Getting featured by a local food blog is one of the best ways to get exposure in front of a desirable audience of foodies and local scene writers that can plant the little seed of buzz and help jump start awareness for a restaurant. But when you’re just getting started attracting attention is tough. After all, no one knows about how great your restaurant or food truck is… yet.

For this post, I reached out to 25 popular food bloggers to find out the best ways a culinary entrepreneur can get their attention and earn press on local blogs. My hope is that you will to use these tips to connect with influential foodies or bloggers in your neck of the woods. As you’ll learn in this article, sometimes all you need to do is reach out directly to the writer by email or social media to make an introduction. Being proactive can go along way.

Big thanks to each of the writers that contributed to this article. If you found the article useful, please pass it along.

I like to see that there is creativity with not only their name and logo (the brand) but with the food also. It’s gotta be exciting and well thought out. Do something different!

Burger Beast cover’s South Florida burgers / comfort food and rated “Best Food Blog” according to the New Times 2012 Web Awards.

For those of us who don’t normally review restaurants, but occasionally find ourselves cooking in less than ideal conditions, I think it would be great to get a mini-tour of your operation and learn how you turn out your products in a very small space.

And just FYI, I’ve given what I thought was a nice plug to restaurants that have provided me with a recipe. Here are a couple:

http://spoonandink.blogspot.com/2013/08/pizzaiolo-neil-center-with-helpers-max.html
http://spoonandink.blogspot.com/2012/02/hearts-spades-diamonds-and-clubs-and.html

So I guess part B to your question is that a restaurant that’s willing to share a recipe that’s good but not too difficult to replicate could easily find themselves the subject of a blog posting.

Lee Stokes Hilton writes over at Spoon & Ink. For the record, I think this is a great tip!

We focus on the gourmet experience, so we typically review food trucks that use high quality, preferably local and organic ingredients and offer a unique and interesting menu. Getting us to come out is pretty simple – all they need to do is ask, or maybe we’ll eventually find them ourselves. We use a rating system when we critique a truck. If they don’t score at least 3/5 points, we won’t publish the review. The only exception to that is if they provide poor service.

Depending on the schedule, we may or may not get out to sample a truck’s menu right away. We research food trucks and follow them for weeks on social media before we venture out to see them in person, typically.

Chris Ford from Sitches ‘n Dishes. Awesome resource for foodies in California.

Get My Attention

One way for a Food Cart (In Portland we call our Food Trucks, Food Carts) to get my attention is to start following my Food Cart Twitter feed – @GR8FoodCartsPDX. However… that only works if I can tell that this is a Food Cart that is located in Portland.

About once a month I will get a new Twitter follower that I suspect is a Portland Food Cart and nothing in their name, Twitter bio, or Twitter feed tells me that. If you are a “Food Cart” or “Food Truck” or “Food Trailer” (I am looking at you, Austin), make sure that those words appear in you bio. I also recommend that you put your city in your Twitter bio. It also helps to at least sometimes use hashtags like #Food Cart and #Portland in your tweets.

A second way to get my attention is to use social media to talk about the menu items. Sometimes a particular dish will catch my eye, call to my stomach, and lure me to a Food Cart. Pictures of dishes only help when the picture looks awesome. Sometimes it is better to just stick with words.

Lastly -I am a sucker for the invitation. Once in a while, a Food Cart owner will email me and invite me to visit their Food Cart. That little gesture touches my heart and I try to make it out that cart.

Get Written About

I write about Portland’s Great Food Carts. If you want me to write about you, the best way to start is to have really awesome food!

Steven Shomler, Author – Portland Food Cart Stories and Founder of Portland Food Cart Adventures. Shomler has a book coming out soon. Check him out.

I tend to notice the food trucks who are most active in social media, especially Twitter. If a truck is active about posting menus, specials, locations and interacting with customers, that tells me they got game. Posting pictures is even better. You have to look harder to find trucks not promoting themselves on social media.

Steve over at Hub Food Trucks keeping tabs on the Boston mobile food beat.

Post amazing-looking photos of their food! I love to re-tweet or re-post great photos. That’s about it for me.

Kelly from San Diego Food Trucks.

I think the main thing specialty food creators need to do to increase their chances of being written about on blogs is to be genuine. I actually don’t do product reviews on my blog at all, but I would be much more inclined to agree to something if I feel like the person has 1. made an effort to read up about my background (companies who send me emails talking about their Beef Jerky for instance, will be deleted straight away, as I’m vegetarian and this is very clearly stated on my blog!). And 2. write to me in a way that lets me know you are actually talking to me, not just emailing out a general email to 100 bloggers.

Emma from My Darling Lemon Thyme

The best advice I have is to ASK. In my experience some of the best opportunities come out of asking. If you read or follow local or national bloggers, writers, or local foodies and you think you have something of interest, let them know about it, and ask them if they are interested in learning more and sharing it. Of course it is always important that you keep your website, and social media channels active and up to date. The simple act of having up to date current information and asking for a little attention can lead to wonderful opportunities.

Eric from FoodTrucksIn.com. You can get your food truck listed for free here.

Basically serve awesome food and have a good backstory.

Andrea Lin over at Duke City Food. Andrea does a terrific job covering the ABQ food beat.

The most important thing that a food truck owner can do to get the attention of any blogger is to make sure that we know where they will be! If I don’t know where you are, how can I write about you! I am like most of the social media world very visually driven. So posting pictures of their food, their truck, themselves. If they haven’t opened yet, reaching out to us via Twitter/Facebook is a priority.

Julie from Nashville Food Truck Junkie. No doubt she’s the ultimate resource for mobile food recommendations in Nash Vegas.

Right now they are so many food trucks, that I try to pick one that stands out with your unique food, or something that’s just different than the normal tacos, burgers, sliders, or even greasy food trucks.

Unlike the old days, like three years ago, none of the new food trucks have that thing that special zing that the veteran trucks have. All the new trucks just try to copy the old trucks, like another grilled cheese truck, another Korean fusion Mexican fusion Asian fusion truck.

The last big food truck that caught my attention was the Lobsta truck. And even the competitor, Cousins Maine lobster truck. I want wow! I want something that’s different. The only thing that’s new is a pudding truck that I want to try. Otherwise there’s nothing really newsworthy in the Gourmet Food Truck world in LA or Orange County.

Michelle Reynoso of Looking for Food Trucks, a blog that does an incredible job featuring mobile food vendors across Southern California.

The first thing I’d say that really helps me as a blogger is when food trucks are good about posting their schedule and staying true to that schedule. There have been several occasions where I’ve gone to find a food truck, only for them to not be there where and when they should be. It’s really frustrating and doesn’t get me too excited about having to try to track them down again.

Of course, trucks deal with many factors that might affect their schedule, which is why I think it’s so important for food trucks to be interacting on social media. I always check a truck’s Twitter feed and Facebook page before I visit them, and if they’re having problems or delays, it makes it easier for me to plan and adjust my schedule accordingly. Trucks with a strong social media presence also improve my chances of interacting with them after my initial visit. If I see a truck is doing a lot on Twitter, I’ll be more likely to call them out, retweet their posts, tag them in my future review, and build a relationship.

Practical matters aside, there are definitely certain food trucks I am more excited to review and write about than others. The food trucks that get my attention are those that are experimenting a lot and trying something different. When I see a cool or innovative menu item, I know I’m going to enjoy that food truck visit because they’ll have a dish I’ve never seen before, and what’s better than that?

Megan Marrs from the Boston Food Truck Blog. Check out her