If you enjoy pithy culture reviews, fancy yourself an indulgent gourmand or simply have sweet tooth, The Snackpot blog is right up your alley. Launched last May by local music publicist Jacob Daneman and writer, Keith Ecker, this pop culture review site and Doejo client aims to be both informative as well as entertaining.
The Snackpot’s reviews are more than just measures of taste, texture and presentation, but humorous slice of life stories. Here you’ll read dynamic literary devices merged with quippy allegories and historical contexts on gummy flogs, iced animal cookies or Funyuns (why not?).
Case in point, from the Mother’s Iced Circus Animal Cookies review: “If the cupcake is symbolic of adult women’s sexual desires, then the frosted animal cookie is a perfect allegory for undifferentiated, generic girlhood daydreams.” That’s pretty solid.
We caught up with Doejo client and friend Jacob Daneman to how The Snackpot’s been doing in the past six months.
Doejo: You can really tell you guys have a lot of fun on TheSnackpot.com with energetic snack coverage. How is the site coming along, what new features can we expect to find?
Jacob: It’s coming along well. We’re doing some seasonal stuff right now with Halloween, we hope to have more interesting interviews, pit more snacks against each other for the Friday Night Snackdown, and brainstorm new and fun ways to look at snacks.
How has The Snackpot’s dedication to witty, creative and dynamic writing in it’s reviews been received by users/ readers of the site?
Well, I think. I see our devoted following growing, and I’m sometimes surprised to hear about someone who’s a fan. I think the spirit of the editorial voice has also become more focused, and we constantly trying to play with it and tweak it as well.
How have you been received by the snack food purveyor community, the Krafts, the Mars’, the Nestles’ and General Mills’ our there?
Most of those companies still see us as a fan site, though it’s changing. We are receiving samples for review pretty regularly, mostly from food PR companies, which is obviously a dream come true.
Has the way you describe The Snackpot changed since launching in May?
Not really.
What are some of the lessons you’ve learned from starting The Snackpot? What were some challenges you and the staff overcame?
It’s got to be a labor of love. This is such a niche thing, the people who write for it have to be enthusiastic. I’ve seen writers come and go pretty quickly who saw it as a one-time fun thing to do. The people who stick around see it as a reoccurring opportunity to be creative and heartfelt about your passion for snacks.
What snack reviews have been the most popular for The Snackpot?
There’s no secret snack that’s gets more interest than others. Sometimes when we review “natural” snacks, like grapes and apples, people dig that. Whenever our kid snack reviewer Teno has a new video, people are always into it.
What snack reviews/ blog topics/ features have been less popular that you’ve gone away from?
The news items have drawn less interest and have become a more sporadic item. If there’s big news in the snack world, we’ll run something but also feature it on the homepage, but otherwise, we don’t regularly post news unless, well, there’s something that’s newsworthy.
How many regular unique page views have you been generating since launching? How have you grown?
It varies quite greatly. Some weeks we have 1500 page views, others we get closer to 3000. Depends on whether we have a popular post that week.
Speaking of snacks, what has become your new addiction?
Definitely Sheila G’s Brownie Brittle. Shit is addictive.
What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs just entering the startup space with a digital product?
It’s often a slow roll. Not everything explodes, becomes viral or a meme, or whatever. Sometimes you just keep doing what you’re doing and you’re either happy about it and want/need to do it, or you feel some weird obligation to do it and eventually get burnt out and quit. Do it because you love it.