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One of the many benefits of the Internet is our ability to share our passions with the world. So long as you want to tell others about a topic, you have a way to communicate your knowledge to others.
Estelle Tracy is a blogger who decided to share her love of chocolate with the world. Armed merely with a fondness for chocolate, a computer and an iPhone, Tracy launched her blog, 37 Chocolates, as a challenge for her 37th birthday, October 31, 2015.
Her goal was to review 37 artisan chocolates and share her reviews on her blog. Tracy doesn’t merely write about chocolates, she records videos of her sampling the chocolates so her followers can appreciate the experience.
I recently had the opportunity to meet with Tracy to learn more about how she started 37 Chocolates.
How Tracy Got Started
Tracy is from France, outside of Paris, and moved to the US 14 years ago. She had always had a salaried job ever since she graduated from college, but had quit her job in March 2015 as a project manager coordinating proposals for a technology company.
After having her second child, Tracy decided to take a new path. She wanted to share with other French ex-pats places to find French food in the US. Tracy started a blog in French, then published a book, A Food Survival Guide in the US, to help them out.
In promoting her book, Tracy saw a comment on the Internet from a fellow French ex-pat criticizing American chocolate as being all bad. Tracy disagreed.
Tracy was also inspired by a friend who decided to challenge herself by running a 50K race for her 50th birthday last March. The friend wanted a new challenge for her 51st birthday and Tracy suggested that her friend relax and have fun by eating 51 chocolates.
Her friend didn’t accept that challenge, so Tracy took it upon herself to embrace the challenge. She decided to review 37 chocolates before her 37th birthday.
“Because of the comment from the grumpy ex-pat, I decided to focus on chocolates made in the US, without having any idea what I was getting myself into,” Tracy explained.
Before she launched 37 Chocolates, she always ate three kinds of chocolate, valuing price over quality. By starting the challenge she was able to justify splurging on more expensive bars.
Tracy researched what had been done before and realized that there were a lot of candy review channels but nobody had done reviews of high-quality craft chocolates. She thought, “That’s exciting! I get to be the first one to do this.”
YouTube was also a new challenge for Tracy as she had never used it before for her French food blog. “There are things about chocolate that you want to show people.”
Tracy tries to cover the important aspects of chocolate beyond the taste. She developed a framework for her reviews. In her videos, she shows viewers the wrappers and the size and shape of the chocolate squares. She also lets viewers know the percentage of cocoa, the price range, who the maker is and where they are from.
Here’s a sample video from her 37 Chocolates YouTube channel.
While Tracy seems very natural on camera, she actually rehearses her reviews before she records them. “I really wanted my videos to be 4-5 minutes per chocolate. My first video took me several days of practice. I realized I wanted to say too much, I was thinking faster than I talked. I had to learn to edit myself first and do several takes until I was happy. The hardest part was taming the flow of my thoughts.”
She also previews the chocolate about three days before shooting the video. “I realized it takes me time to process how I feel about the chocolate. I have to translate the experience to people. It’s not enough to say, ‘It’s good.’ I have to say why I like the chocolate in a way that relates to people. I try to navigate deep into the flavor.”
From the beginning Tracy had an idea of her audience. She pictured the readers of her blog as the people who would be watching her videos. “I pretend I’m talking to my friends. I think that’s very important to think about your audience, whether you’re writing a blog or shooting a video.”
Every chocolate has a story behind it. “I’m not on the video to show off my palate.” By video number ten she was able to identify the personality of the maker by the taste of the chocolate. She thought, “This is a maker that takes its chocolate seriously but doesn’t take itself seriously.” That is when she got truly hooked on the 37 Chocolates challenge.
Measuring Success
She warns against measuring success by the number of hits you get on a video or blog, Especially in the beginning, it’s difficult to build your audience. “It’s easy to be discouraged. Nobody’s going to look at what you’re doing. The makers may or may not watch it, they’re busy making chocolate. Nobody is going to go viral reviewing craft chocolate.”
Having made a commitment to review 37 chocolates helped keep her going. She was about half way through the challenge before she felt as if people were beginning to watch her videos.
She feels successful when she learns that she has encouraged people to try new chocolates. “I knew I wanted to take people on my journey with me.” She is thrilled when she hears from people who branched out and tried new chocolates based on her reviews. “It’s nice to know at least someone is watching them.”
Issues Tracy Faced
Tracy doesn’t have a sound engineer or video editor. She uses her iPhone 5s, without an external microphone.
The first videos she says were difficult, making her wonder what she had gotten herself into. She had to force herself to smile more, on the advice of friends. She learned when she needed to take a break as when she got tired, it showed on the video.
After about the seventh or eighth video, she got into a flow. “You have to find a way to improve on each video. “If you do anything 37 times, you’re going to get good at it,” she advises.
One of the issues of shooting the videos for Tracy is having to talk while she’s eating. She has to remind herself to take small bites so she doesn’t have to pause much before she talks.
She doesn’t do cuts in her videos, she only trims the beginning and the end for a more natural flow. Not having a background in video editing, Tracy had a learning curve.
She edits on YouTube, but sometimes the service has glitches that require her to re-shoot videos. Unlike writing blogs, shooting video without editing means she often has to start from the beginning when there is an issue.
Another difference from writing blogs is that shooting video requires optimal lighting and sound conditions. Tracy prefers to shoot her videos in the afternoon, between 2-4 pm, for the best natural light. She also needs to avoid background noise, such as a siren blaring on the street.
No Negative Reviews
If Tracy doesn’t like a chocolate, she doesn’t review it. “That was a question I had for myself early on. ‘How am I going to select the chocolates?’ I’ve tried a lot more than 37 chocolates.”
Tracy realized that these small chocolate makers may have no other reviews available for their chocolates online and did not want to damage their business based on her personal preferences.
She decided she wasn’t going to write negative reviews. ” I don’t believe in negative publicity.” She would rather to showcase the chocolates she likes, instead of criticizing based on her personal tastes.
Tracy also discovered that these small manufacturers may have problems with a single batch of chocolate. In one case, Tracy tasted a bar that she didn’t care for, then tasted one from the same manufacturer, but made from a different batch. She liked the bar much better and proceeded with her review. “I went from being really underwhelmed to being extremely impressed.”
Where She Goes from Here
Tracy has no plans to stop reviewing chocolates, even though she has already exceeded her goal of 37. “I’ve probably tasted over 100 chocolates by now.”
She doesn’t think she’ll ever run out of chocolates to sample. “Just in the US there are over 200 small batch makers.” Each maker has different bars for her to try.
She can always expand beyond the US, to the rest of the world, if she decides to broaden her niche. Already she has tried chocolates from Bolivia, Canada and Ecuador, in addition to her native France.
Facebook Live Videos may be in her future. Tracy realizes that streaming live video offers a new audience as well as new hurdles to overcome. “Streaming live video is a lot harder, there are no takes. But it’s not as if I have thousands of people watching.”
She tried a Facebook Live Video and got one viewer. But Tracy realized that was good so she could make her mistakes with a tiny audience. She enjoyed the spontaneity of live streaming.
See, Facebook Adds Major New Features to Live Videos to learn more about Facebook Live Videos.
Advice to Others
Tracy encourages others to start blogging. “Figure out what you’re good at and go for it. Why keep it to yourself?”
As she has shown, no special equipment is needed, even for starting a video blog. All she had was her iPhone and a computer. “You don’t need anything. You just have to want it.” She knew nothing about blogging, writing or shooting video when she started.
“Some people put barriers in their head about what they cannot do.” But Tracy wants people to go outside their comfort zone. “That’s where the magic happens.”
She realizes not everyone may want to do a video blog. “Some people like the spotlight. If you don’t that’s okay too.”
Social media can be an effective way to spread the word about your new blog. Tracy appreciates that social media is free and takes little time, compared to paid advertising. She even suggests people spend six months building a social media presence before they start their blogs.
Your Thoughts
Have you ever thought of starting a blog? Which passion would you share with the world? Did you know how easy it is to start a blog?
*Chocolates photo (edited) courtesy of Siau Liang Chan via Flickr and Creative Commons
* Pouring Chocolate photo (edited) courtesy of Moyan Brenn via Flickr and Creative Commons
Voice of America Learning English
Fans of tech who are learning English can check out my weekly personal technology column at Voice of America Learning English. My article this week: Where to Find Your Hidden Messages on Facebook.
To me all chocolate is good.
Hi Jerry, I’m with you. I think Estelle’s challenge is fantastic. How much fun would it be to try all 37 chocolates she reviewed? That’s a challenge we could all enjoy, a lot more fun than running, in my mind.
Unfortunately, some really is not! Jerry, you may have access to a better grocery store than mine 😉
You can’t help but like Estelle. She is very charming. It seems that a French accent comes across as gentle but also more knowledgeable. The adjectives that she chooses are so unusual, such as describing the texture with “rusticity”. (I suppose that was translation from French??) This is a great piece about a nice, uplifting blogger and her success. Thanks!
Hi Lois, You’re right, Estelle is every bit as charming in person as she comes across in her videos. She using intriguing language to describe chocolate, which can make use want to try it even more.
Lois, I’m so glad you enjoyed learning about Estelle. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Awww Carolyn, thank you for the super sweet words!
Wow, thank you for the kind words, Lois!! It’s funny you mention my choice of words, I have lived in the US for 14 years and I realize how much my French upbringing has influenced the way I describe food. The French use the word “rustic” a lot when it comes to describing the character of a food and you made me realize it is not commonly used in the US in regards to food. I guess you cannot run away from yourself 🙂 Thank you again for your feedback!
Hi,
Starting a Blog about chocolate is awesome. I was working in an SEO company so decided to go for an SEO niche Blog and its going pretty well.
And also I enjoyed reading it
Hi Robin, Yes, it’s helpful to start a blog in your area of expertise. As you research for articles, you will learn more about a topic of interest to you. You can discover new information and then share it with your readers who share your interest.
Hi Robin, starting a blog about SEO is a great idea… I could really use some help in that department! I’ll be checking out your blog for sure. Thank you for commenting!
Wow, that’s very inspirational. They key take away is to read all comments on your blog in the right stride even if they are negative.
What a great example how simple things like a comment of an ex-pat can motivate someone into a great blog idea.
Way to go tracy!
Hi Anjiali, Great point. Comments that could be seen as negative might just inspire a new blog! We can find inspiration in unexpected places if we keep an open mind.
Thank you, Anjali, it also surprised me that I could turn a grumpy expat’s comment into a positive. Today, I should really thank that person 🙂 And yes, Carolyn, keeping an open mind is key, even if that’s reallllly hard sometimes to take in the negativity!
Thank you so much, Carolyn, for sharing my story with your readers. You have beautifully captured the essence of my challenge, which, to me, is more about self-growth and confidence than it is about chocolate. I hope that my challenge will inspire others to go where they seek themselves out of comfort zone, that’s where the magic happens! Thank you again, Carolyn, I loved the article 🙂
Hi Estelle, Thank you very much for sharing your wonderful story with Wonder of Tech readers. You truly are an inspiration, taking an idea, minimal equipment and maximum positive energy and turning them into a blog. You believed in yourself and created a fun challenge that will help others discover tasty treats, as well as help small chocolate makers get discovered.
You’re right, this is more a story of self-growth than of chocolate. I hope others follow in your footsteps by following their passions!