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Episode 265: From Ordinary Blogger to Powerhouse Influencer by Using Podcast and Video with Catharina Joubert

In episode 265, we talk with Catharina Joubert, media producer, multilingual educator, podcaster and YouTuber from Creators Abroad, about why food bloggers should place a focus on creating max impact content.

We cover information about how using YOUR voice is powerful to talk about your food and recipes, how platforms can be used to deliver content powerfully and why it’s imperative in a saturated market that you stand out.

Listen on the player below or on iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.

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Guest Details

Connect with Creators Abroad
Website | Facebook | Instagram

Bio Media producer, multilingual educator, podcaster and YouTuber. Catharina runs Creators Abroad’s podcast, YT channel and production studio. As well as producing media focusing on max impact (i.e. podcasts, videos, social media and blogs), she interviews creatives about the lives they left behind and the dreams they built. Catharina wants to help creatives spark their imagination, find opportunities, navigate culture, form new connections and build a rewarding career.

Takeaways

  • Don’t compare your journey to a successful one where they’ve had years to refine and learn how to build towards success or you’ll lose motivation on your own journey.
  • As you create content, continue adding value through a podcast series or short video series.
  • Imagine – Create – Exist
  • Use your quirky bits to your benefit in creating connection through your content.
  • As with blogging, there’s no one size fits all in podcasts.
  • Batch your additional projects to help streamline your time.
  • Equipment is simple and affordable with podcasting so don’t let that be a roadblock.
  • Be an early adopter in the blogging/podcast/Youtube world.
  • Benefit of growing your revenue stream and incorporating a podcast and/or Youtube is you go from providing static content to highly interactive content.
  • Podcasting gives you another level of status as you grow your skills and networking capabilities and it builds your community.

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Transcript

Click for full text.

265 Catharina Joubert

Catharina Joubert: Hi, this is Catharina from Creators Abroad, and you’re listening to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. 

Megan Porta: Hey, food bloggers, welcome to Eat Blog Talk, the podcast for food bloggers looking for the value and confidence that will move the needle forward in their businesses. I’m your host, Megan Porta and you’re listening to episode 265, where Catharina Joubert is going to teach us how to go from ordinary blogger to influencer by using podcasts and video. Media producer, multilingual educator, podcaster, and Youtuber, Catharina runs the Creators Abroad podcast, YouTube channel and production studio. As well as producing media focusing on max impact, such as podcasts, videos, social media, and blogs, she interviews creatives about the lives they left behind and the dreams they built. Catharina wants to help creatives spark their imagination, find opportunities, navigate culture, form new connections, and build a rewarding career. I am so excited to have you as a guest today. Catharina. Thank you so much for joining me inside this episode. Before we get started, though, we all want to hear what your fun fact is.

Catharina Joubert: Wow. This is really amazing, Megan. I have told you before how much I love your podcast. So this is great being here. My fun fact is I used to be a semi-professional martial artist. In particular, I did Kendo, which is like Japanese sword fighting. 

Megan Porta: Whoa, I did not know that. 

Catharina Joubert: I did quite a lot of, I say semi professional because where I grew up in South Africa, there weren’t funds. So you couldn’t do it as a professional career. You had to do your career or have your job and then do this on the side and fund yourself. So I participated in loads of world championships, European championships, et cetera. So that was my younger days. 

Megan Porta: Do you partake in that anymore? 

Catharina Joubert: I’d love to start again. I stopped after my last international competition because I just had too much on my plate.

Megan Porta: That is like a cool thing though. When you tell people that, they probably are like, wow, you’re so cool Catharina. 

Catharina Joubert: I think the question is. Are you still doing it? Then I have to say, no, I stopped. So I definitely needed to get back into it.

Megan Porta: I have the same story with not your same story, but with skydiving. Because my husband and I are skydivers. But we don’t do it much anymore. So I get the same exact thing. People are like, wow, do you still skydive? I say, no, I don’t. But once a skydiver, always a skydiver. That’s what we always say. 

Catharina Joubert: Yeah. That’s super cool. I’d love to skydive. I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie. 

Megan Porta: Same. Yes. I feel like I very seldom meet people who say that same thing. So I feel like you and I would be fast friends if we ever meet in person one day. I want to hear your story because you were a blogger, right? You started out blogging and now you’re this amazing YouTuber, video producer, creator. You’re so creative. I absolutely am obsessed with your videos. I will just tell everyone you’ve got to go check out Catharina’s videos. They’re so epic and so great. So I want to hear your story. Talk us through everything. How did you start as a blogger and then how did you get into podcasting and video and all of that? Just tell us the scoop. 

Catharina Joubert: Okay. Thank you so much. It means a lot to me to get any feedback on my videos. I really do put my heart and soul into them. But like you mentioned, that’s not where I started. I started very differently as a blogger and as a travel blogger. So I moved to Northern England about six years ago. That’s when I decided, because my dream was to be a writer. This is like a theme throughout my early creator days as I always thought I’m not good enough to be that. So let me try and be this. I started blogging and I wanted to do it professionally. I just had no idea how to do it. Absolutely no idea. I was at that stage of my life where I was not too scared to ask, I just didn’t realize it was okay to ask and find people to help you and understand the industry better. This is a teaser why I later on started the podcast, because I want to create that community or group where people can feel comfortable to ask whatever they want about making a living as a creator and all the skills you need. But at that stage I felt very alone. I did my best. I made as many connections as I could. I wrote a lot. I was writing one not maybe as much as some other bloggers, but I was putting obviously a lot into each thing I wrote once a week. I put it out. There was a lot of pressure, but I just never got to that point of monetizing, of understanding how you do that. I think maybe some of the people listening, maybe you yourself went through a stage where it wasn’t always clear. So I started with that and as these things happen and especially because we’ve got social media and numbers are so in your face, I just realized that I wasn’t making the mark. I was putting a lot of time in, I was getting pressure from outside, just little things, comments and so forth. So I said I’m clearly not cut out to do this and I stopped. I became a teacher because for me, there’s two things to content creation. There’s the joy of creating. Because I did one or two foodie blog articles, to be honest. Because my passion was restaurants or like coffee shops, restaurants. I used to go meet the founders, got their whole story and then did it as a blog article that was relatively promotional. But yeah, that’s what I did. I wanted to create, to do that creation part, but I really wanted to add value. At that point I just wasn’t feeling that I was doing enough of adding value because I didn’t get the reaction or the feedback. That’s one of the hardest things any creator needs to learn, is that it’s okay that you’re not going to get the immediate feedback. 

Megan Porta: Oh, I love that. I’m going to interrupt you just for a second, because I think that is something that a lot of us can relate to because we’re working alone. A lot of us are working from our homes and our basements. I’m in my basement right now. So we don’t get that feedback often. Then that can lead to exactly what happened to you, which is quitting. So where did you go after that?

Catharina Joubert: Because I was so focused on giving back, I just love helping people. I decided to become a teacher. I was in education anyway before then, before I decided to try blogging. So I thought let me just go back to this. I can teach people. That’s great. A lot of what I now do with my videos and podcasts, I use what I learned during teaching and I apply it to content creation. I became a teacher and that’s a different story because there you have different kinds of stresses and for various reasons, including food, I wanted to start my own cafe. I would rather say cafe than restaurant. I left teaching. So I went into hospitality. 

Megan Porta: After you tried blogging, you went to teaching and then were you teaching in a formal setting or what were you teaching?

Catharina Joubert: Yeah, I was teaching French and Spanish in secondary school. I did some kind of fancy program that I never thought I’d get into. I just applied. I was like, I’ve just arrived in England and there’s no way I’m going to get accepted into this program. It was basically called, in America it’s called Teach for America. In England it is called Teach First. So they take top graduates and put them in the hardest schools, the schools in the poorest areas, to develop them as leaders. Then also to push the level of education in those schools at the same time. So there’s a whole theory behind this. I was like this sounds like something that could work for me as a person, because I love challenges. Anything that’s hard. I’m always like, yeah, bring it on. But it was a very tough journey. And like I say, I was quite surprised they accepted me in the first place. 

Megan Porta: Then you just decided it wasn’t for you and you needed another to go another route.

Catharina Joubert: Yeah, like I say, I’ve always had this massive passion for food. I used to put up, cause I lived in France for a while and I used to do these soirees where I did five course meals for my friends and all of that. I was like, oh yeah, I want to open a cafe or a lounge or something like that. Then I just quit teaching and said, ok, I’m going to do it.

Megan Porta: So you opened a cafe? 

Catharina Joubert: No.

Megan Porta: Ok, because I was like another little hidden journey in here. Wow. 

Catharina Joubert: Yeah. I didn’t even think about it until now. Actually it coincided with the pandemic. No, I didn’t open a cafe. 

Megan Porta: Okay. So from there you went to podcasting. I know you have an awesome podcast. I listened to it. I love it. So talk about that. How did you transition and how did that go? 

Catharina Joubert: Basically my idea was I loved podcasts. So the reason I had the nerve to say, okay teaching is a safe job. Salary wise, you probably do more work than you get for what you get paid, but it’s a good progression. It’s very secure, they always need teachers. But I said, I was listening to these podcasts. A lot of them were entrepreneur podcasts, things like the School of Greatness, a couple of others. I’d also discovered YouTube at this stage. That made me think a bit more about life and what I really wanted to do. Is this it forever? Am I just going to help secondary school children learn French or is there maybe something else I can do besides that? I love podcasts. I just love the fact that I could listen to them anywhere. I learned Spanish and taught because I had to teach Spanish through a podcast and I said okay, I’m going to quit teaching. I’m going to try and go full-time in hospitality and I’m going to create. I’m laughing now because it never happened, but I was going to create a podcast cafe basically. So that was the idea. I was going to have the podcast and have my recording studio and below that was going to be like a lounge and chill out area where people can come and just talk to me. Because that’s what podcasts are all about, conversations. 

Megan Porta: I love that idea. Oh. That’s a great one. 

Catharina Joubert: Never happened. 

Megan Porta: Oh, that and your cafe. So the podcast lounge, the podcast cafe. That’s a dream for someday, right? 

Catharina Joubert: Maybe. Yes. Definitely still there somewhere. So I started the podcast and obviously the podcast was about entrepreneurship because those were the ones I was listening to. Once again, I had absolutely no idea. I even had a business plan and everything written out. But I have no idea how you monetize a podcast. I didn’t even know how it fit in with a broader business plan or anything. I just said, I’m going to do it. Nobody seemed to stop me at that stage, but I suppose we were in a pandemic as well. So there wasn’t much else to do. Same as with my blogging journey for the first couple of months, I just taught myself. I made a couple of mistakes in terms of I wasn’t probably going to use the direct channels. I wasn’t reaching out. I wasn’t making the right connections. Instead of giving up, because obviously we always look at the best podcasts out there and we think, oh, we want to get to them. We want to have those listens and everything. I slowly started realizing that if I’m going to do that, I’m going to just follow the same route. I think it’s the same for all content creators. If we just look at the people who have already spent eight years building and creating something incredible, we are going to lose motivation because we have our own journey and we need to enjoy every single moment of it, even the starting moments. I used the time to study. I studied what worked, what didn’t work. I applied it to my own Instagram account. This is at the stage I started doing short videos cause I was like, I want to interact with people. I don’t want to just put out static content. I want to, almost like in a classroom setting, I want to talk to them and have their feedback. That was my approach. 

Megan Porta: So this can actually apply a lot to food blogging too, because we need to put ourselves out there in various ways. So what would you say about that? If someone’s listening and they’re like, but I’m a food blogger, I’m not a podcaster, how can you make a parallel there and connect those dots?

Catharina Joubert: Absolutely love that you asked this because I listen to your podcast. I’m not a food blogger as such. So I’m constantly thinking about Ooh, but you can do this for a food blogger or a food blogger can try this in terms of podcasting cause obviously I listen to the conversations you have and just the concept of a podcast for any business. So if you say you’ve got some listeners who they’re earning an income from their food blog at the moment. There are different revenue streams so it might differ from one person to the other. But if they add a podcast and, or a video to the content they put out there, they can actually reach a lot more people than they currently do if they’re currently just relying on their website and static content. There are loads of statistics I can quote, but I’d rather just give a concrete example that I came up with. I came up with a couple of examples. This is entirely made up but say you specialize in French food. At the moment you’ve got an amazing website. You’ve got your Instagram account and all of that. But maybe you want to just go beyond being an ordinary blogger and you want to start interacting on a more interactive basis with your audience. You want to show more personality. You want to almost make that connection that will mean they’ll always be there because they know you inside out. If you start a podcast around the idea of maybe French food and health, cause there’s this idea of the French living longer. So it doesn’t only have to be okay, this is how you make these kinds of French dishes. It can also be, this is the French kind of lifestyle. So like work-life balance, for example. If at the same time, this is taking it one step further, you record an interview style podcast and you interview experts like you do Megan. You video this conversation at the same time. Already, you’ve got a video to put on YouTube. You’ve got a podcast to put on platforms like Spotify, Apple podcasts. There are plenty of them. Immediately from there, you can have a blog article. You can have a recipe that goes with the podcast episode. At the same time, you’re meeting a lot of search criterias in putting this content out there. The magic of it all is you just pull out the best bits and you’ve got all of your sort of social media content as well. If all of this has been done to a certain standard and you’ve invested some time to just get it to that quality, then there’s a massive chance you can just pull in loads of new people. 

Megan Porta: Is this what you refer to as your max impact media? Just utilizing what you create and putting it onto the various platforms?

Catharina Joubert: Yes, but it’s also understanding how to interact in a video. So podcasts and videos, those are two different concepts. A podcast is about the structure. Are you going to build a conversation? Are you going to just do a solo episode and just offer some value? So if we go back to the imaginary French food expert and healthy living. Maybe they just do solo episodes on short topics, and then they can video themselves. They’ve got a little bit more freedom in terms of how they want to put out that video. But what I forgot to mention is, even if it’s an interview style, you can always video the actual recipe being made if there was any mention of something concrete and overlay that into your conversation. If it’s a solo video, you obviously just do the recipe yourself. So there’s so much scope for being creative and just putting in different pull points or hooks as I call them. Because the thing to keep in mind with video is, if it starts off without that immediate connection point, the chances of you losing views or even in a podcast, if you don’t have that immediate pull in for the listener, you might lose people. So it’s also thinking about how you structure the content.

Megan Porta: The way you just described that you almost painted a picture that was so just juicy and creative and something I’d never thought about before. But overlaying maybe a recipe, the way that you’re creating a recipe with content from a podcast or an interview is such a unique thing. If someone could pull that off. Oh my gosh. Think of the traction and the people they could reach. There’s so much possibility there. If you include food in anything, I think that automatically pulls people in because everybody loves food and everybody needs food. But add all of those layers, the visuals, the moving visuals and the interviews and talking and information and the recipe. Oh my goodness. There’s so much opportunity there. 

Catharina Joubert: I know. I get super excited about these things and it’s hard for me. It’s always easier when you have the person who’s got the idea, the bigger picture, and then they bring it together. They make it happen. So that’s my motto: imagine, create, exist. So whatever you imagine, so you say, okay, I need more traction on YouTube. So that gives me, okay let’s look at what you have. What’s your business about? What are the things that people are going to pull that are going to pull people in most. Like food. It’s just undeniable. We see something yummy and we’re interested. So we use that and use personality and look at the quirky bits of your personality. So just to give an example, you can make something as simple as a baked potato seem super sexy on TikTok. It’s true. Just by using your voice. Just by using little quirky inflections, you can just be like, super quick, sexy baked potato, and people are going to want to make that baked potato. It’s about thinking about how you come across.

Megan Porta: With food you can just use your voice to make anything sound good, really. You used a baked potato. There’s nothing glamorous about a baked potato, but if you use a little bit of creativity, you can work wonders.

Catharina Joubert: I have to give credit where credit is due. So I didn’t just come up with a super sexy, quick baked potato. So this is actually quite a big TikTokker who ‘s just like what we call a chevy London person. So Chevy means they always wear a tracksuit. They’re not like, I don’t know how to put this in a nice way, not lower-class, you get the idea. He just does these really quirky, little healthy things for his community. So he did this and used this really nice London accent, like super sexy, quick baked potato, and put them a little bit of pepper. Yeah, but anyway.

Megan Porta: Catharina, I feel like I could just hire you to talk about all of my food and it would automatically sound way more amazing because I love your accent.

Catharina Joubert: Use a lot of salt and pepper.

Megan Porta: There you go. I was just going to say that, like food bloggers, I hear you. I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re like, but I have too much to do. There’s so much going on in my business. How in the world and why would I ever start a podcast? It’s just one more thing. It’s too much work. But I am here to tell you, and Catharina is too, that it is so worth it. It will literally transform your business. You just talked through one scenario with French food, about a way that you could put your food out into the world in that medium. So video and podcasting. Why should we do this? How easy is it overcoming some of those objections so that food bloggers actually do start listening? Okay, maybe this would really transform my business, so I will let you take it.

Sponsor: I just want to take a really quick break here so that we can talk about a few things going on at Eat Blog Talk, and then we will dive right back into our conversation. 

First, I would just love to put this request out there. If you are willing to go to Apple podcasts. I’m assuming that a lot of you listened to this podcast through that podcast player or whatever podcast player you listen through, go to the podcast player of your choice and find Eat Blog Talk. I’m sure you’re probably already there. So if you’re not driving, go ahead and do that. Scroll down to the bottom where you will see places where you can rate and review this podcast. If you would do that, I would be so grateful. Thank you to those of you who have done it. I really appreciate your kind words. Doing this simple act adds so much value to this podcast. Other people come and they look at those reviews and they take those words in. So I really appreciate you doing this.

One more quick thing, and we can dive back into the episode. As of the time I’m recording this, there are a couple spots left in the Eat Blog Talk mastermind program. I am closing this group down at the end of the year. So December 31st, 2021 will be the last day that you can apply to get inside this group. We likely will open up another mastermind group in the future, but there are no set plans for that currently. I want to fill this group and get the value rolling even more than it already is. It’s so powerful inside. So if you’re interested, go to eatblogtalk.com, fill out an application, and get on the waitlist. I hope you’re a great fit. I hope to see you inside. Thank you. Now we can get back to the episode.

Catharina Joubert: Okay. There are quite a lot of points in here, and I feel like Megan, you have just probably more productivity tips than I do. You’re just incredible with the amount of episodes you produce and how you manage your time. So it’s definitely possible. A podcast is about finding what works for you. So as with a food blog, as with a YouTube channel, there’s no one thing that fits all. You don’t have to start with the best of everything in terms of the best equipment. You can actually quite stock fairly easily with just a basic mic, headphones. So in terms of the obstacle of starting, there is practically none. It’s then just deciding on how you want to structure it. Once you get into the flow and you have a schedule, a content schedule and decide probably the best strategy for this is just using batching, which I know you use. So you just set aside one day. Let’s make it even more practical for people listening and bloggers, because I do know it can sound very intimidating. So let’s not even say we do one a week, we do it seasonally. We can even theme our season according to the seasons cause it’s food. So you also have seasonal vegetables and all of that. So you just say six episodes. I’m going to pack it with value per season. I’m just going to set aside maybe one day for recording those six episodes, maybe another day just to get it all edited down. You can even outsource. You’ve spoken a lot about outsourcing. It’s very easy and you don’t have to have the most expensive way of outsourcing your podcast editing. It can actually be quite affordable. Then you get the episode back, upload it. There’s your podcast episode, done. Now, if you want to get that extra layer of video, it’s simply adding cameras, but you don’t necessarily need a fancy camera to do that either. There are many examples of people using their phones to just capture the video. So just put it, landscape view, you need two phones, you can even just use one. Two is probably better. So you’ve got two view angles and then you’ve got your video done. Then you can, once again, outsource editing. If you want to take it to that really maximum impact level, then obviously you’re going to start looking at maybe getting someone professional; either as a consultant so they can tell you, do this, you record it, they get it back. They edit it. So that’s one thing I do. Or you can get them in to do everything for you. So basically you just show up as the food blogger, with the knowledge, your guest, if you’ve got a guest, they take care of everything else. What you get at the end of the day is a podcast episode. A YouTube video. Multiple social media content and that’s going to immediately, not only pull in more people, more views, it’s going to build relationships. In the long run, that goes a lot further than maybe just an instant, someone quickly looking at your page or quickly at your YouTube videos. Very seldom that you quickly listen to a podcast. You can’t do that, but if you do this well, and start with just doing one thing really well, rather than trying to do everything half-heartedly. But if you get to the stage of doing as much as you can, then there’s definitely that road from going from ordinary food blogger, where it was just you and your blog, to suddenly you becoming this person. People can find anywhere, people love the content. People ask, where’s this next video with this delicious food? Then you offer so much value in all of those bits that people want it and they come back for more. 

Megan Porta: There are so many things I wanted to comment on. You said so many great things there. Wow. That was all so great. So inspiring. Where do I start? I just pulled away from the fact that this is a really novel concept for food bloggers, because it’s really outside of what we currently do typically. We photograph our food and we sometimes video our hands. Maybe if we’re feeling crazy, we’ll video ourselves in the kitchen talking about the food. That’s the standard for what food bloggers do. But we always hear this concept: if you want to separate yourself from the pack and get ahead and in our game and our sphere, food blogging is really saturated. There are so many food bloggers trying to quote, make it and get ahead and just create that killer content that Google loves and Pinterest loves and everybody loves. So this novel concept could be a way for food bloggers to really separate themselves and almost be an early adopter of this concept that you’re talking about. What do you think of that? 

Catharina Joubert: Totally. For me, I enjoy listening to people talk about food. That’s how much of an attraction it’s got. So if more food bloggers were to get into creating kick-ass podcasts, putting out the kind of content that people go, yeah. I want to try that. Or this is super interesting. Then it’s definitely going to set them apart and if they’re early adopters, because as far as I know there aren’t that many podcasts out there. I’m not even too sure about YouTube techniques. I know that’s massive if you can find the right angle and if you can combine those two, but if we just focused on podcasting for one second. So just that alone is going to set you apart because it’s giving you a voice where before you probably didn’t have that much of a voice. It gives you a personality as well. The big difference is going from static content to highly interactive content. One of the problems is people go to your site. They find the recipe and they leave. Because they’ve gotten what they were looking for. But if you become a passenger in their car, then there’s a different kind of relationship starting to form between people who consume your content and yourself. That’s where you come to having an audience. That’s when it comes to you actually starting to set trends and people following what you do. 

Megan Porta: So powerful. I think in years past, I’m talking like seven to 10 years ago, for blogging, we had a voice on our blogging platforms and today that’s just not how it works anymore. Things have evolved. So we really do write our content for Google. I hate to say that, but that is a fact. So if you want a voice, like you’re saying Catharina, you need to maybe explore a new platform and podcasting, oh my gosh, there’s no better way to get your voice out there and to build those relationships. You mentioned that earlier. That’s another thing I wanted to comment on. That has been huge for my podcast. I cannot even tell you the power of relationships and the further I get into my podcast, the more I see it. Then I think I understand it and then two months later I’m like, oh my gosh, I feel it even more. There’s so much power in building those relationships and there’s no better way to do that then starting a podcast. 

Catharina Joubert: For me, sometimes people ask me or they question, why do I do the podcast? So it’s never been about numbers. It’s really, for me, it’s about the value I add, regardless of how big the group is. Maybe it’s a small group, maybe it’s a medium group. Then more than that, it’s the guests. It’s the connections. Your life changes the moment you’ve got a podcast, suddenly it just becomes easier to be a guest on other people’s podcasts. You can make those connections much, much easier. You can offer another layer of value to other people, other experts by having them as guests on your podcast. So it just opens up a whole new world of networking that before it might not have been entirely closed to you, but it’s not been this easy. It gives you a different kind of status, if I have to put it that way. 

Megan Porta: I’ve never heard a podcastor say, oh, I wish I wouldn’t have started my podcast. Never. I hear podcasters all the time say thank God I started my podcast when I did. I wish I would’ve done it sooner. It’s only benefited my business. I’ve never heard anyone say the opposite. 

Catharina Joubert: Yes. I think, really, we are content creators. We do have to consider things like Google, things like algorithms. These are all machines. They are controlled by humans, of course. That gives us an indication of what the market is expecting, but we have to balance that more clinical side of, okay let’s just check our key words and all of that with something that’s more human, something where we have that really heartfelt interactions with other people. That’s how you get the feeling of a rewarding career. What you’re doing is making that impact instead of just relying on just the machine and just satisfying the machine. If you get what I’m saying.

Megan Porta: Yeah. How do you balance that? Because both are important, the human side and the other side, they’re both important. So how do you personally balance that? Because I know you do everything. You do video and podcasting, and you’re just so creative. What are your thoughts on that? 

Catharina Joubert: It’s definitely important as you say, like you can’t just disregard it and say, unless you just want to do it for fun, then it’s absolutely fine. Then you’re just like, okay I’m not going to care too much about what I need to do in terms of getting recognized by the algorithm. So certain things that trend. So just one example is, even podcastors need to use Google trends just to see what people are searching for, Ask The Public. I’m sure many of your listeners know these sites that are quite useful to find out what people are actually searching. But it’s also recognizing that when you do the research and you then create the content to answer the question, that there is a human side to that as well, because you are filling a need that’s out. Then it’s just not taking it personally when any of that changes. So say, Instagram has had quite a few drastic changes this year, where they shifted their focus from just photography to videos. It’s like a completely new platform all of a sudden. Don’t take it personally, just see it as okay. Clearly if I want to continue to make a mark on this platform, I need to switch to video. How can I do it? How can I keep that interaction and offer something of value? Don’t be too tempted to look at trends and just say ok, I’m just going to try and do this thing that someone else is doing, because it looks popular. Really try and find your way of, okay, the algorithm might recognize this as something they want to put out or it wants to push it further, but at the same time, it’s not something that’s mindless content that’s probably not even going to be consumed probably properly. It is still going to whoever sees it, is going to be pulled in. They’re going to go ah, and they’re going to have something of value to take away when once the video is finished. Keep it short. That way you’ve got less room for error. Just keep it short, to the point. 

Megan Porta: Oh, I like that. What a great answer. We talked about this a little bit, but on the topic of balance, how do you balance everything you have? You seem to have so much going on. I can’t even believe the videos you make. How do you put that all together? Just talk efficiency and balance as far as workload goes.

Catharina Joubert: I’m going to be honest, like straight from the back. I’ve got my good days and my bad days, and I do make adjustments constantly. It’s basically having in my head, I don’t have a physical list, but I’ll just call it a list and just whatever is not adding maximum value, I just say, okay, not doing it. Video, I just say, okay, I’ve got an option. I can put out five really quick, badly made, almost doesn’t really matter too much videos, or I can spend an hour doing two videos really well. I’d rather do the latter. So I just manage my time. I always have a checklist for every single day. I do a lot of prep in advance. I’ve got a rule, never create on the day you want to put anything out because it’s too much pressure and you’re going to end up in a flat spin. I’ve done this enough to know it’s not good to do that. So one example is I used to hate social media and I just decided I’m going to love it. I’m just going to learn to love it. So I just get super excited about every single video I make and that way, I know Monday, I’ve got this time slot, I’m creating three videos, at least have the material for it. Because editing doesn’t take that long. I’ll be able to post it on this day and then that’s off my plate and I can just carry on. Ok, now doing podcast editing or whatever else I need to do. 

Megan Porta: So you really do think about things ahead of time. You don’t just hop into a day, not knowing what’s going to happen. 

Catharina Joubert: Yeah. So for me, it’s taking the pressure off yourself. Okay, there are ideal times to post and sometimes for example, if you have your episode released, you’d really like to post on the same day as your episode release. But sometimes I’ve gotten in the situation where I didn’t have the video ready. I always do videos for my podcast episodes. Then I’m just going to put something up on my stories because I know when I release the video and it’s ready, It’s going to just be much better than me trying to rush it and post it at some odd time today. So it’s just also being relaxed and giving yourself the flexibility to say, I’d rather do this than that, because it’s going to have a better result.

Megan Porta: Oh, this is good. Okay. Am I missing anything? Is there anything you wanted to cover that we just haven’t touched on yet? 

Catharina Joubert: I think we’ve covered a lot.

Megan Porta: Yeah, we have talked about a lot. So great. Can I just tell you my big takeaway and then I would love it if you have any last takeaways, for you to share those. But my big takeaway is that I feel like there are a handful of food bloggers listening, who they’re like this is intriguing because you’re an early adopter. You want to get on the wagon before anyone else does and take advantage of something like this. I just love how you framed everything Catharina. It’s so intriguing. Just the whole concept of food, first of all, is like you said about the baked potato, you can make anything sound sexy through your voice. So that whole concept. Then just use your whole idea of max impact media to transform whatever your story is about food and your recipes to pull in as many people as you can and build those relationships. Yeah, my takeaway is just that I know there are people who are listening. I can just feel that they’re like, I need to get on this and try it. I’m so excited. If that’s you send me an email and I will personally tell you the equipment that’s super easy to buy. I’ll do whatever I can to help you get started because it’s really easy, right Catharina. It’s not a big deal.

Catharina Joubert: No, not at all. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to just get started. From there, you learn and it’s so enjoyable. I’ve not met a podcast either that said, I regret. I’ve only met podcastors who say, I started podcasts and then stopped and now I regret it. So never the other way around. 

Megan Porta: I’ve got my batching pretty streamlined and it’s taken me a while to get here. So it is like a stamina game. You have to start at a certain spot and build your way up, but I can get so much content scheduled, recorded, and scheduled and edited and all of the things in just a couple of days a month. So if I can do that, you can sit down and record maybe a season like Catharina suggested. Or maybe just a small series to see how it goes and then go from there. Okay. I want to hear your final takeaways. 

Catharina Joubert: Okay. I think just to say, first of all, it is definitely doable. It’s definitely flexible. It gives you the chance. There aren’t any fast rules on this. There is less of an algorithm dictating what you have to do. You can make the podcast your own and structure it in the way you want to. Bring out your creativity, bring out your personality. Add the value you want to add. There are really no constraints on that. If you do need any advice, I’ve got like a one page roadmap that shows you exactly the steps to follow. Whether you just want to start a podcast or whether you want to pull in all of your different content streams into your podcast to make it like an ecosystem where your audience can just consume your content and actually just get so much value and build a relationship with you directly. The last takeaway I want to share is that this is what it should be about. Yes, you’re putting out your recipes in whatever form, what unique take you have on them. You want people to interact with you ideally, because we, as content creators, we are by ourselves. We do create our content away from an office, setting it away from a broader community, if you like, but there is a community out there. Part of that is really your audience is the people that consume your content. Also, if you want to just shake up your Instagram account, start using reels in an effective way, TikTok, wherever you want to start experimenting with short videos. Just think of it as you’re talking to another person across the screen. You’re not talking into the void. It’s the same with a podcast. I know it feels a bit strange because you are just talking into a mic, but you’re talking to people. Those words, what you say, if you just focus on the value that you add and just be yourself, your personality, bring that out, it’s going to change them. It’s going to change their lives. That’s what podcasts did to me. That’s what some YouTube videos did to me. So the power is there and you will be seen as more than just oh, let me quickly go to a food blog. Just to get a quick recipe. You’ll be the person. Oh, I’ve got a long road ahead of me. I can take a long trip. I would really want to listen to this person and just hear them talk because I’m going to feel better after I heard their voice. 

Megan Porta: Gosh, that was so amazing. Thank you for saying all of that. I just wanted to pull out just a couple of things before we wrap up. You mentioned that going this route would be less of an algorithm stumbling block. Everyone listening is oh, the algorithm, because we get stopped so often by algorithms; with Pinterest and Google and oh my gosh, everywhere. Those words I think will reach ears that really need to hear that. Then you mentioned your roadmap. That sounds super helpful. So where do people find that?

Catharina Joubert: So they can go to my website. It is creatorsabroad.com/roadmap. That will take you straight to the site where you can find the roadmap. It’s one page. All of my content is fun and quirky. So it’s just a one page that shows you exactly what you can do, even how to create maximum impact media, podcasts, videos, the like quick three things you need to do it. So it’s easily understandable and consumable and you can apply it immediately. 

Megan Porta: Since we’re talking about that, why don’t you just share where else people can find you? So Instagram, what’s your YouTube channel, all of that. 

Catharina Joubert: So I’m Creators Abroad everywhere. On Instagram I have it dot in between, so it’s at Creators.Abroad and website is creatorsabroad.com. The YouTube channel is Creators Abroad. TikToK is Creators Abroad. So it’s quite easy. I’m the same everywhere. The only thing I would like to add is if you can’t find me under Creators Abroad, because I’m actually taking on a personal brand name because that’s something else I didn’t mention, but it really does help to bring in some personality and personal name that people can relate to. So it might be at Catharina or a form of that, but that’s for the time being, it’s just at Creators Abroad. 

Megan Porta: If you do change that, let us know. We can add that to your show notes. So if people are like, wait, I can’t find her on Instagram, then they can just go there. You guys have to go look at her content. So don’t delay on this. Seriously. You make me smile all the time. You were so funny and fun. Just your personality comes through and all of the videos you make, I am obsessed with them. They’re so good. So everyone go check them out. 

Catharina Joubert: All that means so much to me. Thank you so much Megan for having me on the show. It’s been an absolute blast talking to you. 

Megan Porta: I loved this. I was writing down just so many things that you said that I want to pull out. So I’m excited to go back through and pull out all those nuggets. Do you have a favorite quote or words of inspiration to share with food bloggers before you go. 

Catharina Joubert: Yes I do. This is probably, they’ve never, some of them might never have had it. So it’s by an author called Chuck Palin week. If you don’t know who that is, he wrote the Fight club, the film. He wrote the original book that’s based off. So the quote is, “Don’t do what you want, do what you don’t want. Do what you’re trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most.” Because that’s my take on it, you’ll learn the most and develop the most from those things. 

Megan Porta: They’re scary. So we avoid them, but those are not the things we should be avoiding. It’s counter-intuitive. 

Catharina Joubert: Exactly. 

Megan Porta: Thank you for sharing that and thank you for everything today. This has been incredible. What a great way to start my day. I know you’re coming to the close of your day, but I appreciate your time today so much. Yeah, just thank you for being here, Catharina. 

Catharina Joubert: Yeah, no worries. Like I said, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation and it’s been an absolute honor to be on your podcast, Megan.

Megan Porta: If you guys want to peek at show notes, please feel free to go do that. You can find them at eatblogtalk.com/creatorsabroad. So thanks again for being here and thank you for listening today, food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Outro: We’re glad you could join us on this episode of Eat Blog Talk. For more resources based on today’s discussion, as well as show notes and an opportunity to be on a future episode of the show, be sure to head to eatblogtalk.com. If you feel that hunger for information, we’ll be here to feed you on Eat Blog Talk. .


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Megan
Megan

Megan started her food blog Pip and Ebby in 2010 and food blogging has been her full-time career since 2013. Her passion for blogging has grown into an intense desire to help fellow food bloggers find the information, insight, and community they need in order to find success.

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