, and what the coverage achieved would have translated into in advertising Rands.  There is no official public information about the readership of an individual blogpost, or even of a Blog, or a means of placing a value on this readership, making it appear that blog exposure is a secondary achievement for PR consultants compared to print coverage, even if the blogpost achieves an excellent Google ranking, and therefore could be far more beneficial to the client’s brand and its sales.  There is also no quantification of the value of the immediacy of coverage in a Blog compared to that in a magazine three to four months later. 

5.  While we appreciate receiving information that can help us write an interesting story on our Blog, we don’t want to receive information that has been sent to every other journalist and blogger.  Only one PR agency, representing the Stellenbosch Wine Festival, took time to request which angle I wanted to write about.  In the end I chose my own perspective on it.  However, background information on a brand launched at a function to which one is invited helps in writing the blogpost, as one can add the personal individual touch from one what one has learnt at the function itself.  An exclusive angle is great, but these are seldom seen.  Reuben Riffel’s visit to America  earlier this year, and his appearances on TV there, was an exclusive story we were given by Manley Communications. 

6.  Another sign of the lack of understanding by PR consultancies is being sent high resolution photographs, which slow down the download, and are unusable on a Blog.  Bloggers prefer using their own photographs, and would not want to use those that every other blogger and journalist have been sent.

7.  While we sometimes fear that we will run out of things to write about, there is not such a dearth of material that we have to be flooded with media releases. One wine client PR agency sends a media release almost daily, and they look boring, and have minimal news in them, and are without attractive ‘packaging’ of the release, to entice one to read it.  I am unable to write about a wine or a food product if I have not tasted it, and the fewest PR agencies send one a product to evaluate.  I would never write about a product that I have not experienced, events being an exception.  This does not mean that I feel I have to write something positive because I received the product for free – I may choose to not write about it if it is not exceptional, or if the story does not have an interesting angle.  The worst thing that the staff of a PR consultancy can do is to chase coverage.  There are no coverage guarantees in journalism and blogging.

8.  While branded CD’s look attractive and professional, I far prefer a printed media release, to write from.  An attractive interesting media release is preferable to a bland and boring one, for obvious reasons.  But the release should be printable, and one should be able to read communication between the two parties, if it is against a dark background.

9.  Bloggers do not know all other bloggers or journalists, and it would be really nice to have name tags at events hosted by PR consultancies, with an introduction to those we may not know.  I rarely see this at functions.  PR consultancies may not realise that the acceptance of an invitation to an event may be more about meeting other bloggers (an ever-growing band), and less about the meal!  

10.  We would like to be updated on changes happening at restaurants, such as changed names, changed opening hours, winter specials offered, changes in chefs and restaurant management, etc.  This may not justify a media release, but an e-mail would be appreciated, so that one can update one’s blogpost.

11.   Last, but not least, a free lunch cannot ‘buy’ most bloggers!   I have been questioned about the degree of feedback one can give about an event if one has been invited to it, some feeling it rude to provide criticism of an invited event.  This is a difficult question, but if the blogger is known to be honest in writing, then one would expect that person to write about the event with warts and all. There is no greater compliment when one’s feedback has led to a positive change.  Many critical commenters on blogs question the credibility of write-ups based on lunch/dinner invitations.  Any blogger with ethics will declare that a complimentary product/meal was received .

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage