From planning to posting, we’ve rounded up the best tools, platforms, and software to help you create professional-quality food videos in no time.

So whether you’re creating videos for social media, your blog, a client, or anything in-between, make sure to keep reading!

1. Planning and Scripting Software

The first step to creating great videos? The planning process! Whether you love to plan every detail or prefer to wing it, having a place to track your content calendar, production progress, and jot down ideas, is so important in order to stay organized.

• Notebook: A simple notebook is a super helpful (and budget-friendly) way to stay organized and keep track of your videos. Plus, it’s a great way to be able to jot down last-minute thoughts and/or ideas. 
• Trello or Asana:  If you prefer to do all your work on your laptop, a software platform like Trello or Asana is a great way to plan out your video content calendar, track progress, and take notes. 
• Shot Lister: For those who love to plan every detail out, shot lister helps you organize and plan your shots, angles, and scenes to make the filming process as smooth as possible.

P.S. We have a course all about Asana that you can watch here.

2. Camera

The only tool you absolutely need is, of course, a camera! A camera is essential for capturing food videos…and chances are you already have one handy.

• Smartphone Camera: With a smartphone you already have a high-quality camera ready to go, whether you’re an iPhone, Samsung, or Google user, all are equipped with high-quality cameras that are perfect for beginners, those shooting for social media, or those who want a more compact setup.
• DSLR or Mirrorless Camera: For filming more professional videos, a DSLR or mirrorless camera is going to offer professional-quality video, interchangeable lenses, and the ability to really make your food pop! 

Not only do we have a lesson all about filming recipe videos with a DSLR, but we also have one specifically on how to film with a smartphone. You can learn more about both here!

3. Tripod

Having a stable shot will elevate your food videos by creating less distractions and allowing your food to be the main focus. Plus, certain tripods are specifically made to get top-down or close-up shots that are great for filming process videos. 

• Octobuddy: While not technically a tripod, an octobuddy sticks to the back of your phone case and allows you to secure your phone to windows and certain objects. 
• Overhead Mounts: Great for filming top-down food videos, tripods like the Arkon Overhead Phone Mount allow you to secure your smartphone from a top-down angle. 
• DSLR Tripod: A reliable, sturdy tripod is especially important when filming with a DSLR, as it provides stability and flexibility for various shooting angles.

4. Lighting

Good lighting can make or break a food video. Not to mention the lighting you use can add to your video style. While some prefer natural lighting, others prefer direct, or even moody lighting.

• Natural lighting: If you have access to natural light, it’s a great (free!) way to film and ensure your videos look great.
• Ring Light Kit: A ring light kit is great if you are on a budget and don’t have much light to film with, as it will help brighten up the space you’re in.  
• Studio Lights: If you want to invest in professional lighting for your set-up, a studio lighting kit will help you achieve various lighting set-ups. Watch our lesson on artificial lights to help you decide what LED lights and equipment to choose based on your preferences.

5. Microphone

While audio can be overlooked in recipe videos, the sounds of the cooking process can add LOTS to a food video. Whether it’s a chopping sound, a sizzle, or a crunch, it can enhance the viewer’s experience and make all the difference!

• Smartphone microphone: Not happy with the audio on your smartphone? Or, are you filming from a distance? These wireless mini lavalier microphones are great for picking up specific sounds and reducing background noise.
• DLSR Mic: A high-quality microphone, like the Rode VideoMic, attaches to your camera and allows you to capture clear, directional audio and minimize background noise.

6. Editing Software

Once you’ve done all the filming, the next step is to bring it all together through editing. Whether you prefer to edit on your phone or laptop, there’s a ton of different options for all budgets. Make sure to get creative with the editing process by including your own style to make your videos stand out.

• CapCut or InShot: If you’re editing on a smartphone, InShot and CapCut offer both free and paid versions and are intuitive and powerful – making the editing process a breeze. Plus, CapCut also has a free desktop app!
• Adobe Premiere Pro: Looking for a professional-grade video editing software? Premiere Pro offers advanced features like color grading, audio mixing, and multi-camera editing. It’s perfect for those who want complete control over the editing process.
• Final Cut Pro X: A Mac-exclusive software that is powerful and user-friendly. It offers a range of tools for color correction, transitions, and effects.

7. Social Media Scheduling Tools

Once your video is filmed and edited, the only step left is to publish it. If you’re posting your videos to social media, you can use a scheduling app to make sure you’re uploading at the same time, during peak hours, or just simply when you’re otherwise occupied.

• In-App Scheduler: Most social media platforms have built-in tools allowing you to schedule your posts for that specific app. Instagram, Pinterest, FaceBook, and YouTube all have free scheduling tools you can use.
• Canva / Tailwind / CoSchedule: If you’re looking to use a separate app / software to schedule, Canva, CoSchedule and Tailwind all offer various scheduling capabilities. Food Blogger Pro members have access to courses on CoSchedule, a lesson on scheduling in Canva, and a Quick Win on Tailwind!

As you can see, creating high-quality food videos is completely do-able whether you’re on a budget or willing to splurge. There’s tools and equipment out there for every level and as long as you keep practicing, your food videos will only continue to improve. 

Curious what Pinch of Yum uses to record their videos? You can see their full equipment list here!

We can’t wait to see what you create!

The post The Best Tools for Creating Food Videos  appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

With the sun-setting of Instagram’s Reels Play Bonus in March of 2023, many Instagram creators are looking for new (or just more!) ways to monetize their Instagram accounts. While many food bloggers primarily use Instagram as a means to drive traffic back to their sites, there are lots of other opportunities for earning money on the platform.

Curious to learn more? Let’s dive in! 

1. Instagram Subscriptions

In 2022, Instagram launched the subscriptions feature, which allows creators to earn recurring revenue from subscribers in exchange for exclusive content. At the time of this blog post going live, you need to have at least 10,000 followers, be over the age of 18, and live in the U.S. to be eligible for subscriptions (though this will likely expand in the near future, so stay tuned!). 

Subscribers pay a monthly fee (anywhere between $0.99 to $99) for access to exclusive content — think Stories, Lives, Reels, and chats that are only available to subscribers. As a food creator, you might consider sharing exclusive recipes or behind-the-scenes content on Stories, hosting cooking classes for subscribers on Live, or creating additional Reels of certain recipes that will only be available to your subscribers.

2. Instagram Shops

Do you have products or branded merchandise to sell? Maybe a cookbook, e-book, or cute apron with your logo on it? Then you might want to consider opening an Instagram shop! 

You can use the platform’s native e-commerce tool to sell your products and make money directly on Instagram. You can also tag your merchandise in posts, Stories, and Reels on Instagram to direct users directly to your shop. Pretty nifty!

3. Sponsored Posts and Brand Partnerships

Most food bloggers are familiar with the concept of sponsored content — it’s a super common way for food bloggers to monetize their content. Sponsored content is when a brand pays you (the content creator) to share a post about their product or to create a recipe featuring their product, as a means of advertising their product.

While a sponsored content contract for a recipe blog post might also include social media posts, you can also offer a post on Instagram (as a Story, Reel, or feed post) as a standalone option as part of a paid brand partnership.

A sponsored post on Instagram provides an opportunity to share a product that might not necessarily merit a full recipe blog post (i.e. coffee beans, a snack food, or a wine) with your audience, and gives you more flexibility when it comes to determining which brands you might want to work with!

4. Affiliate Links

Instagram is a natural place to include affiliate links to products you use and love so that you can earn a commission from sales made through that link. Food creators can share links to kitchen tools, cookbooks, and food products that you use and can recommend to your users. 

In order to have real success with affiliate links (both on Instagram and your blog), it’s critical that you serve as a trusted resource for your followers. Do your followers know who you are? Do they connect with you? Building this trust takes time and consistency, but making sure that you truly believe in the products you’re sharing is a very important step!

Sharing affiliate links in video is one of the best ways to personalize the product. Showing your followers that you actually use the product in your own kitchen (or life) is one of the easiest ways to authentically incorporate affiliate links into your content. 

P.S. Don’t forget to disclose any affiliate links with clear, succinct language in your posts (“Affiliate link” usually does the trick!).

5. Link back to your food blog

As a food creator, Instagram is a no-brainer platform to use to help drive traffic back to your blog. Whether you’re linking brand new or oldie-but-goodie recipes, sharing your recipe posts on Instagram is an easy way to let your followers know about your content.

One of our favorite Instagrammers and food bloggers (Elena Davis from Cucina by Elena) shared a few quick tips with us for increasing engagement with your links on Instagram Stories:

• Vary the text in the Link. For example, when I link a recipe, instead of it showing up as the URL cucinabyelena.com, I change the title to the recipe name or say, “make this ASAP”
• Include a moving arrow pointing to the link to remind people to click.
• Have your call-to-action (the link) in the last frame or last few frames of your Stories, and wait several hours (or even a day) to post more. When you post a link and people follow it, they may not come back and see the rest of your Stories. So make sure you place them where it makes sense for someone to drop off.

Analytics are your friend

Before we wrap up, we wanted to mention the importance of tracking your Insights on Instagram, especially when sharing sponsored content or affiliate links.

If you have a Creator or Business account on Instagram, you can explore your Insights by:

1. Clicking on the 3 lines in the upper-right corner of your Profile page and then clicking “Insights”
2. Under “Content You Shared” select the Story you’re interested in.
3. Scroll down to “Story interactions” and “Navigation” to see more information about link clicks and whether the user clicked to the next story, exited, or clicked forward.

Are your followers consistently skipping over your sponsored content? Do they click out of your Stories as soon as they see an affiliate link? If so, think about how you might switch up your strategy for sharing this type of content to keep your followers engaged. 

Conversely, did an affiliate link you shared perform super well? Do more of that! Find the products that resonate with your audience, and then experiment until you determine the most successful approaches for sharing them with your followers. Then you have a winning strategy for monetizing on Instagram!

Well that wraps up our deep dive into strategies for making money on Instagram as a food creator. Do you currently monetize on Instagram? If so, what’s your most significant source of income?

The post 5 Ways to Make Money on Instagram as a Food Creator appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

Tailwind is a powerful marketing tool that helps creators plan, create, schedule, and promote content to share across their platforms.

Tailwind comes with a lot of different features, but the two we’re covering in these two Quick Win lessons are:

• Smart.bio
• Scheduling Instagram and Pinterest posts

Smart.bio is an easy-to-use (and free!) tool to help you customize the links you have in your Instagram bio, and scheduling Instagram and Pinterest posts is a breeze with Tailwind’s scheduling tool.

In these two lessons, you’ll learn:

• What Smart.bio is
• How to customize your Smart.bio page
• How to connect your social accounts to Tailwind
• The differences between Auto Posting and Push Notifications on Tailwind
• And more!

Quick Win lessons are designed to be exactly that –– quick wins! After reviewing these lessons, you’ll have everything you need to start using Smart.bio and Tailwind to schedule your social posts. Enjoy!

Find both Quick Wins here.

As a reminder, Food Blogger Pro courses, tools, and resources are available for all Food Blogger Pro members.

• Used to be a member? Rejoin by following these instructions.
• Not a member? Join now and get instant access to all membership content today!

The post New Quick Wins: Smart.bio & Scheduling with Tailwind appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

Are you creating videos for your blog posts? If so, you probably want to share them on social media.

Videos can be shared on pretty much every social media platform, which is great for getting the most out of the videos you’re producing.

But it can also be a bit confusing because there are different recommendations for each platform. Between the videos you share on Instagram Stories and on the Facebook Feed, the recommended dimensions can vary quite a bit.

Luckily, we have your back. This post will be constantly updated with new recommendations so you can be confident you’re sharing the right kind of video to each social platform:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

And be sure to bookmark or save this post so you can refer back to it if/when recommendations change in the future!

Facebook

You can share videos on Facebook within shared posts on the news feed, Reels, and in Facebook Stories. We have different recommendations for each:

Facebook News Feed

• Format: While they support almost all types of videos, they recommend MP4 or MOV
• Ratio: 16:9 to 9:16
• Recommended Dimensions: 1280 x 720 pixels
• Maximum File Size: Up to 10 GB
• Video Length: 1 second to 240 minutes (4 hours)

via Facebook

Facebook Stories

• Format: While other video types are supported, they recommend MP4 or MOV
• Ratio: 9:16 and 4:5 to 1.91:1
• Recommended Dimensions: 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Maximum File Size: 4 GB
• Video Length: 1 – 120 seconds

via Facebook

Facebook Reels

• Format: MP4, MOV
• Ratio: 9:16
• Recommended Dimensions: 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Maximum File Size: 4 GB
• Video Length: 3 – 90 seconds

via Facebook

Instagram

Instagram has two different places you can share videos – Reels and Stories. We have different recommendations for each:

Instagram Reels

• Format: MP4, MOV
• Ratio: Between 1.91:1 and 9:16
• Recommended Dimensions: 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Maximum File Size: 4 GB
• Video Length: 0 – 90 seconds
• Frame Rate: Minimum of 30 FPS (frames per second)
• Cover Photo Size: 420 x 654 pixels (or 1:1.55 ratio)

via Instagram

Instagram Stories

• Format: While other video types are supported, they recommend MP4, MOV, or GIF
• Ratio: 9:16
• Recommended Dimensions: 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Maximum File Size: 4 GB
• Video Length: 15 seconds per story

TikTok

Similar to Instagram Reels, TikTok is a great place to share raw, authentic, short-form videos. Here are the requirements:

• Format: MP4, MOV, MPEG, AVI, or 3GP
• Ratio: 9:16
• Recommended Dimensions: 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Maximum File Size: 287.6 MB for iOS, 72 MB for Android
• Video Length: Videos created on TikTok can be up to 60 seconds long, while videos uploaded to the app can be up to 3 minutes long.

Pinterest

Video Pins

• Format: MP4, MOV, M4V
• Ratio: 1:1 (square) or 2:3, 4:5 or 9:16 (vertical)
• Recommended Dimensions: 1080 x 1080 pixels (1:1 ratio) or 1080 x 1920 pixels (9:16 ratio)
• Maximum File Size: 2 GB
• Video Length: 4 seconds – 15 minutes
• Text:
  • Title: Up to 100 characters. If no title, description will show in feed.
  • Description: Up to 500 characters.
  • For either title or description, the first 50-60 characters are likely to show up in feed.

YouTube

You can embed videos from YouTube into blog posts, so the recommendations found below also apply to blog posts. You can now also share YouTube Shorts, which have different requirements.

Standard YouTube Videos

• Format: MP4 is recommended, though YouTube will also accept many other file formats.
• Ratio: 16:9
• Recommended Dimensions: 1920 x 1080 pixels
• Maximum File Size: 256 GB
• Video Length: By default, you can upload videos that are up to 15 minutes long. Verified accounts can upload videos longer than 15 minutes. The maximum video length for Verified accounts is 256 GB or 12 hours (whichever is less).
• Video Thumbnail Resolution: 1280 x 720 pixels

YouTube Shorts

• Format: MP4
• Ratio: 9:16
• Recommended Dimensions: 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Maximum File Size: 256 GB
• Video Length: 3 minutes (Note: Recording with music from the YouTube library or original audio from other videos is limited to 15 seconds.)

LinkedIn

Don’t forget about LinkedIn! Here are our recommendations when it comes to sharing videos on there:

• Format: MP4 and many other file formats
• Ratio: 1:2.4 or 2.4:1
• Recommended Dimensions: Minimum 256 × 144 pixels and maximum 4096 × 2304 pixels
• File Size: Up to 5 GB
• Video Length: 3 seconds – 10 minutes

via LinkedIn

Twitter/X

Last, but not least, Twitter! While you can share YouTube and other video links within tweets, Twitter lets you directly upload landscape, portrait, and square videos within the app itself. Here are the recommendations:

• Format: MP4, MOV
• Ratio: 16:9 (landscape), 9:16 (portrait), 1:1 (square) 
• Recommended Dimensions: 1280 x 720 pixels (landscape), 720 x 1280 pixels (portrait), 720 x 720 pixels (square)
• Maximum File Size: 512 MB
• Video Length: 0.5 – 140 seconds
• Recommended Frame Rates: 30 FPS, 60 FPS

via Twitter

Now a few questions for you: What other questions do you have about video? What is your favorite platform to share videos on?

The post The Definitive Guide to Video Sizes for Social Media (Updated for 2024) appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

And that’s what we’re here to help you navigate… everything you would ever need to know about Instagram saves!

What is an Instagram Save?

A “save” on Instagram is when a user bookmarks a post from their Instagram feed so that they can quickly and easily find the post and reference it at a later time.

Users can even categorize these saved posts into collections, like Easy Dinner Recipes or Packed Lunch Ideas.

“Instagram saves are the best indicator that you’re creating the content your audience really wants to see. Saves and shares are the metrics I base my content strategy on. The best way to get saves on Instagram is to share educational information like recipe walkthroughs with a voiceover, behind-the-scenes content, helpful tips, shopping trips, engaging quotes, etc. Consistently engaging your audience with these types of reels leads to growth in engagement.”

– Andrea Balogun, Food Blogger Pro Social Media Strategy Expert

Does the Instagram Algorithm Monitor Instagram Saves?

The Instagram algorithm is Instagram’s prediction of what a user will be interested in seeing on their feed. Instagram has shared that there are five main user interactions that they consider as part of the algorithm:

• Time spent
• Likes
• Comments
• Saves
• Tap on profile

As you can see, saves matter! Why? If a user saves a post, it indicates that the post provides value to them and signals to Instagram that the post is quality content. If a post is saved by numerous users, it will perform better in the algorithm and reach a wider audience.

How to Increase your Instagram Saves

So, what can you do to increase the number of saves you get on your Instagram posts? A simple place to start when brainstorming your Instagram strategy is to ask yourself: is this a post I would want to bookmark for later and come back to?

Users are more likely to save posts that are evergreen, informative, and educational. Here are some ideas of what that looks like in real life, to get you started:

• Include a simple recipe (with both the ingredients and directions) in the caption of your post.
• Demonstrate a cooking or baking technique in a Reel.
• Compile your restaurant or travel recommendations into a carousel post.
• Provide recipe inspiration, like these beautiful Christmas cookie boxes, a Thanksgiving tablescape, or your weekly meal plan.
• Put together an Infographic – Canva has lots of templates to choose from!
• Share your kitchen tips and hacks, like in this post demonstrating the difference oven temperature makes when baking cupcakes!
• Document your most recent grocery store haul.
• Make a handy how-to guide, like this guide to content planning, or a guide to perfect pie crust.

While the content of a post plays a large role in the likelihood that a user will save the post, writing longer-form captions can also increase the odds that a user will find a post save-worthy. Longer captions, especially those that are chock-full of useful information, tend to be more valuable to users.

If all else fails, it never hurts to just ASK your followers to save a post! Adding text like “save this post for later” or “bookmark this post to make this recipe at any time!” in your caption can really boost those Instagram saves.

Tracking Instagram Saves Metrics

One of the best things you can do to improve your Instagram engagement is to track your engagement metrics to see what resonates with your followers and what types of posts are getting the most saves.

If you have a Creator or Business account on Instagram, there are a few easy ways to view your Instagram saves:

1. Click on “View Insights” below a specific post to see how many saves the post got (reference the number under the bookmark icon).
2. You can view saves on all of your posts during a particular time period in the Insights tab → Accounts Engaged → Post Interactions.
3. Click over to the Insights tab → Content You’ve Shared → Select the type of post → use the “Select Metric” drop down to select “saves” and see the saves on all of your posts in one place.

Well folks, that wraps up our nitty gritty guide to getting more saves on Instagram! We hope this post will make navigating the Instagram algorithm a little easier for you.

We’d love to know… Have you tried any strategies to increase the number of saves you get on your Instagram posts?

Any tips that have worked for you? Let us know in the comments!

The post The Best Strategy for Getting More Saves on Instagram appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

Maybe you’re already filming recipe videos and just want to up your game, or maybe you’re a recipe video newbie looking for the best camera for cooking videos. Either way, we’re here to help! 

We are going to take a deep dive into the gear that our sister site and food blog, Pinch of Yum, uses for recipe videos – from cameras and tripods to editing software.

While filming and editing videos is undeniably more work than shooting and editing still photos, videos are so versatile! You can share versions of your video footage across platforms – including Instagram Reels, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, AND on your food blog!

Let’s start with a list of what Pinch of Yum currently uses, some basic examples of how we use it, as well as some other common video-related questions that we’ve seen on the Food Blogger Pro community forum recently.

We’ll cover:

• Equipment for Shooting DSLR Recipe Videos
• Equipment for Shooting iPhone Recipe Videos
• Editing Software for Recipe Videos
• Recipe Videos FAQ

Equipment for Shooting DSLR Recipe Videos

Canon 7D Mark II

We use a Canon 7D to shoot almost all of the side-angle videos you see on Pinch of Yum’s website, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube channel. If we had to choose, we would nominate this camera as the best camera for cooking videos! That said, we will occasionally use an iPhone when we don’t have the 7D readily available (more on that in a bit). We shoot our videos at 24fps because it gives the video more of a cinematic or “Hollywood-like” feel to it. 30fps or 60fps would feel a bit more digital. In fact, 60fps is reserved for capturing really fast motion, or for creating a dramatic look that might feel out of place for a typical recipe video.

Canon 5D Mark IV with Lens: Canon EF 24-105 IS USM

We use this camera when shooting overhead cooking videos for Pinch of Yum. We like having the zoom lens to be able to change the cropping and composition without moving the camera and/or tripod. 

Canon 80D

If you’re using two cameras to shoot your recipe videos and want a cheaper option than a second Canon 7D, the 80D is very similar at a slightly lower price point. We use this camera for our side-angle shots when we really want to highlight the detail of the recipe — think: stringy cheese, melty butter, sandwich cross-sections, etc. The 80D is nice because it has a swivel screen that can help you keep an eye on what you’re filming no matter where you are.

Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5

This is the lens we use for wide, overhead shots, and it works really well for close-ups too. It’s not a prime lens, which means that you can zoom in with the lens itself, rather than zooming in during post-production.

Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6

We use the Canon 55-250mm lens with the Canon 7D Mark II for our side-angle shots. It’s a more budget-friendly zoom lens for those close-up detail and texture shots.

SanDisk Extreme Pro or Lexar Professional Memory Cards

You’re going to want a memory card that can handle the speed and size of your footage if you’re shooting on a DSLR. In terms of space, we would recommend something above 64 GB (we use a 128 GB card). However, you could probably get away with 32 GB depending on how long the videos are that you are creating. Look for U3 Class 10 cards from professional brands like SanDisk or Lexar.

Impact C-Stand with Sliding Leg Kit (Black 11′) and Camera Mount

We have two of these stands: one that we use for the overhead camera and one for the side angle. For the overhead, we stabilize the arm with a sandbag on the other end. 

We like the versatility of these stands because they can be used for many things in the studio beyond just holding the cameras. This stand is pretty large, so keep that in mind if you’re working in a smaller space!

You will also need to purchase a camera mount for these stands to attach your camera to them. We use Manfrotto mounts because they are interchangeable with the quick-release plates. 

Manfrotto Ball Heads with Quick Release Plates and Manfrotto 014-14 Rapid Adapter – 5/8″ Stud to 1/4-20″ Thread

If you decide to go with the Impact C-Stand, you need to purchase a tripod head to attach to the C-Stand. 

Make sure that whatever mount you purchase is rated to hold the weight of your camera (some are light-duty and will not hold a heavy DSLR and lens firmly).

Lastly, you will need the Manfrotto Rapid Adapter to attach the tripod head to the C-Stand.

FeelWorld 7″4K Ultra-Bright Monitor with Loop-Through HDMI

Top-down videos are great, but it’s sometimes difficult to see if your food is centered in the frame, in focus, or overexposed because of the angle of the camera. That’s where a monitor comes in. We have two of these monitors that we attach to our two DSLR cameras so that we can see what’s being captured in the shot. 

Westcott Flex Light, NEEWER LED Video Light and Stand Kit or Amazon Basics Portable Photo Studio

We use natural light whenever we can, but sometimes the weather just doesn’t cooperate. We’ve used all three of these options for artificially lit photography, and they work great for video too. 

The Westcott option is the most expensive option, but the NEEWER lights are a great alternative. The NEEWER lights are smaller, easy to store, and come with a dimming option if you want a warmer light.

Lastly, the Amazon Basics Portable Foldable Photo Studio Box is an easy and affordable choice for artificial lighting!

Extras

Here are some additional, smaller items that will make your filming process a lot easier:

• HDMI to Mini HDMI Cord: If you’re using a monitor when filming, you’ll need a cord so you can connect that monitor to your camera. Based on the cameras and monitors we use, this is the cord we need. Be sure to check your specific cameras and monitors to figure out what kind of cord you need.
• Canon EOS Utility: Since we shoot with Canon cameras, we use a free (!) program called EOS Utility to tether our side-angle camera to a computer monitor. We can see what our camera is recording and adjust our camera settings directly from this program.
• USB to 5-Pin Mini-USB Cable: This is the cord we use to tether our camera to our computer monitor.
• White Balance Cards: We use white balance cards to set custom white balance before a shoot. They help with the overall “look” of the final video.
• Bounce Cards: Just like in photography, we use bounce cards to lighten up some dark areas in our shoots. We don’t use them all the time; instead, we use them as needed if the lighting is subpar. We use the foam core boards from craft or office supply stores!
• Diffusers: You know that beautiful, soft light you see in really awesome photographs? You want that same quality of light for your videos! You can use diffusers built specifically for photography, or you can find a sheer curtain that you can hang in your window.
• Google Drive: We use Google Drive to help us organize and collaborate on our videos. It’s part of Google Workspace from Google.
• My Passport for Mac Portable External Hard Drive: Video files are big, so a big external hard drive is great for organizing, storing, and protecting your clips.

Equipment for Shooting iPhone Recipe Videos

iPhone

It is increasingly common to see recipe videos filmed on a phone on social media. This popular Reel from Pinch of Yum was filmed on a phone! Smartphones can be a great way to start shooting recipe videos if you’re not quite ready to jump into DSLR videos. Plus, shooting a smartphone recipe video is as simple as hitting record on your camera app!

You can also use an iPhone to capture audio, as the audio recording capabilities of DSLR cameras is really bad. 

Overhead Pro Tripod

We really like using the Overhead Pro Tripod for iPhone videos. The nice thing about this tripod is that it has an arm. Since the camera is far away from the legs of the tripod, you’re not getting the legs in your shot.  A smartphone is light enough that this very small tripod can support it, so it’s a great economical option.

Reflector 4

Just like the monitor for DSLR videos, we use Reflector 4 so that we can see what the phone is recording without having to look at the phone screen itself. It hooks up wirelessly and broadcasts your phone video onto your tablet or computer.

Zoom H4N Digital Recorder

We used the Zoom H4N audio recorder for the Food Photography Lighting and Putting it All Together courses on Food Blogger Pro along with a clip-on mic. It’s a great mic for picking up the audio in a room, but it’s not quite as good as using a clip-on microphone like the one below.

Sennheiser EW 100 ENG G3

We have two of these mics. This mic was recommended to us by a video production company as the best of the “prosumer” level mics. In other words, it’s the best mic you can get without having to spend a crazy amount of money for a professional mic.

That being said, it’s still a really expensive mic. We’d advise you to only purchase this if you’re really going to dive deep into video. The Zoom H4N is a much more affordable option if you’re just getting started.

Editing Software for Recipe Videos

Final Cut Pro X

When FCPX first came out, there was a lot of pushback from the video editing community because the software looked and acted a lot like iMovie, which was great for beginners but frustrating for pro-level editors. Apple has significantly improved the software since then, and it’s now an awesome prosumer-level software. It’s not quite 100% professional, yet it’s not quite 100% consumer.

At Pinch of Yum, we use Final Cut Pro X to edit our food videos. One of our favorite features is Synchronize Clips. We use this feature to quickly and easily sync up the audio and video clips from the shoot.

Adobe Premiere Pro

If you’re already using Adobe Lightroom and/or Adobe Photoshop for your food photography, you might want to add another Adobe product to your workflow. Premiere Pro gives you a lot of control in terms of the final video, and is also great for those who are working on Windows computers – Final Cut Pro X and iMovie (below) are both only for Macs.

iMovie

You can use iMovie on a desktop or on an iPhone, so it’s a great solution for those who want to try their hand at phone videography. It has a few more limitations than Final Cut Pro X or Premiere Pro, but it’s a good solution for just starting out with video editing.

InShot Pro

We like to use InShot to edit videos on our phone (like for Instagram Reels and TikTok). It is easy to record the videos using your iPhone, edit with the InShot app, and then upload the final video to whichever social media platform you prefer.

While there is a free version of InShot, InShot Pro allows you to download your videos without the InShot watermark.

Recipe Videos FAQ

But wait, there’s more! Here are some of the most common questions we get about how we shoot recipe videos, along with some quick answers to get you started:

What about you? Have you ever recorded videos for your website or social media accounts? What equipment did you use? Software? What did you learn in the process?

We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

The post The Gear We Use For Recipe Videos appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

We have a brand-new Quick Win for you today all about Tips for Making Recipe Reels on Instagram!

Have you heard? Video is having a real moment on social media right now, and Instagram Reels are a beginner-friendly way to experiment with recipe video content.

Because Reels are still relatively new, Instagram seems to be favoring original Reels in its algorithm, which can help you reach a new audience, grow your following, and improve engagement.

This is the first Food Blogger Pro course from yours truly (Emily ) and I hope you’ll learn a ton of practical information that you can start using ASAP!

In this Quick Win, you’ll learn:

• Tips for setting up to film a recipe Reel
• Lots of Reel ideas for food bloggers
• More about recipe Reel audio (voiceovers, music, and cooking sounds, oh my!)
• How and why to customize your Reel cover
• The tools you need to film and edit Reels
• Some bonus rapid-fire tips
• And more!

While this course is primarily about Reels, most of these tips can be applied to other platforms, like TikTok or Facebook, and you can always repost your videos across platforms, too.

Check out the full Quick Win for yourself here.

As a reminder, Food Blogger Pro courses and tools are available for all Food Blogger Pro members. If you used to be a member, you can rejoin by following these instructions. If you’re not a member, you can join and get instant access to this course, as well as all of our other courses for food bloggers, today!

The post New Quick Win: Five Tips for Making Recipe Reels on Instagram appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

There’s the planning, the shooting, the editing, the promoting… not to mention cleaning up the kitchen after the whole ordeal is over.

So if you’re doing all of that hard work for just one video, is there a way to make that content work for you long-term? A way to take that content and repurpose it in a different way that will allow you to reach more people without doing more work?

The answer: Yes!

And in fact, we’re talking about three different ways that you can repurpose your recipe videos in this article.

Let’s dive in:

Re-Crop and Share Across Social Media

The most obvious way to repurpose your recipe videos is by sharing them across your social media platforms. All major social media platforms –– Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter –– let you share videos with your audience!

For example, you can share videos in your feed, in Stories, and in Reels on Instagram. That’s three different ways to share your video content on just a single platform!

Not all of your followers will see the video in each place, so repurposing your video in this way helps you maximize your video’s reach. And if the same person sees the video in a few different places, they may be more likely to engage with it.

Repurposing your videos on social media means re-cropping the video you have in your blog post based on that platform’s video dimension recommendations and potentially re-editing the video if it’s too long for the place you’re sharing it.

If you’d like an example of what this could look like, check out this video on Pinch of Yum –– it’s horizontal and fits the blog feed nicely. Now check out this video on Pinch of Yum’s Instagram feed –– it’s the same video, just cropped into a square to better fill their followers’ Instagram feeds. The Instagram video also has a slightly different end card to remind people where the recipe was from.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lindsay Ostrom (@pinchofyum)

Tips for Repurposing Video for Social Media

• Consider the fact that you’ll share the video across your social media platforms while shooting to make sure frames are composed in a way that several different crops will work. Cropping a video to vertical, for example, eliminates quite a bit of the frame.
• Re-crop in your chosen editing software and adjust each frame and text to be sure nothing gets cropped out. Some shots in standard dimensions are off-center for visual interest, but when cropping for square or vertical videos, those shots might need to be moved to the left or right of the frame. This only takes a few minutes, but it’s worth it to have an intentional crop of each version of your video.
• Consider a slightly different edit for different platforms. For example, on some platforms, a shorter, snappier video that features more of the end product will perform better than a longer, instructional video. On some platforms, having a bite shot or something very compelling will pull viewers in from the start, while other platforms don’t need that. Consider experimenting and paying attention to the features in each video that might be best for each platform. The same footage can be used, just rearranged, sped up, or slowed down to cater to a specific platform.
• Different music on different platforms may be helpful to allow a video to grab that specific audience. TikTok and Reels allow for use of some popular music from their libraries, but something like YouTube or Facebook might not.
• Different clips can be helpful in different settings, and planning what you need to include before shooting will help you get the most out of your footage.

Roundup Videos

Roundups are a great way to feature popular recipes and videos all in one video. The idea is to take a few of your videos to mash them up into a brand new video. Then you’ll share that roundup video on social media –– whether that be on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube –– or in a roundup blog post.

Yes, it probably requires a bit more editing than scaling a blog feed video down into a social media video, but the results can be worth it because you’re exposing your audience to a bunch of your recipes all at once. It’s a really fun way to package similar recipes into a single, easy-to-digest format as well.

Here’s a great example from Tasty. In this nearly 45-minute video on YouTube (with over 9 million views), they’ve gathered 31 of their favorite cookie recipes. What a great video to share during the holidays!

Tips for Creating Roundup Videos

• On YouTube, a longer-form roundup video might work really well since people are used to watching long-form videos on YouTube.
• For a roundup video on Instagram or TikTok, something shorter and snappier might be a better fit.

Recipe Card Videos

The last repurposing video idea that we’ll talk about today is actually repurposing it within your blog post. You can actually embed videos in your recipe card… and in two different ways!

First, you can embed your full video into your recipe card. It’s a recommended field for recipe schema (aka the data you send to search engines about your recipes –– more on that here), and it can be valuable for your readers to have the video right there within the recipe card.

Second, you can include step-by-step videos in your recipe cards. These videos are simple and easy to make, yet they can be powerful tools that help your readers recreate your recipes with ease. You’d cut your existing recipe video into “steps” and include the correct video within each step of the recipe in your recipe card. You can see an example here on Pinch of Yum using the recipe plugin we developed, Tasty Recipes (if you’re using a different recipe plugin, reach out to their support team to see if it’s an option for you!).

We also have a lesson for Food Blogger Pro members that shows you exactly how to create these step-by-step recipe videos like a pro. Learn more about that here!

Tips for Adding Video to Your Recipe Cards

• While a lot of videos for social media are sped up or slowed down for entertainment purposes, real-time speed seems to be more helpful in recipe card videos.
• Focus on pulling out the steps of a recipe that might be particularly helpful for a reader to see. For example: the color on a piece of browned chicken, the translucency of onions when they are done, the specific method of layering a casserole, etc. Showing these in real-time can feel more approachable.
• If you’re interested in including step-by-step videos in your recipe card, it’s helpful to make note of the steps or techniques you’d like to highlight before you begin shooting. This way, you can make sure you capture those specific steps on video.

Those are just three of the many ways that you can be repurposing your recipe video content for your audience. It’s something that Brita from Food with Feeling chatted about on our podcast a few years ago as well.

And we’re curious: Have you ever repurposed any of your video content? If so, how did it go? Let us know in the comments!

The post Three Ways to Repurpose Your Recipe Videos appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

Pinterest Predicts is a “not-yet-trending report” where Pinterest tries to identify the searches and topics that will be trending in the new year. And the reason they produce this report each year is to help content creators take advantage of their predictions via the posts, videos, and photos they share on Pinterest!

If you go to the Pinterest Predicts page, you can filter by category (“Food and beverage” being one of them), so we thought it would be fun to unpack four of their most interesting food and beverage predictions for 2022. Let’s dive in!

Tea Time!

Tea Content Ideas

Here are some fun ways that food bloggers and food content creators can create content to align with this predicted trend:

• Tea Party Gear Guide –– What are the brewing tools and teas that are essential for throwing the best tea party?
• Food and Tea Pairings –– Just like wines get paired with specific foods to accentuate the flavors, tea can make a great pairing option too!
• Tips for Throwing a Tea Happy Hour –– Doing Dry January? Try to make Tea Happy Hour a thing!

Want A Slice of Cake?

Pinterest is expecting over-the-top, elaborate cake searches to explode amongst Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers in 2022. And it’s not a big surprise! Shows like The Great British Bake Off and How to Cake It on YouTube have been popular for years –– it’s about time that cake has its time to shine!

Some of the cake-related trends that Pinterest is anticipating are:

• Gravity defying cake ideas
• Unusual cakes
• Art cake ideas
• Bubble cake ideas
• 3D cake ideas

Cake Content Ideas

Here’s some inspiration for this delicious trend:

• Cake Decorating Reels –– Lean into two trends at once by making Instagram Reels showing how you decorate a beautiful cake!
• A Series of “Forgotten” Cake Recipes –– Are there some older cake recipes that your readers need to know about?! Post a series and breathe new life into those classic recipes.

Keepin’ it Young At Heart

Pinterest is expecting to see a spike in searches that help Gen X and Baby Boomers feel young again with searches for things like:

• Useful crafts for adults
• Indoor swings for adults
• Fairy bedroom ideas for adults
• Adult pigtails
• Popsicle stick crafts for adults diy

You can see that they’re anticipating more searches for crafty hobbies and activities for adults, but I think we could also view this as an opportunity to get creative with our food and recipe content!

Youthful Adult Content Ideas:

When thinking about content to accompany this trend, think about the things that made you happiest as a kid. How can you put a spin on it so that it helps or entertains an adult?

• Homemade Play-Doh for Adults –– Could you put an adult spin on homemade Play-Doh? Maybe dye it fun “grown-up food” colors like “Merlot” or “Blue Cheese.”
• Food for an Adult Game Night –– We just had a conversation about our favorite board games as a team! There are so many out there, and they’re a great way to spend a night in with your friends. Are there some creative recipes you could share to help feed those gamers?
• Grown-Up Versions of Kid-Favorite Foods –– There are so many classic kid foods that you can put an adult spin on! Treats, dinners, breakfasts… the possibilities are endless!

Cooking from the Heart

Potentially the trend I’m most excited for in 2022, Pinterest is forecasting more searches for ancestral foods and recipes. Readers want to learn more about cultures through food, and given the state of the world right now, this is a great way to help your readers “travel” and learn about the world without them having to leave their houses.

Some of the top searches Pinterest is expecting are:

• Norwegian recipes traditional
• Filipino recipes authentic
• Traditional Russian food
• South African recipes traditional
• Arabic food traditional

Ancestral Food Content Ideas

What are some ways you can you create ancestral food and recipe content? Glad you asked.

• Tips for Hosting a “Travel Around The World Dinner Club” –– Encourage your readers to experience different cultures with their friends and families by hosting a dinner club that focuses on a different cuisine each month. You can give them recipe suggestions, coordination tips, and additional information they can consume to understand each culture a bit better.
• A “Recipes from My Family” Series –– We all have family recipes that are near and dear to our hearts. Maybe you can post a series on your blog highlighting those recipes and talking about why they’re so important to you.
• Cookbook and Author Features –– Take it upon yourself to dive into different cultures and tell your readers about it! There are tons of different cookbooks and authors that you can learn about traditional cuisines from, and you can share your learnings with your audience.

Those are just four of the many trends predicted by Pinterest for 2022, so if you’re interested, be sure to check out the full report here.

And you know we’ll be keeping an eye on the biggest trends for food bloggers in 2022 in our Trending Now in Food Blogging series here on the blog! Click here to subscribe to our newsletter so you’re always in the loop!

What do you think of these predicted trends? Can you think of any other searches that may become popular this year?

The post 11 Content Ideas for Food Bloggers Inspired by Pinterest Predicts 2022 appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

It can be so helpful to analyze what’s working (and what’s not!) in your current strategy to decide what to focus your time and energy on moving forward.

As you’re thinking about your goals for the new year, we wanted to get a feel for what food bloggers are focusing on in 2022 to give you some ideas and inspiration!

We surveyed The Food Blogger Pro community, as well as the team behind Food Blogger Pro and our sister companies, to get their thoughts, and we can’t wait to share the results with you today.

To poll the Food Blogger Pro community, we asked the following Question of the Week on our Member Dashboard a few weeks ago: “What is the #1 thing you’re planning to focus on in 2022?”

Here’s how Food Blogger Pro members responded:

In this post, we’re going to explore these different areas that food bloggers are planning to focus on and provide some resources to help you tackle your blogging goals with confidence. Let’s get into it!

SEO

The most popular area that respondees said they’d be focusing on in 2022 was SEO, or search engine optimization. And there’s a reason for that!

Since the majority of online traffic is driven by search engines, it’s important to optimize your blog posts and website as a whole to ensure that search engines are indexing and displaying your content.

We love to chat about SEO on The Food Blogger Pro Podcast, and we recently had Emma Duckworth from Emma Duckworth Bakes on the show to talk about the success she’s had from working with an SEO mentor. In the past year alone, she has more than doubled her pageviews by honing in on who she’s creating content for and optimizing the content on her site!

One of the biggest components of SEO is keyword research, which is the process of identifying popular terms and phrases that people enter into search engines. Once you figure out what people are searching for, you can strategically create content based on those keywords to potentially get more traffic to your site.

Personally, I’m really trying to lean into SEO and keyword research in the new year. I want to start incorporating more keyword research into my content strategy and hopefully grow my traffic to get to that next level with my blog.

–– Leslie (that’s me!), The Baker’s Almanac

Try working with an SEO mentor yourself in the upcoming year or invest in a course about keyword research to start including that your content strategy. Focusing more on SEO will only help you with your blogging endeavors!

Creating More Content

There’s no doubt about it: content is king. And because of that, 29.82% of respondees said their main focus next year will be creating more content!

Maybe you’ll try out a new tool to plan your content calendar or perhaps you’ll try implementing some time blocking and content batching to tackle your content goals.

For me, it’s content 100%. I want to actually (finally!) have a content calendar that I stick to. I’ll test drive that for a few months to see how that feels.

I’ll probably use CoSchedule and/or Google Calendar for that.

–– Alexa, Fooduzzi

For 2022, I really want to get more quality content on my site. I’m aiming for four posts a month. So I am disciplining myself to stay focused by doing more time blocking and scheduling tasks ahead of time, by week, then by month, so it is more attainable and not so overwhelming.

The concept of time blocking is a gem! Having a roadmap a month at a time is helping me have a clearer vision of attaining both short and long-term picture goals!

–– Jocelyn, JOZmahal

And if you’re looking for some ideas to create some fresh, new content on your site, we’ve got you covered!

We have a course all about Getting Creative With Your Blog Posts for our Food Blogger Pro members that covers all the unique and creative ways you can share content on your site. From gift guides to seasonal ingredient roundups, there are so many ways to create valuable content for your readers.

Growing on Social Media

Another area that lots of FBP members will be turning their attention to is growing on social media. From TikTok to YouTube to Instagram, there are so many social media platforms where bloggers can establish a strong presence and build a following.

Lately, lots of social media platforms have really been encouraging creators to share more videos. And what better way to get your readers excited to make your recipes than through an enticing video?

For Pinch of Yum, I’d love to see us try reaching people in new ways – specifically with new styles of video! This year has made it clear that Reels and TikTok style videos are becoming an increasingly significant way that people find and consume content, so I’d love to explore those areas a little more for our recipe content in 2022!

–– Lindsay, Pinch of Yum

If you’re looking for some tips to make eye-catching videos for social media, you should definitely check out our post exploring 5 Ways to Create Instagram Reels as a Food Blogger!

Video

And speaking of video, many FBP members said they’ll be aiming to produce more video content in the new year.

While videos do take a bit more work to produce, they can be so helpful when it comes to teaching your readers how to make a recipe — especially if it’s pretty complicated to make!

Video is also great because it’s so versatile. Once you film yourself making a recipe, you can share that footage on your blog and then even repurpose it for your YouTube channel and various social media platforms.

Although there are a few different things I plan on focusing on in the New Year, I definitely plan on challenging myself to really lean into video. I’ve really been struggling in that department.

Now, I’m holding myself accountable. I will create 2 videos in Quarter 1 of 2022. It may not seem like a lot, but I like to reach for small goals that are attainable to try to set myself up for success, then I’ll go from there.

–– Cree, Cooking With Bliss

Getting Better at Photography

Photography is such an important part of the food blogging game, so it should come as no surprise that 7% of FBP members will be focusing on getting better at photography next year.

We rounded up 7 Beginner Tips for Improving Your Food Photography in a blog post, and it’s definitely worth a read if photography is a focus for you at the moment! The strategies listed in that post can help help you take your food photography skills from the photo on the left to the one on the right:

Email Marketing

Last but not least, a few FBP members said they’ll be focusing on email marketing in the new year!

Whether you want to share a weekly roundup with new blog posts or want to promote a new ebook you just launched, implementing a strong email marketing strategy will ensure that the people who are the most interested in your content hear from you on a regular basis.

——————–

No matter what you’re planning to work on in 2022, we hope this post gave you some ideas and inspiration to tackle your blogging goals with confidence.

And I know we covered a lot of different areas in this post, so definitely don’t feel like you have to tackle all of them at once. Whether you’re planning to focus on video, SEO, or email marketing in the new year, just work on learning a little bit more each and every day, and you’ll be on track to achieving your goals.

Now over to you: What are you planning to focus on in 2022? What are some of your blogging goals for the year? Let’s chat in the comments!

The post What Food Bloggers Are Focusing on in 2022 appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.