[featured-video-plus width=770]

  

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• How Austin Food Magazine got its start
• The rapidly changing influencer industry
• Turning your passion into your career

Hayden Walker is executive editor and co-publisher of Austin Food Magazine. Hayden has always been in the know with the Austin food scene, but it hasn’t always been his career. Austin Food Magazine came to life due to Hayden being bored with his 9-5 corporate job. Before Instagram was the platform it is today, Hayden would take pictures of his meals to share on Facebook and with friends. One of his coworkers suggested he could do something with the pictures, but he wasn’t sure what. After putting some thought into it, he created the YouTube channel Texas Food Crawlers. The channel didn’t turn out to be as successful as he had hoped, but this didn’t stop Hayden. At a networking event, he met the woman that would become the co-publisher of Austin Food Magazine, a now popular blog where tourists and locals alike can go to stay up to date with the Austin food scene.

Austin Food Magazine began as a print magazine, but Hayden decided to bring the publication fully digital. He says it’s because in marketing you need to go where your audience is, and he sees his audience in digital spaces like Instagram and on the internet through the blog. What they’re currently doing is developing a long-term media strategy, so that they’re not just Austin Food Magazine but a digital media company.

Austin Food Magazine has recently started doing events. For the past few years, they have put on the Mac and Cheese Fest. It started in Austin but has since expanded to Portland. They are working on expanding it further to Seattle and Vail, Colorado. The ultimate goal is to have Mac and Cheese Fests on every coast and Middle America.

Tune into the seventh installment of The Positive Influence to hear more from Hayden on Austin Food Magazine, how it got its start, how it’s grown, and his plans for the future. If you enjoy the episode, be sure to share it with friends and colleagues. You can listen to more of The Positive Influence here!

Host: Chelsea Bancroft

Guest: Hayden Walker

 

Transcript:

this is a founding media podcast if welcome to the positive influence podcast I’m your host Chelsea Bancroft this week we’re sitting down with Austin food magazine’s executive editor and co publisher heat in Walker he did has always had his pulse on the Austin food scene and is made up of his career and his passion to share he did and I talk about photography how the influencer industry is rapidly changing and what tasty food festival he’s got in the works let’s jump in 

thanks for having me yeah I know I’m going to have you on for a while because you know I love Austin fit magazine it’s huge publication and your Instagram so why don’t we start out kind of few telling us how you got started and your all that well I should actually get started early out of boredom and had nine to five job just do Nicole corporate thing in the insurance business and I was really bored with it I mean nobody grows up dreaming you know what I want to work I just can’t wait and the money’s good but it’s like after while you’re like come on and so I actually my first ever cell phone that I can take pictures with as a Sam sung on the old galaxies like the S. for whatever and I used to take pictures of my luncheon the girl in the office I used to go eat with just because you feel like you know that’s so funny you should like start something in America when I started this is a for lease agreements anything right I think it was out but I didn’t care yeah and Facebook is around so I post if you’re on Facebook and they were really bad photos by yeah and then I then I was like you know what maybe I could just start something I don’t know what I could start so for some reason I said to go in the U. to route so I tried this whole YouTube thing and we call the show Texas food crawlers so we would go around the restaurants that we would film ourselves enjoy the experience of your chefs and it’s it’s kind of hard to do anything local on you too I discovered not to say that it’s impossible yes for what we were doing it was it wasn’t working and even our videos are great and then I started going to you know networking events and I met the original publisher of our magazine okay who had another magazine at the time and she said well we should get together and work together yeah sure I don’t know what we can do it sure she’s a call you can do some stuff for us and like okay so we we had to start a food magazine ha ha ha and I was actually kinda sorta joking but also kind of series you know and yeah and she’s like yeah we could and I don’t know I don’t know anything about this developing a magazine right and so she kind of walk me through it and then and we did it so read the original name of the magazine is called Austin food style magazine I didn’t know that yeah the don’t ask me well the reason why was because her other magazine and I’m not just so I don’t like put them underneath us that they would head style in it okay and it’s like it was a lifestyle magazine so she was like oh well let’s do I’m like okay and I’m just like I don’t know anything about anything so sure yeah and then eventually my current business partner who ended up becoming her business partner he said that the name is horrible and why don’t we just become Austin fit magazine there’s no other name like that why do we not do that and I was like yes and so we turned we switch gears and went into the awesome food magazine named and long story short after she left I became co publisher and editor and we ditch the print idea because it’s very expensive yeah and you know we’re gonna save some trees so yeah now it’s online as a blog which is still keep the name which there’s a lot of other publications to do that now yeah so we might go back in a printing one day but just maybe like a big one long issue right here so yeah the target certain 

I went back and I I found the yeah the Texas food collars him I did yeah under the new name of the channel Austin it’s ask them medium rare movie right if the movie CMM yeah so we’re doing some transformation of the entire brand adding on to some things yeah and will eventually you’ll see some food added into the development of what we do but it’s movie reviews okay people love going to the movies and I love eating at the movies so when you combine both things were gonna highlight both things nice and talk about what we like in the movies and maybe things we don’t like yeah an info only focus on what we do like for food so that’s cool so I also scrolled all the way back through Instagram okay and those photos were pretty pay back in the day thousand thirteen yeah yeah that was back when like yoni lighting just took those horrible like filters like Instagram filters on yeah it’ll days the glory of the golden age 

so how do you think Instagram and you know your growth on their affected you kind of leaving printing going all digital how did it affect your business the whole well it was just I think one thing I’ve heard people say over the course of several years specially in marketing is that you go where your audiences so if your audiences focusing on digital stuff well you need to spend more time there for folks on social media which obviously they are you need play you need to live in the playground of social media I’m not saying that they don’t like prince anymore obviously they do but we weren’t and that we don’t have enough flexibility and finances to keep doing that if we have because of the nature was a free magazine printed and we probably would have gone bankrupt and it just you know just a wild wild educated guess so I decided for I told my business partner and he was very is like yeah that sounds great number one it’s going to save us money number two we can focus all of our attention on like producing digital stuff like on a daily basis yeah and plus if you make a mistake can go fix it right once it prints out you can’t do that that’s scary traction which cost more money so yeah so yeah in the age of the digital round and now social media it’s a monster and it’s only getting owns a more complicated but it’s always changing and you could see you could argue both ways for the good in for and maybe they’re not sick in some ways but I think at the end of the day people they want the quality has to be there and and they want the genuine personality 

yeah so did you kind of when you’re making that switch did you decide to focus just on Instagram in your blog because I I went back in I love Dick your you tube and and you know there’s videos for like five years ago and there was nothing and then there’s videos that like one year yeah and it started again sense so back when we did you too we have like a small crew and I had one guy that did our shooting and editing and then I was like the producer director you know kind of like all right this is the vision I want yeah and then the the people onscreen they did what they did and we tried to be as professional as you can with this super strokes mall sushi and budget but the video the you tube was not part of the magazine it was okay yeah I got to so that was one of those decisions they will use what you were you you know when you feel like you just want to have time to do everything you just can’t yes yeah that was one of those things and I feel like that every week no matter what I do but yeah but video takes so much time in so much effort and this past year I was like okay I can spend the time if I if I do things a certain way and I teach myself how to edit faster and just pick up best practices and organize it in a certain way I can do both so I do now except now with food yeah and maybe you know there’s somewhere always figure out ways to do that but it’s just there’s a lot on one play it’s hard to do everything 

yeah so do you think you’re going to shift your focus to you do more than Instagram or both do both mostly still answer am I think so the thing we’re trying to do is develop a long term media strategy towards not just like heroes awesome food magazine yeah well we’re developing a media company so where we have the food Austin fit magazine FM movies and there’s some other creative developments that we can create like with photography and brand development and things like that that would help clients we’ve been toying around the idea of doing like social media development for clients which it’s almost like doing PR but we you know that’s one of those things we have to get the right person in place before right side to do it yeah because I don’t wanna I need to be more of a true I guess CEO and leader and not actually be like okay here I’m editing and writing everyday yeah you know like he gets it’s just a lot to do yeah 

so so when did you I guess you start with a business partner but when do you feel like you know your business and and the influence and all that was big enough that it warranted bringing on more people to your team well when we first started we actually try to run it just like an actual like a real regular magazine so we have like rescue personnel we had a person that will focus on events and we had a person of folks and then it was back I don’t know if you can see the golden age of magazines but it’s just more like you know when you read Austin monthly or you read any other magazine they have people that are designated to do so yeah thanks well after a while you fill out like I can’t keep asking people to do things if we can’t afford to pay them and that’s you know being respectful of people’s time that’s one thing we always have to consider now you can do trades and so but that only goes so long so far and so I feel like that was where we had to make certain decisions is like that’s why I do so much still because budgetary wise you know can I afford to pay a photographer three hundred dollars every time when I can just go do it myself yeah so as you see our photos of gotten immensely better Z. as I taught myself how to shoot and just you know invested in some really good equipment stuff like that as well as when we do have the the team that we have now it’s almost as only one person that’s there now that was there in the beginning really according here okay everyone else is pretty new but the only minister for now is there all social media influencers of some sort right before it was just writers thank there was Instagram which is kind of a new thing back then and then there was no stru influencer there was like maybe there was a you tuber her name is Tyler Johnson who now she lives in LA she did recipe development stuff like that and she was and in a YouTube influencer has has a very successful profitable brand but as far as Instagram was concerned it was like a yeah nobody really cares yeah then and now that’s where everyone lives right do you think having these other 

1. like employment with you has helped the business well it’s it’s still a work in development I think it is helping coworkers were not really asking for a lot of written content right now or try to get them like they would be the center focus of each piece that we produce which I’m going to be more or less behind that but then get the getting them in a direction that says okay we’ll you’re gonna be part of this piece let’s figure out what you need you could write on it because I don’t want you to spend all day writing yeah five hours writing but if you could spend an hour or two hours great and I feel like if we the more we do it to get better at it and they want to do more but at the end of the day it’s got to be valuable to them yeah not just like I don’t feel like I’m using anyone right so I have I I want to do because I feel like it’ll help their brand as well right yeah for sure 

I’m backpedaling just really quick what Cameron Diaz so right now I use the canon EOS R. okay a full the full frame digital camera from canon stuff it’s actually the first full frame digital camera from canon they they obviously have other mirrorless can yes but yeah this one is it’s a it’s a really great camera and have an expensive lands and you know using all of that combined with taking the time to take good photos and write picking your shots and knowing how good I am practicing you that’s where we’ve gotten in is it causes so many photos like I just did a photoshoot just a minute before I was here we shot a hundred photos and I’m only gonna use maybe fifty yeah so typical right yeah my bonus yeah all photos on their use yeah but you know there’s a lot of great influencers out there that all user cell phone yeah and that’s all they did and I give them all the credit the world because it’s at the end of the day goes to genuine like you know you’re buying them and not necessarily just a photo right a good photo helps right but if you’re buying the personality like captions go a long way and who is it that you’re following goes a long way so you know if you’re able to do it without investing three thousand armed to carry it and then Hey do it 

so would you say would be better to invest in like photography like lessons are holding and that is versus investing in a camera or I would say it depends on who you are and what you’re trying to sell yeah as your brand so if you’re not that clever of a caption writer he’s like me he like does my my sandwich for lunch today yeah thanks bye you know obviously that’s not the most interesting thing to say but for some people that might work you know because people are like you you can put that people know what thank you for signing eight hundred X. somebody use that tomorrow she said go see somebody like a like Lindsay from eating it your sister there they come up with pretty funny yeah ands and they use like pretty high saturated you know filters and stuff like that and while it’s not my style it works for them yeah I I think I appreciate it and everyone mostly Preciado and I think it works yeah and so you know they have a good feedback they have good you have a lot of people commenting and liking and stuff like that so it’s not always about the quality it just depends on you know were you trying to say yeah 

what he trying to do so do you think the number one tool or piece of equipment or anything like that has been to help you grow you know you’re following on Instagram the falling of the magazine all of that well at some point it’s I would say a link with the newness over five years so it’s been transitional care at some point it was like okay we took we took the step to get really good photos that helped yeah and then now there’s a lot of people with cameras and then now everyone’s iPhone has portrait mode right analysts of so everyone’s photos could look great without getting a camera so now it’s not so much about the quality it helps the only be wrong but what helped in beginning is not what’s gonna keep helping you now right because it’s more competitive so you have to fight we’re we’re always trying to find a way to like okay how can we keep people interested because of the honest like you know I look at my stuff like our engagement has dipped a little bit six AM but everyone’s house yeah because it’s a it’s a big playing field you know there’s everyone’s Instagram and everyone to share and I feel like we also have this pressure that we have to share yeah you know because you can’t go out to eat anymore without anyone standing on their chair and taking photos and in front of it yeah but it’s just kind of expected now I remember when we first started you said we would do that people be like oh what are they doing over there right oh my gosh they must be we are you guys like me cryptographers and now others like yes for Instagrammers yeah I feel like it’s changed now yeah but and but the course like what like grandfathers are doing it now yeah they’re probably just like sneaking a little shot yeah they’re not there chairs are right you’re showing it in the Senate to their grandkids ha ha look at that I got was you know I say that because my dad does yeah but yeah it’s it’s it’s a very interesting way I feel like everything’s going to change over the next five years and whether it’s better or not it’s just depend on how we look at perception 

share with everyone and there’s so much competition and and you know engagement has been down I know personally I I kinda get bogged down and discouraged you know if I like excited about a photo on it doesn’t do well how do you kind of you know not let that affect you and not let that discourage you from sharing and everything well it’s it’s hard to say you know when it’s your livelihood because now it is it it makes you really think about like okay what do I have to do differently and better and I feel like there’s a lot of people that are stuck in this bubble or like okay well I got to get better on Instagram because that’s where it’s like well I don’t live in the Instagram but only what else can you do I mean if you have a blog great what else can you do like don’t give yourself too many things because if you wanna get bogged down but at the end of the day like to find what the next like be looking for what the next thing you can do to help your brand so course we do events and we have things that we do the so getting back into you too now granted it’s a slightly different subject I feel like well that’s our No stop I can pin it but at same time we’re still going in the same direction with the with the original brand yeah so that doesn’t mean it would actually work it just means that this is an Avenue that we can take and tried out yeah and sometimes it’s okay to swing and a miss I mean if history were of business people have done it time and time again and then just just because you fall flat once you don’t just sit down and say I’m done with this right you know you go where you go do you can all you can do is all you can do as long as you you know put some effort into it and get advice from people that you know aren’t are crushing it and you never know you might come up with a new version of how to do something that nobody’s ever thought of that so it’s just a how do you figure out how to get that audience yeah so because at the end of the day audiences love following like I guess people that have that are pushing boundaries and then at the same time audiences get tired of stuff after five years right the minute 

you’re doing events mac and cheese fest yes do you think that mac and cheese fest would have been as successful as it’s been so far you’re at two cities more than that yes so well the the in the past at least the past three years that we’ve been doing this for only nine to say so last year was the first time we step outside of our guys we did Portland which is my second favorite city yeah sorry I apologize Houston even though it’s yep Portland mac and cheese festival and then we’re also working on starting one into Seattle and we’re looking in the Vail Colorado that’s cool this year plus Aston so long term plan we are planning to do at least eight to maybe ten cities that’s awesome series so that’s a whole lot more work it’s a really fun obviously mac and cheese that’s my second favorite food of all time and barbecues but for a chance to get it’s already done yeah but mac and cheese and you you go to any state in the country and somebody selling mac and cheese serving and you find unique ways of offering it and creating it so why not let’s just go to all parts of the country so that’s our goal is to do every coast and some of middle America in the south course so long term land yeah let’s see if we can knock out eight to ten cities and hopefully there’s no cheese and macaroni shortage in the world thank you 

do you think that like having the following that you do on Austin food and like the foundation of Austin fit magazine has help you launch that event series absolutely I I mean is is it possible that we could have done it without us for magazine sure me because when you say mac and cheese who doesn’t love package right there much of electors issue however it helped us create relationships with chefs and PR agencies and you know all these people in the industry because we have gotten to know them professionally and and friends and we have friends that we’ve made through this and you know it’s exciting because they’re like oh sure I’ll jump on that because I think I have the best Maggie’s recipe ever and I’ve heard that tons and tons of times and I would probably say you know I don’t know normal do you do now you’re going to get this other chef who just won a James beard award and then this other chef who was a runner up James beard so he’s like and it’s funny the winner from last year I don’t know if you remember did you go yeah I went to those lost keys it was it was the judge’s choice now we do I thought it for well so there’s people’s choice and judge’s choice okay his choice was the ninety dak over at the renaissance hotel Chris chef Chris Dedrick who’s a very very good Shafi he’s working New York and scale out of experience and he did some kind of like a good smoker to mac and cheese brisket thing okay great I don’t know how I got it for he he I mean he crushed the people’s choice yeah and then the judges vote between Schlotzsky’s and I can’t remember who the runner up was but it’s a blind tasting oh really and so I mean technically Schlotzsky’s is a local business yeah but they’re also change and but they’re Magen she’s a killer and I was I was always your grounds that you know what it’ll be it’ll be hilarious and they finally win because they were they’ve been doing for three years they’ve come close the past two years so this past year they wind and it’s in the judges are food stops there not like kids off the street right we have a DF two cheese producers here you got three or four cheese writer or food writers and their they consider themselves you know cars who was a food right they’re the one that picked so anyway I thought it was really funny that is funny I did not realize that that they won 

well that’s awesome I guess we can wrap it up but last question like what would your advice be for someone you know starting out wanting to be an influencer or start a blog on online publication YouTube anything like that well I A. say nowadays with the as much as much as many resources as there is out there that you can learn from there’s no way to fail at this as long as you really really work yeah and when I say work that does not mean take corners and you not only get a hundred grand on the box personally talked about that but like there’s a shortcut ways of doing it which is not the right way of doing it and as a matter what business there is out there if you really work hard and you really hustle and then you know obviously talent sticks out right sometimes over others but find out what your talent is and if you want to be an influencer in the social media realm there’s multiple avenues to do it so what do you want to be Twitter Instagram you too thank you can be a Facebook influencer I don’t know anybody that is I’m sure you can do that and then there’s other things I mean there’s so many ways of doing it so and and sometimes it’s just about timing like just because it didn’t work this year doesn’t mean it won’t work yeah last year so I just say fine what you buy what really makes you happy in and focus on that and if you’re not happy doing it if you find yourself in frustrated maybe you should be an influencer yeah yeah you can do other things so it’s goodbye yeah 

well thanks so much for coming on the show with me thank you for having me yeah and then let everyone know where they can follow you to sector handles US at Austin fit magazine on Instagram and our website or blog is awesome food magazine dot com also if you want to personally follow me my personal Instagram to Hayden plus one it’s a lot different than the Austin fit magazine on a track I crack a lot of self depriving jokes he do for myself all the time so that will put all these links in the show notes cell thank you get hated thank you so much thank you for stopping by Hayden I’m for sure going to need to mac and cheese now we will put all the links to hate in social accounts in the show notes so make sure to check this out the positive influence podcast team includes me Chelsea Bancroft producer Mariah Gossett an audio engineer Jake Wallace thank you everyone impounding media for your support if you’ve been enjoying the podcast please rate and review the show and share with a friend this week and if you would like to follow along on my adventures this summer make sure you follow me on Instagram at one child an adventure thanks for listening