001 | Welcome to Influential Barbecue

Welcome to Influential Barbecue! My name is Jordan Moore, and in this episode I'll be talking through what I hope this show becomes, why I started it, and what kind of value I can bring to you while you look to grow your BBQ brand!

What is Influential Barbecue?

A weekly podcast focused on talking to influencers in the barbecue industry, uncovering how they’ve cultivated huge followings, unique income sources, and sponsorship possibilities from a love of cooking over fire. Hosted by Jordan Moore of @thebackyardbrisket

000 Welcome to Influential Barbecue
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[00:00:00] Voiceover: You're listening to influential barbecue, the podcast where we talk to influencers in the barbecue industry to uncover how they've cultivated huge followings, unique income sources and sponsorship possibilities from a love of cooking outdoors. If you want to turn your passion for food and fire into a world of opportunities, you're in the right place.

[00:00:23] And now your host, Jordan Moore.

[00:00:29] Jordan: Hello. My name is Jordan Moore and welcome to my new podcast. Influential barbecue. Of course. You're probably wondering what is influential barbecue. The Coles notes of this podcast is to talk to some of the best influencers in the online barbecue world in order to discover what it takes to grow their followings on social media, how to begin generating income from social media and creating new opportunities for themselves while turning barbecue into more than just a hobby.

[00:00:55] So why am I starting this podcast about barbecue, Instagram, and social. A little bit of a story here back in April, 2020, when COVID would begin shutting everything down. I know we've heard that in so many stories from so many people, but it's true. It happened and it changed a lot of lives. My work in live audio in live events was put on hold indefinitely.

[00:01:16] So I did what a lot of us barbecue enthusiasts did. And I started cooking more and fired up an Instagram page to just kinda document what I made. But what I discovered was a massive online barbecue. Community the full of just the nicest people to ever grace social media. And to my surprise, I started gaining a pretty respectable following in my opinion, based on the content that I was putting out.

[00:01:39] And this community is just full of incredible people, that they, they will help you with anything they'll lift you up. If you're down, they'll share any advice with you at all. And that's what really drove me to. Posting about barbecue as well, because in the beginning I thought it was silly. You know, I'm cooking some food, taking pictures and putting it on the internet, but it started up so many conversations with people.

[00:01:59] And then I decided to kind of intentionally grow my following and I thought, you know, I've got nothing to do right now. Let's try, let's try and build this and see what, how. As I began to intentionally grow my following. I started to notice that a lot of the accounts that I was following had sponsorship deals or partnerships with brands, and we know we're getting products sent to them or working with companies and getting paid.

[00:02:21] And I didn't realize that was a thing you could do on food Instagram. And it makes sense. I know that people are influencers on social media and make money through Instagram and companies, but a. And the barbecue space really that's, that's pretty wild. And it opened up a whole new world for me that, you know, barbecue is a huge, huge thing right now.

[00:02:40] It's massive and it's only getting bigger. So naturally as my following grew, I wanted to see what kind of opportunities were out there. You know, ways that I could get some extra cash flowing in while I was waiting for the pandemic to end. And, you know, maybe get my hands on some new barbecue toys or some fresh cuts of meat or something like that.

[00:02:56] And then I quickly discovered there wasn't really a way to. Easily learn about turning your Instagram page into a business. I'm sure if I spent enough time in the YouTube vortex and looked hard enough, I could find some social media eBooks and listen to a bunch of podcasts that focus on it from a digital marketing perspective, but there was nothing specific to the food world or the barbecue world that really caught my attention.

[00:03:17] I wasn't looking to listen to a whole bunch of jargon about social media and marketing platforms. I wanted to cook some food posts, some Instagram stories, and maybe. Make a little bit of money while doing it to just offset some costs. So that's when I decided that maybe I should create this podcast as a resource to help other people in a similar situation as me, something to help them figure out where and how to start, how to approach brands, how to navigate the negotiations of a deal and contracts, no matter the size and you know, ways to recognize good and bad deals.

[00:03:48] And also talk about things like what it would be like to do this. Full-time. Good habits to get into in order to grow an organic, authentic following and shedding some light on all the work that kind of goes in behind the scenes to make these big accounts really function, work, and grow in order to do that, I'm going to be chatting with influencers in the barbecue and food space, big and small across multiple platforms to find out how they're navigating this elusive world of social media as an income source.

[00:04:15] Some of the conversations will be kind of big and broad discussions about any and all things. Social media and barbecue. Some will be super focused on one or two topics and go into a bit of a deep dive and some might just be a relaxed chat or a hangout and just touch on a few subjects while we chat.

[00:04:31] And I want this to be an educational and informative show, but I also want it to be relaxed and fun. I don't want you to feel like you're in college again. I want you to just be able to listen, learn a few new things that you can apply in your own world and learn more about the guests that I have. In addition to trying to bring you the best information.

[00:04:48] I'm also going to be implementing some of the things that I learned while talking to these guests and tracking my progress on my own social media pages, the backyard brisket on Instagram and Tik TOK. Every couple of months, I'll hop on here for an episode where I give you an update, kind of talk about what I've been doing differently, what I've been experimenting with and what my results were, whether they were good or bad, more engagement, less engagement, no followers, tons of followers, things like.

[00:05:14] And I'm hoping that this could give you some good insight into some things that work really well, some things to avoid and some things to add into your social media routine, I'll be the Guinea pig so that I can let you know what works and what doesn't. Of course not all things are equal. So some things that might work for me might not work for you and vice versa as well.

[00:05:33] So, you know, take everything I say with a grain of salt, but I'm going to do my best to test out a bunch of things for you guys, so that you have less to worry about. The idea for this show is that it will provide you with even more tangible information to help you move towards your goals, or to even help you set goals.

[00:05:48] If you don't have any at the moment, if this helps even one person secure their first or 10th sponsorship deal or helps one person be a little more confident when discussing or setting rates or helps anyone better recognize a good versus a bad deal, I'll deem this pod. Uh, success. Lastly before I sign off here, I want to hear from you! I record these episodes in my studio by myself, talking into a microphone, staring at a computer screen - so I need your feedback! Let me know what you think of the show, what you love, what you don’t. Your feedback will help me improve this podcast so I can bring you even better episodes, better advice, and better information!

Just send me an email; [e-mail]. Or send me a DM on instagram, @InfluentialBarbecue.

[00:06:51] Each episode, we'll have a show notes page, which is pretty standard with podcasts that will contain all the links to products or services that were discussed in the episode in full about all the guests and a full transcription of the episode. If that's how you like to consume this content, the show notes can be found at influential barbecue.

[00:07:08] If you enjoy this podcast, please share it with those that you think would enjoy it and benefit from it as well. And if you can please leave a review and a rating, the reviews help this podcast get discovered by more and more potential listeners that just about does it for this intro episode of the podcast.

[00:07:22] Today is the first day, the launch day. And I'm so excited. I also launched two interview episodes as well for you to check out right away so that you don't have to wait until next week for a new episode. The first episode is my interview with Chris. Susman the barbecue Buddha, where we talk about the importance of providing value to your audience as a way to build an organic following.

[00:07:41] The second episode is my interview with Noah cheek of cheeky BBQ. He gets pretty in-depth on how we've used partnerships and what he looks for in a good partner before even entertaining the deal. And then weekly we'll have new episodes every Wednesday. So keep an eye out for those subscribe to the podcast, follow it on whatever platform you have share with your friends.

[00:07:58] And just thank you so much for checking out this first episode. I'm so excited to see. Everything that I can with you and help you grow your barbecue account into whatever you want it to be. Thanks for listening. And I appreciate you joining me for this ride and keep on grilling. .