Week 2: A Conversation with Guest Speaker Babette Pepaj & Kimberly Tronic by Jenny Erixon

Jenny Erixon

By UCLA X469.21 Student Jenny Erixon

For the second week of class we had the honor of hearing from two incredible and very inspiring women, Kimberly Tronic and Babette Pepaj.

Kimberly is an experienced marketing manager and creative copywriter, while Babette is founder of BakeSpace.com and the TECHmunch Food Blogger/Influencer Conference. I am going to focus on Babette in this blog post.

Kimberly Tronic

BakeSpace was launched in 2006 as the first online food-themed social network and recipe swap. The online platform has become a community by and for people who love to cook, bake and express their passion for all things related to food. On BakeSpace you can share recipes, publish and sell interactive cookbooks, compete in recipe contests and much more. TECHmunch, which is a part of BakeSpace, is a traveling conference that helps food and lifestyle bloggers learn the skills they need to become successful.

Babette Pepaj

So, what are the keys to creating great content and succeeding with social media? Below are 8 tips that Babette shared with our class:

1. Before you do anything else, define and understand your goals (note Kim also stressed this). 
2. Know who you are talking to and determine where they can be reached.  You need to be present where your community hangs out, otherwise you’re talking to yourself.
3. Unleash your creativity to make your content interesting. Stand out and be concise.
4. To edit pictures for social media, use a tool like canva.com which can make your images look more professional
5. For social media videos – use Instagram Stories and Facebook (Facebook Watch or Facebook Live) as video platforms. Live is especially good for reaching new audiences.        
6. Promote!! You must promote your social media presence across different channels. It’s especially important to promote live videos before and after the livestream.
7. Consistency is the key! If you post regularly people will look forward to your content and keep your brand in mind.
8. You can make your own Snapchat geofilters using snapchat.com/create and tools like pepperlters.com. Such promotions are perfect for events because people who attend might use your filter to generate buzz. It’s important to make sure that your logo or other branded artwork looks good on all backgrounds. Also, don’t wait until the last minute to set up your filter, as it takes time to get approved.

In addition to these general tips, Babette had some advice for those who have dreamed of publishing their own cookbook. While anyone can create a cookbook, it can be very difficult for an unknown author to get people to find it. One solution according to Babette is to use BakeSpace’s do-it-yourself cookbook publishing platform to make your own cookbook, The platform is connected to the BakeSpace.com community of home cooks who are eager to find great recipes.