Eat Pittsburgh started over 4 years ago, it has a different name and a different mission from it’s beginning but over the years has evolved into a trusted food source for the Pittsburgh community. It has lead to book deals and a bright future for it’s creators.
Laura Zorch, Julia Gongaware, Mandy McFadden, Sarah Sudar love food. This shared love lead them to create a blog dedicated to sharing the restaurants they visited within their local community. Over time the blog started getting feedback and the foursome realized they were no longer blogging for themselves, an entire audience was being built.
After utilizing social media platforms and continuing to provide relevant content the girls from Eat Pittsburgh got offered a book deal. “At the time we jumped on social platforms that made sense to us,” said Zorch. “We subscribed to the philosophy that you dont have to be everywhere, but you need to be doing the things you are very well,” explained Gongaware. “We used different content for different platforms to build a trusted audience.”
The book deal only helped solidify the groups reputation and created more opportunities for growth. “We had already built up reputatoin on our blog, now we could be considered as experts,” said Zorch. The book deal caused the group to realize that it was time to take themselves seriously and start to reflect on providing the content users really wanted.
Now, with a second book deal in the works and several other projects lined up the group continues to have fun and wants to be clear in the fact they are not food critics. “We are four normal people, wanting to eat food, share our experience and provide recommendations for not only the Pittsburgh community, but visitors as well,” said McFadden.
The group is now working on tying themselves to their brand through hosting events, attending local food events and actively engaging with the community.
The ladies of EatPGH took a simple, fun hobby and turned it into something much bigger. Here’s a short clip on how school helped them on this Internet to paper journey.