Episode 792: She Monetized Her Blog in One Year – Here’s the Instagram Playbook That Got Her There With Emily Christensen

EBT792 – Emily Christensen

[00:00:00]  Megan Porta 

If you have been wondering whether or not Instagram is still worth your time as a food blogger, this episode is for you. Emily Christensen of Country Roads Sourdough takes us behind the scenes of how she went from selling bread locally to building a profitable food blog in just one year. And she credits a lot of that success to the way she used Instagram strategically.

[00:00:24]   

She shares the exact tactics that worked, how she drove the real traffic from Instagram to her blog, and the one decision that changed everything when burnout hit. This episode is packed with pure gold, and we talk a lot about other things as well. It’s not just an Instagram episode. It’s about her successful journey as a food blogger.

[00:00:46]   

And you are going to want to tune in.

[00:00:48]  Intro 

Hi, food bloggers, I’m Megan Porta and this is Eat Blog Talk. Your space for support, inspiration, and strategies to grow your blog and your freedom. Whether that’s personal, professional, or financial, you are not alone on this journey.

[00:01:06]  Megan Porta

Hello, Emily. Welcome back to the podcast. How are you this morning?

[00:01:07]  Emily Christensen 

Hi, I’m great. I’m so happy to be here again. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:11]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, it’s been a little over a year, and last time we chatted, we talked with two of your friends, and you guys had created a collaborative cookbook together.

[00:01:20]   

Right.

[00:01:20]   

And it was amazingly successful. Oh, that story was so inspiring.

[00:01:25]  Emily Christensen 

Yes. It was so fun to do it with friends. And we’ll talk a lot, a little bit about that later with, you know, connecting with other people on social media. But it was. It was great.

[00:01:35]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And if you haven’t listened to the episode, go back and listen. I’ll go when Emily’s talking and find the episode number. But it is so good, so inspiring. Well, thanks for coming back. And what for people listening, what is going to cause them to press play on this episode? What pain are they feeling that this episode is going to solve for them?

[00:01:56]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah, I think a lot of bloggers didn’t start with social media. That’s not. Especially people that have been doing this for a long time. They didn’t start in the social media world. And so social media can feel really overwhelming. So my goal today is I want to give you really actionable things that you can do on social media and talk about like what I did to grow my Instagram to over 500,000 in just a couple years and how you can do the same things.

[00:02:29]   

What things are working on social media and how you can continue to grow your brand and ultimately make more money on your blog utilizing social media.

[00:02:40]  Megan Porta 

What a great answer. I think 98% of people are like, yes, I’m in. Let’s listen. So this whole episode, we’re just going to kind of talk about your journey. It’s been pretty amazing. You went from literally from selling bread to now you have a profitable business. So kind of start us back when you were selling bread.

[00:03:00]   

How did that go? And how did you transform into. Transition into the next steps?

[00:03:06]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah, so even before I started selling bread, I was teaching sourdough classes. That was the first thing. So I have a degree in marketing. And so after I left corporate marketing, then I decided, you know, I kind of need something for me. Uh, my husband was in medical school, so we were, like, super poor.

[00:03:25]   

And I had started just teaching my friends, some of the midwives, like, how to make sourdough. Everyone was really interested, especially over the pandemic. And so I was sharing with them, and they’re like, hey, you should start teaching sourdough classes. And so from there, I slapped together a logo on Canva and decided on a name.

[00:03:47]   

And we lived in West Virginia at the time, so we went with Country Road Sourdough. And. And from there, I put together that logo, and then I made a flyer and a Facebook page. And I was like, you know what? I’m just going to do this. I’m going to see what happens. And so I promoted it on some mom Facebook groups.

[00:04:06]   

So just like him teaching classes. And after I posted it, I have never felt so sick in my life. I was for sure, like, what have I done? Yes. Like, this is going to be the biggest fail. Nobody is going to want to do this. Like, I was so embarrassed that I was, you know, trying this new business.

[00:04:23]   

And, you know, I’m like, everyone’s gonna make fun of me when this fails. I think that’s so everybody can kind of feel that way. You know, it’s. It’s hard to start something. And anyways, but I kept it up there, and they sold out within a couple days. And I was like, okay, there’s a.

[00:04:38]   

There’s a market here. So then I started doing some in West Virginia, and then I would go to Ohio, where my family was, and I started teaching classes there as well. And then I got approached by a news organization in Cleveland. They’re like, hey, we want to do a segment with you on teaching sourdough classes.

[00:04:56]   

I’m like, okay, I need a website. So my dad likes to take pictures. And so we went down in his basement and we shot some, like, photos and we put together a website. And. Yeah. And so from there, it was kind of born like a full on business. And then I started, you know, I was like, okay, how else can I make some money?

[00:05:19]   

Because, you know, we’re, we’re struggling students. And so then I started selling bread locally and I just would go into little stores. Like I, I went to this cheese store and I was like, oh, I’m just gonna go check it out and maybe the owner will be there and I’ll like, see if they want to sell bread here.

[00:05:39]   

And so I met with her and she’s like, yeah, I would love to make, you know, I was like, oh, I make sourdough. Like, what cheeses would you recommend? And she’s like, oh, I’ve always wanted to have sourdough here. And I’m like, well, let’s, let’s do that. So then I started selling bread and from there I was like, okay, now I have the red business, I have the teaching business.

[00:05:58]   

But it was a lot of like, hands on hours. If anyone’s ever sold baked goods, it’s a lot of time and it’s a big commitment. And I also had an extremely tiny kitchen at the time, and so it was just a lot. So from there I was like, okay, I’m going to start posting on Instagram and kind of see what happens there.

[00:06:21]   

Because I had done social media marketing in the corporate world and so I was like, you know, I’m just going to start posting on Instagram and kind of see what happens. And honestly, my videos, when I look back, I just cringe at. They were pretty rough at the beginning, you know, but I stayed consistent with it.

[00:06:40]   

And after several months, I started seeing some big jumps in numbers. And of course it was like the video that took me two seconds to slap together is the one that like blew up, you know, and that kind of started it all. So just post, don’t overthink it. Just post is my big tip there.

[00:06:59]   

But yeah, so I started growing on Instagram and then I was like, okay, now I have this Instagram following and what am I doing with them? You know, Instagram is. I’m making pennies. Basically, at that time there was monetization. So I think I was making like a thousand dollars or something a month with Instagram.

[00:07:18]   

But I knew there had to be more. Like, how am I going to take this audience and make it into a sustainable business for myself? Yeah, and that’s, that’s when I started a blog. And that was back in 2023. I launched my blog, but I probably posted. I don’t know, three or four times that year.

[00:07:42]   

And I honestly had no idea the money that was in blogging at the time. Like, I was like, oh, that’s cute. I’ll make like a hundred dollars on ads, you know? Like, I just didn’t. I just didn’t know. Yeah, I really didn’t know.

[00:07:56]  Megan Porta 

You’re not alone. I think most people don’t know.

[00:07:59]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah, I still think people are like, oh, that’s nice. Like, you have this little business, you know, they just. Absolutely.

[00:08:05]  Megan Porta 

Even people close to you are like. Like, how do you make money? Yeah, yeah, it never stops.

[00:08:12]  Emily Christensen 

Yes. So, yeah, I started posting on there, and then in January 2024, I was like, you know what? I am. I need to be serious about this. Like, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it. And so in January 2024 is when I decided to commit to blogging. And I started posting consistently and pushing my Instagram following to my blog.

[00:08:36]   

And I qualified for Raptive with over a hundred thousand page views by May 2024. It was actually the day we moved into our house here in Indiana. My husband was starting residency, and I happened to look at my. My email that day, and I’m like, oh, my gosh. I got.

[00:08:53]  Megan Porta 

How exciting.

[00:08:55]  Emily Christensen 

Raptive it.

[00:08:55]  Megan Porta 

You’ll never forget it.

[00:08:56]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah.

[00:08:58]  Megan Porta 

Well, that’s so cool. That happened so fast. Oh, my goodness.

[00:09:01]  Emily Christensen 

It has been very wild and crazy, and I think, like, every day my husband and I just look at each other like, what? Like, how did we get here?

[00:09:12]  Megan Porta 

Oh, I love that. I love stories like that. So, okay, so Sourdough’s huge. I know. Like, especially since the pandemic, it’s just been a really big topic and people have wanted to learn it, and it’s delicious and it’s kind of a new trendy thing. So do you feel like this can translate to other niches?Because I feel like there are certain niches that just do well.

[00:09:36]  Emily Christensen 

Sorry.

[00:09:36]  Megan Porta 

No, that’s okay. Do you agree or do you. Do you think this can translate to other niches just fine?

[00:09:44]  Emily Christensen 

I think so. I think on social media, like, if you look on there, there are lots of creators that are starting small and they’re growing in all different types of platforms, like across, you know, baked goods or dinners, easy dinners. I think the biggest thing is you have to find ways to differentiate yourself in any of these markets.

[00:10:11]   

So now there are tons of people in the sourdough market, you know that it is starting to get saturated even on. On social media, you know, so how are you standing out? And that kind of leads me into, like, how you grow on social media. And one of the big things is you have to find ways to stand out.

[00:10:33]   

I think one of the things that I did when I first started and what really helped me grow my blog is I started posting recipes that I knew that would do well on social media, not necessarily the ones that had the big search volume. On Google, of course, you want to have those big search volume terms as well.

[00:10:53]   

But on social media, you kind of want to think of it as like a different type. Like you if, let’s say you’re in just regular yeasted breads, right, and you share an English muffin recipe, but 500 other creators are sharing a very similar English muffin recipe, you’re most likely not going to go viral on Instagram with that.

[00:11:22]   

But if you’re sharing really unique, crazy flavors of an English muffin on social media, you might get some traction on that because people are like, wait, what? You could add peanut butter jelly inside of your English muffin? I don’t know, Whatever it looks like. And that’s something that I did when I first started is it’s like, okay, I could share the same generic recipes that everyone’s sharing.

[00:11:48]   

You know, the sourdough bread, the sandwich bread, all of the basics. Or I can start looking for ways to be different. And so one of my big ones I started with was mix ins. Inclusions. So I started playing around with inclusions and mixing in some really fun flavor ideas. And then I did the same thing with focaccias.

[00:12:09]   

And I started saying, you know, I could add water to my focaccia, or maybe I should try adding pickle juice. Maybe I should try adding marinara sauce. You know, maybe I should try all of these different flavors. And every time I would post one of those, it would go really viral. And, you know, if I would have only looked on Google and said, okay, you know, obviously focaccia bread is going to have a big search volume, but then I would look up marinara focaccia, and it’s zero.

[00:12:41]   

So I could have said, okay, I won’t do that, because it’s not going to be worth my time. But if you think of social media as like a whole nother avenue. Yeah, you know, you can. Some of my biggest money makers on my blog are not ones that have high Google search volume.

[00:13:03]   

They’re ones that do consistently well on social media time after time.

[00:13:09]  Megan Porta 

So do you. We were just having this conversation in my mastermind group. Do you do you publish things on Instagram without having a blog post yet? See how they do and then publish if they do well, or do you publish the blog post first?

[00:13:24]  Emily Christensen 

I always publish the blog post first. Yeah, I. I used to just share the recipes on my Instagram, but what am I really gaining from that? Maybe I’m gaining more followers, but as far as like a monetary value associated with that, if I just share the recipe on Instagram, Instagram’s paying me absolutely nothing you make.

[00:13:47]   

I think last month I looked, I made $12 on Instagram and it was because I don’t post that many carousels. So carousels is the only thing that’s getting paid out on Instagram right now. So I made $12 on Instagram. So for me, yeah, so for me, it doesn’t really make sense to just post it on Instagram because then I’m also going to share that blog post with my email list.

[00:14:12]   

I’m going to share it on Facebook, I’m going to share it on my YouTube, I’m going to share it on TikTok. I’m going to share it everywhere to get more people, drive more people to my blog. And once they’re on my blog, maybe they’ll start looking at other recipes too.

[00:14:29]  Megan Porta 

That’s true. Do you think, though, at first, because I’m in this kind of space, I. I started my Instagram account a long time ago, it’s very old, but then I let it sit dormant for about six years. So now I’m back in it and it’s felt really arduous to get new followers to get on board.

[00:14:49]   

So I feel like at this point, sending traffic to my blog is kind of pointless because it’s like, just drops in the bucket. Like, what’s the point? I might as well share value here on Instagram while I’m trying to build my audience. Does that make sense?

[00:15:06]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah, I think it depends. It’s going to be case by case, you know, especially if you’re also sharing to Facebook and you have some traction there. Facebook is paying, so I make a few thousand every month on Facebook and some people have really good success when they share the recipe for me. I guess you could test it, right?

[00:15:29]   

You could test it both ways. If I share this without the recipe, will people comment recipe to get the link and go to my blog? Or if I share it in the caption, am I getting more reach? Are more people saving it? Are more people following me from it? But if they’re about the same, I always think it’s better to drive them to my blog.

[00:15:52]   

Yeah, and I use Grocer’s list for all of my. I originally started out with ManyChat and then I switched to groceries list last year and, and I’ve brought in 11,000 email signups through using groceries list from having people saved to the email. So for me, I think a lot of people, especially on Instagram, they’re conditioned now to comment recipe for the link.

[00:16:17]   

So most, most consumers are used to that by this point. Like on TikTok, not so much. They’re not really trained over there because a lot of the platforms aren’t connected with TikTok yet. But over on Instagram it’s very common now for people to have to comment. So they’re used to that. And then you also get the engagement because people are commenting to get it.

[00:16:44]  Sponsor 

Food bloggers. Hey, if you have been dreaming of publishing your very own cookbook, now is the time to make it happen with Lulu. Here is the deal. At Lulu, over 6,300 cookbooks were published in 2024 and a staggering 36,000 plus books sold the same year. That could be your recipes shared with food lovers around the world.With Lulu, you can publish and sell your cookbook directly from your website, keeping your audience close while maximizing your revenue. Thousands of creators have turned their cookbook ideas into successful income generating revenue streams with Lulu’s powerful tools. And this could be your story too. Start reaching your audience in a new way, adding an extra stream of revenue to your business and seeing your cookbook in the hands of your raving fans.Take control of your cookbook dreams and diversify today.

Head to lulu.com and learn how to get started. Your recipes deserve the spotlight they were made for. Again, go to lulu.com to get started today.

[00:17:55] Megan Porta  

It’s worth digging into your analytics and just experimenting like you said. So talking about the being unique, can you give us some examples? So you did give us a few examples like adding different liquids. But what would that look like? Like let’s say someone is a dinner recipe Instagram account and, and they’re making, I don’t know what’s a common like chicken parmesan or chili or like how would, how would we make that different on Instagram? Do you have any thoughts?

[00:18:24]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah, so I think for dinner recipes, like something that I’m seeing going very viral and something that I am personally enjoying is like the dump and go. Recipes like those have been really big right now. So some of the people that are really winning in the space right now are the ones that Are creating recipes that like people don’t have to do a lot with.

[00:18:44]   

Like they’re just dumping go series. Like I hadn’t seen this one creator at all and I don’t think she had a big following. But all of a sudden she started this series where she’s like, you know, it’s. I forget what her actual intro is, but it’s basically like these dump and go recipes, everything is dumped into a pan and then you bake it and so you don’t.

[00:19:07]   

It’s like very non time consuming at all. And so she created kind of a space in there to where it’s like after busy moms that just need a really quick dinner, they don’t want to think about it. So I think you have to challenge yourself in those space. If you have a lot of the standard recipes, how are you making yours stand out?

[00:19:32]   

Like if you have chili, what are you doing to make it either quicker for people or a unique flavor or something like that? Or maybe you look and say like, okay, what are some like really unique recipes that I could make in this space that could be interesting to people? And how can I bring that to social media and see like what sticks?

[00:19:57]   

And you can try lots of different things to figure out like what is it that resonates with my audience and then make more of that. And sometimes it’s just how you present that information. So for example, I make these stars and I made them around Christmas time. I don’t know if you know what I’m talking about.

[00:20:20]   

They’re like the pull apart stars. Usually they’re like the cinnamon sugar ones. Right. And so I decided I was going to share that. But a lot of people share those around Christmas. One of my big tips is before holiday, if you have a really good Easter recipe, post it right now. Because the people that post really early get really good traction.

[00:20:42]   

So if I have a pumpkin recipe that I really want to share, I’ll share it at the beginning of August because not a lot of people are talking about it yet. And then it goes really viral because people are starting to think about that. They’re like, oh, that sounds really good. I want to make sure I make this in the fall. And they might not necessarily make it right then.

[00:20:59]  Megan Porta 

But they’ll save it or.

[00:21:01]  Emily Christensen 

yeah, yeah, like I just saw in the sourdough space somebody just shared shaping a sourdough bunny. Okay, so. And it went really viral. So you can. That’s one way to go viral is to share early. Like obviously you don’t want to be Six months out. But two, three months out, if you share something that looks really delicious and it’s before the market gets saturated with fall recipes or Easter recipes or whatever. If you shared a little bit early, that can give you a little bit.

[00:21:33]  Megan Porta 

Okay, I’m trying this. I’ll report back. Emily?

[00:21:36]  Emily Christensen 

Yes.

[00:21:36]  Megan Porta 

I have an idea. Okay.

[00:21:37]  Emily Christensen 

Yes.

[00:21:38]  Megan Porta 

Okay. Back to your star. How did you make that different?

[00:21:40]  Emily Christensen 

Oh, yes. Sorry.

[00:21:41]  Megan Porta 

That’s okay.

[00:21:42]  Emily Christensen 

I love it. Totally good.

[00:21:43]  Megan Porta 

No, that was good.

[00:21:43]  Emily Christensen 

I go all over the place. Yes. So with the star. So what I did is I made a video, and I was like, you know what I’m going to try. I think I actually saw something on Instagram that gave me this idea, like, oh, I should try this with bread dough. And I’ll.

[00:22:00]   

I’ll get back to the folders in just a second. But what I did is I just, like, slapped down the piece of dough, and I rolled it quickly, and then I slapped it down, and then I slapped down my second piece of dough, rolled it out, and put it aside. Anyways, for some reason, that specific motion of, like, slapping down and rolling out went extremely viral.

[00:22:22]   

So then I was like, okay, this worked really well. How can I apply this to more of my recipes? So, because that went viral, then I decided, okay, I’m going to make a discard version with Nutella. I’m going to do the exact same hook. I’m going to slap it down, roll it out.

[00:22:38]   

That went really well. Then I decided, okay, that went really well. Let’s do a savory version of this. So then I did, like, a cheesy garlic star again, same movement, slapping it down, rolling it out, and that went really well. So then I was like, okay, now I’ve done these stars. Those go really well.

[00:22:57]   

What else can I kind of slap down? Like, do a similar motion like that? So then I tried it with, like, my pretzels, and that was really successful. So if you find a hook that works really well. I feel like when I first started out, I was always trying to reinvent the wheel, right?

[00:23:15]   

Like, I never would repurpose hooks or repurpose visuals. You guys just keep doing the same thing. That’s working. If the slapping action is working, keep doing it. If you do a weird thing at the beginning of your video, and then all of a sudden, every, you know, that video went viral, do it again.

[00:23:40]   

I post all the time. Did you know you could mix together XYZ and get this? Those always do really well, so why not keep sharing those? Did you know if you do this, you know, there’s no reason to, like, completely reinvent the wheel. If it worked once, try it again. If it works again, keep doing that hook.

[00:24:04]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I mean, I feel like you could just keep any other tips while you’re on a roll, Emily.

[00:24:11]  Emily Christensen 

I know.

[00:24:11]  Megan Porta 

Keep coming, keep coming.

[00:24:13]  Emily Christensen 

Going back to. To the star and how I thought maybe I saw something that sparked that idea. So what I do is on social media, I don’t just follow sourdough. I follow all sorts of accounts, like people that are succeeding in any space they’re in, whether it’s like mom blogging or food or finance or whatever.

[00:24:41]   

Follow people outside of your niche because you don’t want to be doing the same exact thing that everybody else in your niche is doing. You want to make yourself stand out. So what I do is I follow lots of different people in lots of different spaces that are successful. And I have folders in my Instagram and I have a folder for hook ideas.

[00:25:01]   

I have a folder for video ideas. I have a folder for, like, recipe inspo. I have lots of different folders. So that way if I see something or I also have one for, like, audio that I liked, I just put them all into buckets. Or if, like, there’s a certain video I liked, I’ll do that.

[00:25:23]   

So I have all these different buckets. And then as I see something on Instagram that does really well on Instagram, I’ll save it into one of those buckets. Like, oh, that was a really good hook. I will save that into my hooks ideas and then I can go through those hooks. And obviously you don’t want to steal other creators ideas.

[00:25:42]   

So then I put that. Sometimes I’ll put into ChatGPT. Like, this hook went really viral. Help me to tweak it, to make it my own or work in my space with this recipe or whatever. So use those as inspiration. Like if somebody is doing well on social media. See, what about them is?

[00:26:06]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:26:07]  Emily Christensen 

What about them is making them successful?

[00:26:10]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:26:10]  Emily Christensen 

You know, if you’re starting every Instagram post and it’s like, hi, welcome back. This is Emily Christensen. You know, you already lost people. You need to capture attention within those three seconds. They don’t care who you are. They want. They want to know what they’re getting out of this. So whether that’s. You’re hooking them in with words on your screen that they’re like, oh, I.

[00:26:35]   

You know, I want to make this. You’re hooking them in with, like, how good the recipe looks, the end result I find for me the thing that works best because I am not. I’m not a creator that makes things look very beautiful. You know, there are people out there that.

[00:26:54]  Megan Porta 

I know what you mean.

[00:26:55]  Emily Christensen 

They succeed on Instagram because they created the most beautiful looking videos and they oftentimes start with the rest with the finished good at the end because that is the way they hook people.

[00:27:07]  Megan Porta 

Yeah,

[00:27:10]  Emily Christensen 

my stuff, I mean, it looks yummy, but it is not breathtakingly beautiful. Right. I’m just like a home baker. You know, I’m usually looking a little homely.

[00:27:20]  Megan Porta 

You’re not homely.

[00:27:23]  Emily Christensen 

You know, like I’m usually don’t have makeup on in my sweats, whatever, you know. So for me, starting out with the finished product at the beginning usually isn’t how I’m going to draw people in. So I have to find other ways to draw people in. So usually it’s like I start with the process and how is that intriguing?So like for the star example, people are like, why is she like slapping down.

[00:27:50]  Megan Porta 

They get curious.

[00:27:52]  Emily Christensen 

They’re curious. You know, the same thing with the did you knows, like I’m sparking their curiosity so that they watch to the end.

[00:28:00]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. It’s really funny that you just said that because I just started doing that. So I’ve. I mean, like, if I’m lucky before this, I would get like 3,000 views on Instagram for a reel. And I just started with the process shots last week and Emily, you would not believe it went crazy.

[00:28:22]   

Like, I would. I think my crock pot, spinach artichoke dip got almost 30,000 views. That’s a lot for me. I was like, what? And so I kept doing that. I was like, okay, like you said, don’t reinvent the wheel. So I kept doing that same. Like, I think it looks ugly, honestly, like starting with process shots.

[00:28:41]   

My process shots aren’t beautiful, but I’m like, okay, that worked, so let’s do it again. And yeah, like 17,000 and 15,000 actually.

[00:28:50]  Emily Christensen 

really big right now. Kind of like that did you know, but it’s like if you combine and then they just have a picture of like the banana for the first one. Right. And then the next shot is they add the banana with the peanut butter. And then the next shot is adding the oats in.

[00:29:07]   

And it’s like if you add a banana and then the next side, that’s kind of exactly what I’ve been doing. Those, those are going really big right now. And they are not pretty shots. They’re like very basic and people are Loving those people love the curiosity. They can’t help but know what is going to happen.

[00:29:27]   

Yeah.

[00:29:28]  Megan Porta 

And I think as a consumer, I’ve been kind of looking at this too. I’m like, why is that big? I think we’ve been trained to almost scroll away when it’s too pretty, like, oh, here’s the hook. It’s really beautiful to see this beautiful slice of bread or whatever. So I. It’s almost like, okay, that’s enough.

[00:29:45]   

So then I keep scrolling and I’m like, that’s interesting. So I really do, as a user, I want that curiosity too. Because when I think we’ve just been trained over time to like, oh, ooh and ah over the hero shot clips and then kind of keep scrolling. So this is like a. Things are evolving for sure.

[00:30:06]  Emily Christensen 

You have to find, like, what. What is your strong suit? So like we talked about, I know my strong suit is not creating the most visually beautiful videos. You know, my strong suit is looking very relatable in my messy kitchen making bread. And people feel like, oh, if she can do it, you know, if she can do it, then I can do it.

[00:30:29]  Megan Porta 

Right.

[00:30:29]  Emily Christensen 

You know that you have to find what is your strong suit on social media?

[00:30:35]  Megan Porta 

Well, clearly we’re in it together. I’m very real and homely, and my process shots are what people want to see. They don’t want to really see. So then I put my, like, I have this really dreamy cheese pull with my artichoke dip. Like, you would think that that would go well in the beginning, but no, people need that.

[00:30:58]   

Like, oh, my gosh, what is she making? And then they watch through to the end of the cheese pull, which is, like, super cool. But, yeah, knowing what you’re doing.

[00:31:06]  Emily Christensen 

Sometimes when I’m. When I’m editing or when I start a video. So for example, with the slapping down and rolling out, I already knew that worked. And so when I was making, you know, my pretzel video, it was like, okay, I know how I’m going to film this. Sometimes I don’t know what is going to be my hook at the very beginning.

[00:31:28]   

So sometimes I will just film. Film everything. And I like to film with two cameras. So typically I will have one. Honestly, it’s mostly propped up on my water bottle. Not gonna lie. You don’t have to have all this fancy equipment. So usually I have one phone on my water bottle. And then I finally just got a second phone a couple months ago.

[00:31:52]   

And that’s been a big game changer to have a second angle going at all times. Because before it was like, okay, here’s the one. And then, okay, now I have to switch my phone and do it, like, the other way. And I was constantly moving my phone around, and now it’s like I’m just going to have both angles going at the same time, so that way I can kind of cut it together.

[00:32:12]   

Because we have to keep them watching. And to keep them watching, we need to change things up. Whether it’s, you know, how we’re doing something quick, quick transitions, moving the angle around. You know, you have to do something to keep people engaged. I think the biggest thing you can do is watch your video, watch it again, watch it again, watch it again.

[00:32:39]   

If at any point during watching that you’re thinking, I want to scroll past this, nobody else is going to watch that because you care about your video way more than anyone else does.

[00:32:49]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:32:50]  Emily Christensen 

So for me, it’s like constantly I watch my video back and I watch it again, and I watch it again. And if there’s any. You know, it’s like the blueberries were poured in, and then I have five seconds before it changes to anything. Or even a half a second. Yeah, I was gonna say before it changes anything.

[00:33:09]   

You know, it’s. That’s too long. It has to be immediately as those blueberries hit. I’m moving on. You know, anytime there’s a lag is when people are going to keep going. Sorry, I am rambling.

[00:33:21]  Megan Porta 

No, this is amazing. And I actually needed this today because I’ve been a little obsessing over Instagram and, like, this new thing that’s working, the new hook that’s working. I’m, like, so excited about it, so I love it. I do want to ask about a few other things. Are there any other tips for Instagram before we move on to just, like, you know, like, looking outside of Instagram just a little bit?

[00:33:44]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah, I think those were my big ones. I did want to say, yeah, with editing, that’s really important. I kind of already talked about that. I do use CapCut to edit my videos versus Edits. I find it a little bit easier to use. So if anyone’s curious, I use CapCut.

[00:34:04]  Megan Porta 

All right. Okay. So your Instagram account has over 500,000 followers. That’s so insane and awesome. And then, I mean, you have a lot of blog traffic, too, because you got on to Raptive so quickly. So are you finding that you’re managing burnout? Because this feels like a lot, but maybe you’ve found some magic answers there.

[00:34:29]  Emily Christensen 

I don’t know if I found magic answers. But yeah, burnout was definitely a big thing I experienced, especially because everything happened so quickly. And I also have a little bit of a workaholic personality. I think most of us in this space probably do. You know, you kind of have to. In order to really succeed is you have to put in a lot of hours.

[00:34:53]   

And so I actually had hired my first VA before I even got monetized on Raptive because I was making enough with affiliate and teaching classes. And at that time, I had put out a online class and an ebook through Thinkific. So I had a couple revenue streams. I mean, it was. It was smaller amounts at that time, but I.

[00:35:19]   

It was enough to be able to afford bringing on a VA. And so I brought her on and she really helped me get in those first few months to really be able to monetize quickly. I feel like with my blog, because I was already feeling we have to wear so many hats in this business.

[00:35:38]   

And so I was already feeling super overwhelmed. And my husband is in medicine, which is extremely time consuming, so he was in medical school and now he’s in residency. And so, you know, he’s not around to help a lot. And so most of the parenting responsibilities, me and having two little boys at home, it was just.It was a lot.

[00:36:01]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:36:01]  Emily Christensen 

So having my first VA come on was extremely helpful. And then I launched a cookbook. I self published a cookbook this last year. And congrats. Yeah, thank you. And after I did that, I was so burnt out. Cookbooks. I knew it was going to be a lot of work, but, like, I really didn’t.

[00:36:24]   

I did not know how. How it would just take all of my energy. And I got to a point where I just did not feel creative at all. I was so busy and so overwhelmed that there was no room for creativity, no room for fun. And I think that started showing on my social media, like my Instagram.

[00:36:44]   

My engagement was really down. You know, I was. Everything just felt like everything was just slowing down and it was because I was just so burnt out. And so I ended up bringing on a second VA and having that extra help and time so that I can, you know, breathe. Yeah, breathe. Go back to those bigger picture things was so helpful for me.

[00:37:17]   

So I ended up bringing on a second VA and now I have a baking assistant that comes once a week and she helps me to bake and to do dishes and because the dishes on a bake day are same.

[00:37:28]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, they’re especially baking so many.

[00:37:31]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah, yeah. So bringing in extra help has just really helped. And I My whole thing this year is, if it is not my area of expertise, like, let’s hire it out, you know?

[00:37:46]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:37:46]  Emily Christensen 

I wanted to start doing Facebook ads with my cookbook. I was like, okay, I could try and figure this out, or I could just hire somebody who already has that knowledge. She was actually. I had heard about her from your.

[00:38:02]  Megan Porta 

I know who you’re talking about, I think.

[00:38:03]  Emily Christensen 

Yep. Yeah. So it’s. You know, it’s all about. We can try and do everything, but at some point, you have to start hiring out, and you have to treat this like it is an actual business. So in a business, the CEO is not handling every single thing. Right. He hires it to people and he keeps in his level or her.

[00:38:27]   

They keep in their level of genius. And so for me, you know, it’s. I want to be where I thrive, and I will hire out whatever else I can. And I know that’s not always feasible at the very beginning, but if you can start looking at, you know, what are other ways that you can monetize, you know, I was able to bring in a VA because I started doing other things.

[00:38:52]   

You know, I was teaching the classes, I was selling the bread. I was teaching the online class. Like, all of those things helped to be able to bring in somebody.

[00:39:01]  Megan Porta 

My cat. Sorry. My cat. I do not know. He was in my. In this room, and he freaked me out. I have my door shut, but apparently he was in before I shut the door.

[00:39:10]  Emily Christensen 

I was like, what? Oh, gosh. Sorry.

[00:39:13]  Megan Porta 

I’m so sorry.

[00:39:13]  Emily Christensen 

No, you’re fine.

[00:39:15]  Megan Porta 

Okay. My heart is pounding. Yeah, I’m so sorry. Can you restate your last sentence, Emily? I was listening up until then.

[00:39:24]  Emily Christensen 

No, you’re totally fine. Okay, well, I have a terrible memory.

[00:39:29]  Megan Porta 

Okay, we can just keep going with the flow. This is real life here at Eat Blog Talk.

[00:39:34]  Emily Christensen 

Yes.

[00:39:36]  Megan Porta 

Okay. So, yeah, burnout and hiring and how important that is, so. I mean, it’s even just your baking assistant that you were talking about. We don’t tend to think of that as hiring out, but it is. It can relieve so much from your brain just to have that support. That kind of support.

[00:39:55]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah, it was crazy. I mean, I was going from being able to do like one or two recipes in a day to, you know, we can sometimes get out seven or eight recipes in a day. So it just. It allows me to have more time to focus on other things while, like, I’m obviously in here helping with her, but just having a second person to help bake and mix things and, you know, I feel like when I’m baking, I’m all over the place. I’m like running around like a chicken with her head cut off.

[00:40:31]  Emily Christensen 

Oh, crap, I forgot, you know, this was in the oven. And you know, it’s so. Just having a second person was so helpful.

[00:40:39]  Megan Porta 

I hear you on that. And we can minimize it too, before we actually do it. So if you’re listening and you feel like you’re on the verge of burnout, you need help, just try it and see how much it can take off your shoulders. So you have multiple revenue streams. I want to talk about that for just a minute.

[00:40:57]   

So you’ve got obviously advertising through your blog, your online classes, do you still do those? And do you do your in person classes too?

[00:41:08]  Emily Christensen 

So I no longer do in person classes. I do still have some interest, but I just, I can’t. I’m already so busy and it’s just too much, especially with little kids at home. And so I have, I don’t do that anymore. But I do refer people to. I have an online course that I had filmed once and then I put it on Thinkific and it continues to bring in income that way.

[00:41:36]   

So it’s nice if you have something that you can teach and share and you have either an email list or your blog or whatever, creating that class once and then you continue to get that income from them.

[00:41:51]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that’s great.

[00:41:52]  Emily Christensen 

So I have the thinkific class and I also have an ebook that I sell through Thinkific as well.

[00:41:56]  Megan Porta 

Okay. And then you have your cookbook now and your collaborative cookbook as well.

[00:42:02]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah, Yep. So still have the collaborative cookbook. You know, we all have it on our website still so people can buy it. So we still get some money from that. And then I also have my new cookbook that I self published this last year and so I have that. And then the affiliate, you know, sharing through Amazon and then I also do some brand partnerships on social media as well.

[00:42:31]  Megan Porta 

Okay. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. What is the name of your cookbook? Your new one?

[00:42:36]  Emily Christensen 

It’s. I actually have it right here. It’s called Same Day Sourdough.

[00:42:39]  Megan Porta 

Oh, great. That’s so pretty. I love that.

[00:42:43]  Emily Christensen 

Thank you.

[00:42:44]  Megan Porta 

Well, awesome. Yeah, Every. If anyone is interested. I know my husband’s been like, why don’t we make sourdough? I’m like, I just don’t have the bandwidth for that right now. But maybe I’ll get it for him and he can do it.

[00:42:55]  Emily Christensen 

Yes, there you go. Make him do it.

[00:42:57]  Megan Porta 

Right. So the brand partnerships, how much of that do you do. And obviously that comes from Instagram, correct?

[00:43:04]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah, mostly through Instagram. Some have asked for Facebook, and then a couple have started experimenting with YouTube shorts. YouTube is the big thing that I’m going to be working on this year to build up, so. Hoping to do more partnerships through there. But, yeah, I probably do. I don’t do a ton. I don’t like to be overwhelmed with brand partnerships, but I probably aim for between 5 and 10 a year.

[00:43:34]  Megan Porta 

Okay. Yeah, that’s doable.

[00:43:36]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah.

[00:43:37]  Megan Porta 

Better than. I thought you were gonna say a month. I was like, whoa.

[00:43:40]  Emily Christensen 

Oh, no, no.

[00:43:42]  Megan Porta 

Yes. Uh, well, that’s great.

[00:43:44]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah.

[00:43:45]  Megan Porta 

So you have a lot going on. I mean, you have a lot to juggle, but it sounds like you’re getting help. And do you feel like the burnout is managed? Do you feel like this is, you know, a good amount of work for you to do at the moment?

[00:44:00]  Emily Christensen 

Uh, well, I. Like I said, I’m kind of a workaholic. So for me, like, I love what I’m doing, and I’m so excited to keep seeing where it’s going. So it doesn’t necessarily always feel super daunting, like, I’m just really enjoying it.

[00:44:17]  Megan Porta 

That’s a good way to answer that. Yeah.

[00:44:18]  Emily Christensen 

I think my husband sometimes might say, you know, yeah, okay, put it away for the night. You know, So I have been really trying to focus on that this year and being really intentional with my time. It’s just hard when everything is from home, and so I know the lines blur a lot, and it’s hard to truly disconnect from your business.

[00:44:40]  Megan Porta 

It makes it tricky. I know. It really does. You have. I have to be really strict with myself and almost treat myself like I’m two different people. Like, I’m the boss and the employee. And, like, listen up, Megan. I actually have talks with myself. Like, you will be better off if you put your phone down.And, yeah, it’s kind of silly what I. What I have to do, but it’s.

[00:44:57]  Emily Christensen 

It’s hard when you start hiring out because you then have people that need you in order to move forward. So it. It sometimes feels like, oh, like, I’m so grateful that I have the extra help, and it keeps me on track. And also it adds, you know, I pressure to make sure I’m the element.

[00:45:19]   

Yeah, for sure.

[00:45:21]  Megan Porta 

So, big question of the day. If you could go back. Let’s see. You really dug into your blog seriously. In 2024, if you went back to 2023, right around the time you started your Blog. What would you tell yourself? What lessons have you learned now that you would impart to your previous self?

[00:45:41]  Emily Christensen 

I think one of the big things that I wish I would have been doing from the very beginning is taking Facebook seriously. And it took me a while to jump on the Facebook bandwagon, but I wish I would have started on Facebook a long time ago because I’m seeing a lot of now that I have been posting more consistently on Facebook.

[00:46:05]   

Not only does Facebook have the creator program, so you can actually earn money, so I make like a few thousand that way, but also it drives a lot of traffic to my website through Facebook. So that’s something I wish I would have taken more seriously at the same time that I was doing Instagram because I ended up actually having somebody stealing all of my stuff on Instagram and impersonating me on Facebook.

[00:46:32]  Megan Porta 

You are kidding.

[00:46:33]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah. And they grew to like over 200,000 followers very quickly.

[00:46:38]  Megan Porta 

Oh my goodness.

[00:46:39]  Emily Christensen 

And it was. And then I didn’t look like the real one because I only had a couple thousand followers. It was a whole mess back in. I think that was either 2023 or 2024. Uh, but yeah, they’re still stealing my stuff. They’ve just blocked me now, but they aren’t using my face anymore.

[00:46:59]  Megan Porta 

Can. I mean, I’m assuming you’ve taken this up with Facebook. They haven’t taken.

[00:47:04]  Emily Christensen 

They’re. They’re not gonna do anything.

[00:47:05]  Megan Porta 

That sucks. I am so sorry. I hate stories like that.

[00:47:09]  Emily Christensen 

It is. It is what it is. But that was one thing I realized, like, oh my gosh, when I saw how many followers they had received, I was like, I need to be taking this more seriously because there’s also a market here on Facebook. So something I wish I would have started earlier was Facebook.

[00:47:27]  Megan Porta 

Okay. Anything else you would impart to your past self.

[00:47:34]  Emily Christensen 

I think just treat it like a business. From the very beginning. I felt like at the beginning I was very wishy washy about my blog and I didn’t treat it seriously. And the further I’ve gotten into this and treated it seriously, hired out people to help me, did things consistently, all of those things have helped to really explode my business and bring it to where it is today.

[00:48:08]   

So I think if you’re on the fence about whether that’s social media or blogging or whatever, like, if you want to be successful, you have to treat this like a business. It can’t just be a little side project, you know, in order to really be successful.

[00:48:25]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:48:25]  Emily Christensen 

In the blogging world, like, you have to you have to put in the work.

[00:48:30]  Megan Porta 

There are so many things I’ve taken from our conversation, Emily. I can’t even tell you. Like the, the thing you said about being unique on Instagram. That’s going to be in my brain now. Keep doing the things that work. Yes. I mean, I’m going to take this transcript and read through it. So thank you so much for all of this.

[00:48:50]   

I really appreciate it and I know my listeners are going to love it too. So thank you for everything today.

[00:48:55]  Emily Christensen 

Thank you so much for having me.

[00:48:57]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that was super fun. If you want to go check out the show notes for Emily’s episode, you can head to eatblogtalk.com/countryroadssourdough and did I say that right? There is a roads, right? Not Country Road.

[00:49:10]  Emily Christensen 

Two S’s.

[00:49:10]  Megan Porta 

Awesome. And I’m actually. I don’t think I follow you. So I’m going to go do that right now while we’re on line and look at all of your amazing stuff. So direct people to your site and to social media and anywhere else you want to.

[00:49:26]  Emily Christensen 

Yeah. So like you said, my website is Country Roads with an S sourdough.com and and you can find me over there or you can follow along on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok. I’m on them all at Country Road Sourdough. But I would say I’m most active and enjoy being on Instagram the most. If that wasn’t clear from the whole conversation.

[00:49:51]  Megan Porta 

I officially am following you. So I will check out your stuff regularly. And just thank you again and thank you for listening, food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:50:02]  Outro

Thank you so much for listening to Eat Blog Talk. The best way to support this show is to share it with another bloggeror friend who could use encouragement today. Let’s share the love. I will see you in the next episode.