Episode 569: Turning to Instagram Because of the Helpful Content Update – How To Grow Your Instagram Account To Add More Revenue Streams with Mika Kinney and Sarah Bond

EBT567 – Mika Kinney & Sarah Bond

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

Megan Porta  00:37

It was such a pleasure to have two people on this interview today, Mika Kinney, from Joy to the Food and Sarah Bond from Live Eat Learn join me in this episode to talk about how they grew their Instagram accounts really, really quickly. And they give us all the tips, the strategies, the gems that helped them to get there in a really short amount of time. Both of them were inspired by the helpful content update traffic downturn. And that really put them in a place to want to learn really fast how to grow Instagram so that they could get more traffic so that they could build their audience more quickly and have a bigger community. Get all of that engagement, all the good things that come along with a growing Instagram account. We talk about everything honestly, the nitty gritty of it all lighting, length of reels, how to get engagement, how to train your audience to go to your site. What having a following allows you to do and we even talked about some limiting beliefs around Instagram follower numbers. This is an incredible episode you guys are going to get so much out of this I was super inspired. It is episode number 569 sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  01:49

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Megan Porta  02:46

Mika is a food-obsessed gal who has learned everything she knows from Food Network and cooking shows. She learned how to combine sweet and spicy from Bobby Flay and how to make a sponge cake from the Great British Baking Show. As the co-founder of Joy to the Food, her mission is simple: To prove that eating more protein is not complicated and can actually be a lot of fun! Sarah Bond is the food blogger behind the vegetarian website, Live Eat Learn. With degrees in nutrition and food science, she started her food blog in 2015 as a creative outlet that combined her favorite things – photography, food, and writing. She now works full-time on her blog from Denver, Colorado. Along the way, she started her niche sites Brew Buch (pronounced “booch”) for all things kombucha brewing, and Bone Appetreat, a dog food blog! She is currently working on her first self-published cookbook, which will be released in July of 2024.

Megan Porta  03:36

Welcome Mika and Sarah. So happy to have you both. I don’t usually do two interviews at once. But we were talking at Flavor Media and decided that this would be a great opportunity for you guys to talk about your Instagram success and how quickly you’ve grown Instagram accounts and all of the amazing stuff surrounding that. So welcome. How are you guys today?

Sarah Bond  04:00

Hi, doing well. 

Mika Kinney  04:02

Yeah, doing good. Excited to be here.

Megan Porta  04:04

Yay. All right. So let’s start out just by giving people kind of a snapshot of your blog. And then also, inside of that, if you want to talk about how you got to the point where you wanted to grow your Instagram account. That would be great, too. So let’s start with you, Sarah. Yeah,

Sarah Bond  04:22

So I started my vegetarian food blog living learn almost 10 years now 10 years ago, and when I started it, I started all the general social media. So like the Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest. And my focus has always really been on Google traffic and creating content sort of for the Google algorithm. But I’ve always really enjoyed consuming content on Instagram and posting my photos on there. But it wasn’t until really the last year that I started to really take it seriously and be sort of consistently posting reels and sort of exploring a new medium for sharing the content that I’ve been creating for so long. So it It’s kind of been a fun past couple years months, as I sort of delve into this new sort of way of communicating what I’m doing. But yeah, I’ve been in the business for quite a while, but it’s always changing. So it’s fun to, yeah, talk to you guys and go to things like Flavor Media and sort of learning new things. So yeah, that’s where I’m at.

05:22

Yeah, absolutely. I know, I’ve had an Instagram account for Pip ‘n Ebby since I started blogging. So that was like 13 years ago. And I’ve given it like, pretty much minimal attention. So I keep thinking one of these years, I should probably, I don’t know, just try it out. And maybe you guys will inspire me today. But our story sound kind of similar. Okay, awesome. So Mika, do you want to talk a little bit about your blog? And what made you interested in growing your Instagram?

Mika Kinney  05:47

Yeah, so my husband and I started our website and joined as a food three and a half years ago now. And we were able to grow up pretty quickly with SEO strategy, but then the helpful content update kind of just wiped us out. So I was like, I like Sarah, I started the Instagram and the Facebook and everything. And I am a big consumer of Instagram, like I love to scroll. But I was like, if I just spend one month and I do a post every single day, I know I will get burnt out. But I just want to see what happens. And so in the new year, I was like, let’s go. So it was like mid-February is when I started doing it. And then it just really took off like are the first posts that really took off was beginning of March. So about three weeks after I started doing it. And it’s it’s been really exciting, because it’s like, wow, something is working.

Megan Porta 06:38

That is so exciting. So you said you thought you would get burnt out when you started? Did you have you gotten burnt out on it? 

Mika Kinney  06:43

Yeah, I’ve scaled back a little bit. So like, I don’t post them weekends anymore if I can help it, I’ve started doing some brand stuff. So scheduling gets a little wonky, trying to space those out. But I definitely have pared back on the actual recipes and videos, because for a while I was like creating new content, like almost every single day. And that was just a lot. So now I’m going back and just grabbing stuff from our what we have, because we have plenty of recipes to use, and niche down a lot to protein. So that’s why I needed to create so much more content.

Megan Porta 07:16

Okay. So how long was that taking you every day when you first started Mika?

Mika Kinney  07:21

That is all I did. Yeah, I don’t know, it probably took me some days, I would spend like four or five days just shooting like three or four reels. And then I would try and get at least two of those up on the site. And then the other ones I would put in the captions, I kind of spaced it out based off of like, really what I have time with or if it’s something is really simple, then I will put it in the caption because Instagram does kind of like that sometimes. And I kind of treated it as like, I’m an intern for a new company, I’m going to put the the hours in, I’m going to put the long time and I’m going to do whatever it’d be a sponge. But now I have a little bit more. So I don’t have to do the long captions. I don’t have to do things like 

Megan Porta  07:59

I love how you put that you’re going to be an intern. I think all a food blogging is like that, right? Like, you just have to have that mindset. So many people get into it. And they’re like, where’s the ROI? I don’t I don’t see where why I’m doing this and like, you can’t you can’t think of it like that, you’ve got to have that intern mindset. Okay, so you pivoted after the HCU. I’m so sorry about your traffic, I know a lot of other people are experiencing the same thing and can relate to this. And I think this is also a common thread that people are turning to platforms like Instagram to grow. So what do you guys think? And either one of you can answer this, how do you feel growing Instagram can change your business for the better? 

Sarah Bond  08:38

Well, so I was also hit by an H2. And it continues to sort of plummet. And so I really turned to Instagram and social for a few reasons. The first is to diversify, because now I’m realizing Google is not the golden egg that I thought it was. But I think it also, in working with Google, I think it helps us in social signals, that you are a brand you’re not AI generated, you’re a real entity that is creating this content and sort of gives background and experience and so I’ve sort of been leaning into it for that reason as well. And sort of what Mika was saying with burnin out, I think it can definitely happen when you’re posting so frequently on these social networks because they just want more and more and more. And so one of the ways that I’ve sort of got around this is to repurpose the content that I’m putting on Instagram and Tiktok into all the platforms. And so I put the videos on my site. So again, it’s helped me with SEO, and I put the videos on Pinterest and I put the videos on Facebook, and everywhere that I can put a video I put that video so I feel like I’m not spinning my wheels on all the platforms and I’m sort of touching all the bases. So that’s helped me just to not spread myself too thin. But yeah, it’s difficult. 

Mika Kinney  09:54

And Sarah has had some really good success on TikTok too with the same videos I don’t know about Pinterest, but we You know, some people say that Tiktok has to have longer videos, but I don’t know if you’ve found that to be true.

Sarah Bond  10:04

I have recently started editing the same videos to be longer for Tiktok. I figure most of the time spent is in shooting it anyway, so I just edited a little longer spend the extra half hour to make it a longer edit, but some of my videos that have gotten the most viral on Instagram have also gone then really successful on TikTok and YouTube shorts.

Megan Porta 10:24

So that’s awesome. And have you guys been able to tap into sponsored work at all through TikTok and, or Instagram? 

Sarah Bond  10:31

I think Mika has…

Mika Kinney  10:33

Yeah, so I’ve done that a couple. So it’s kind of funny after like, so my traffic kind of skyrocketed in like a weekend. And then my husband explained it, he’s like, all these brands are coming out of the woodworks, like little bugs. And I’m like, it’s like, all of a sudden, you know, you reach out, you reach out, you reach out and no response. And then all of a sudden, they’re sending you emails, and it’s like, okay, and part of that, I think is is having this really defined niche. But also, I don’t know, I, they just, there’s been a couple of them maybe like a month that I’ve been able to capitalize on. And then it’s been enough that it’s worth my time, for sure.

Megan Porta 11:12

And then have you guys been able to see extra traffic from Instagram? I know it takes a lot of Instagram traction to convert to traffic. But have you been able to see any of that?

Sarah Bond  11:23

I’ve seen some and I think it’s sort of twofold. So I use Many Chat to send the link and the DM to people. And that’s been very successful both for growing engagement in the comment section. And then also getting people the link because I feel like people don’t understand how to find links in bios. And it’s also helped I found with organic traffic. So one of my most viral recipes, is now my number one post its Marry Me Chickpeas and I had it on my list of recipes I wanted to develop for years. And I just didn’t do it because I couldn’t support like the keyword research. Like there’s no volume for it. But now that it’s gone viral, there’s massive volume for it. So it’s kind of like creating this stream that wasn’t even there before. And so I think it can happen in two ways. Sort of one that’s a little bit more sustainable. And one that’s for the viral posts.

Megan Porta 12:13

Yeah. So talk about the viral posts really quick. So Mika, yours happened really fast, right? You had the one post that just went wild. I’ve watched it. It’s really cute, but really short and really simple. How do you prepare for something like that? Like, we never know what’s going to go viral? Right. So how do we like once that happens? What do we do?

Mika Kinney  12:34

I think so. I was not prepared like I should have been to one extent I was because I think having your, your homepage or your Instagram profile setup is really helpful. Like, it says very clearly, what are you about, if people are coming to you, they need to know why they want to follow you. So that’s another part of it is you want people to follow you from these videos. And the way that you’re gonna get that is they need to know why they’re staying. So it can be all over the place. But then the other part of it is, don’t be afraid to change the caption. So like I didn’t have Many Chat setup, I didn’t even have the post on the website at the time. And so when I saw it start to really take off, I was like on vacation, scrambling, got it on the site, and then set up Many Chats. And it didn’t change the trajectory. It actually like Sarah said that Many Chats increases that engagement. And it just kept going up. Now mine are not the virality that there is there by any means. But I’ve seen enough traffic. So like if you look at our analytics graph, social is an outtake and outperform search at this point. So if it’s working.

Megan Porta  13:38

Oh, that’s great. And then for you, Sarah, have you seen an increase as well?

Sarah Bond  13:42

Yeah. And it’s similar to what Mika was saying, sort of preparing your profile online so that when they get to it, they know exactly why they’re following you. I think that was a huge moment for me realizing that people weren’t following you based on the thing that they just saw. They’re following you based on what are they going to see next? And so sort of just that mindset change really helped me in formulating what content I was going to create. And then sort of going off of that, when you do have something viral? I think it’s important to figure out what about it made it so popular? Was it the ingredient? Or was it the method? Or was it the song even because you can be pretty shameless about just repeating that, because you’re finding new people who haven’t seen you before. And so they aren’t tired of it yet. And so I did a whole Marioni series after that, and now I do chickpeas all the time, because I’ve learned that that’s what my audience wants. That’s why they came to me so that

Mika Kinney  14:34

Yes, so mine was a brownie one. And so I did a whole brownie series after and it was the same thing. So people in my audience wants. And so that’s what I do a lot of.

Megan Porta 14:45

How do you determine what if somebody doesn’t know like, was it the song? Was it the food? Was it my smile? How do you determine it?

Sarah Bond  14:52

That’s a good question. Yeah, I was gonna say like throwing spaghetti at the wall. That’s what I feel like I’m doing every day on Instagram. Just like seeing what sticks.

Mika Kinney 14:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuz I was when I mean, I was there someone else I was looking at and they had a viral video that was like, one bowl banana bread or something. And I don’t know, I’m just nosy. And so I go through and I look at the views of each of these. And so like, I would have thought banana bread would be the thing that was viral about it, but it wasn’t it was the one bowl. And so you could see in their previous videos like other one bowl ones were doing really well. And the banana bread was just average. So it does take some taking it apart. And I actually recently had one that I did, like a protein fudgicle. And I posted it once and I didn’t have text overlay because I had previous they had a cottage cheese dip go really do really well. So I posted this thinking the cottage cheese popsicle, or fudgicle will do well, it did not. And so I deleted it reposted the exact same video with the same text overlay as the dip. And it has skyrocketed. Within like 24 hours I did this. Like, don’t like seriously, don’t be like, be shameless. Like, it’s okay to delete, like, try it again, just trial and error.

Sarah Bond  16:06

I think also like not getting stuck in your way of doing things. Because I think for a long time with Instagram, I am like a very tidy a person. And so I thought they all had to look the exact same, they had to have a very specific style. And I’ve sort of just thrown that out the window. Because like in the name of throwing spaghetti at the wall, I’m just seeing what works on Instagram. And I think it’s constantly changing with trends with what the algorithm is pushing. So definitely don’t be afraid to change a style that you think you need to maintain.

Megan Porta 16:37

So if somebody kind of evaluates this is what’s working, maybe this is what’s working, maybe it’s the one well, maybe it’s banana bread, maybe it’s the music, and then they find that common theme and they keep doing it. What do you recommend? Do they do a reel a day like you did Mika, where do they start?

Mika Kinney 16:52

Every one that I’ve heard is just as consistency. So you’re probably fine to just do you know, every three days or whatever is sustainable for you. Because I do feel like Instagram rewards that consistency, the value and doing one every day, if you have more data to analyze. So that’s like where my engineering background comes from, is like, by nature, the more the bigger your sample size, the more data you have, and the more you can go from there. So if you can, by any means, figure out a way to do that repurposing your content, or whatever it is. And even like, now, static posts do pretty well on Instagram, like I had one to, like 15,000 reach. And that reached almost all of my followers, which was like, I guess the third two thirds of which was really good considering reels like sometimes you don’t even get that, depending on your size. So if you can great, but it’s all about sample size, I think.

Megan Porta  17:44

And then did you have something to add to that, Sarah?

Sarah Bond  17:47

Yeah, I think so I do post pretty consistently, once a day. But I have been finding that sort of in the name of not falling to burnout, but also creating content that people really enjoy. I think scaling back would be really useful. Because I think once people realize that you’re sort of just phoning it in and posting reels that might not be of the best quality or might not be superbly helpful, that’s when they might start getting frustrated by following you or with your content. So I think, post as consistently as you can, while creating something that you’re really proud of, and that people will find value in.

Megan Porta 18:22

And then what kind of is working so like, talk about length, or you know, what your background is, or music like what is working for you guys? 

Sarah Bond  18:34

For me, I think length does play a role for Instagram, it’s like 20 seconds over tick tock, it’s like approaching a minute. And then the ones that I found do really well are where I, in my voiceover share my experience, either with the recipe or like professionally because I have a science background. And so people are interested in that aspect. So I think it’s finding the thing that makes that reel or that recipe unique and unlike something they’ve seen before is what captures people and gets them interested in watching the rest of the video.

Mika Kinney 19:09

And so like Sarah’s pretty wildly different video and that videos themselves but like the actual mechanisms behind them are pretty different. So like I do very long captions and try and plug in keywords almost like writing an SEO description. So I will physically take my Q&A from the site and put it into my Instagram post or the test. I will do like the meta description is the intro sentence. I will do the ingredients but not the quantities and then if they want to find it comments or whatever. I do agree like the length mine about 20 seconds or less as well. I also try to edit so it plays as a loop so you don’t know that you’ve watched it again. The other thing is like all of my viral videos have been filmed on my wood kitchen table with like subpar lighting. It’s super annoying as somebody who likes bright light, beautiful thing, but it does. And there’s a couple other people that I’ve followed, like Aaron law school, she continually films on this wooden table with nicks in it. And I know there’s a strategy there because it works, right? So like, I’ve had some people reach out to me who are like, I don’t have the great space, I don’t have this light, whatever. Instagram doesn’t want that people don’t want to see that, like, the majority of people in the US or the world don’t have that. And so they want to see like, what is your actual kitchen? Like, do you have toys? Or are you going to step on a Lego or trying to film it? Maybe? Maybe that’s in your video? Like, there’s different things. And so that works for me is the long captions, the shorter videos and the very basic filming methods.

Megan Porta  20:46

Do you change your angles? So do you do like, shot down kind of 45 degree? Do you move around a little bit?

Mika Kinney  20:52

Yeah, move around a lot.

Sarah Bond  20:56

Yeah, I try and keep my clips to like point five seconds to one second. And then you’ll get a different angle in the next clip, because people’s attention spans are just so short that keeping it interesting, like that is really helpful. And then like Mika was saying, I think making it look like a real sort of backdrop like a real kitchen I think is really helpful even if that’s not the style of your site. I think Mika and I have similar styles of like colors, and it’s like not necessarily what a real kitchen would look like, because it’s like a purple counter. But like for videos, I think it doesn’t work as well because people can’t relate to it. It looks like a set and so I’ve been trying to add in more sort of, like lifestyle things like some plants or whatever, but yeah.

Megan Porta  21:37

People say that lately just like the lifestyle the real that’s what people want on Instagram.

Mika Kinney 21:42

Yeah. So like and I think it was your interview with Crowded Kitchen with Lexi was she mentioned having a plant in the video and literally doing that plant and then the caption similar to her is my first that was my first viral video. And so like, you can literally just, yeah, bring a plant but I have like Patos above in my bathroom. So I will take it off of my bathroom shelf and I’ll put it on the table. They don’t have flowers, but they like, you know, like,

Sarah Bond  22:09

I also have my studio pot those.

Mika Kinney  22:12

Yeah, exactly.

Megan Porta  22:16

Yeah, that’s so funny. You guys just like the plant the magic plant. 

Sponsor  22:22

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Mika Kinney  23:54

And the only thing that I’ve been working on recently is text overlay that kind of leads them on almost a year writing a newsletter. So like you’ll never believe it, you know, dot dot dot. And then later it has like lunch or whatever, which can be deceiving, but it encourages you. 

Sarah Bond  24:11

I feel like it’s a balance though. Like for every reel Id like that. Then I’ll do like a real recipe reel and then maybe I’ll do what I call like a collage reel where it’s like a bunch of different recipes sort of stitched together. So I think as long as you’re sort of creating something for everyone in their stage of knowing you like your diehards, who just want recipes, the people who just met you who wants for those teesy things. Yeah, I think it’s okay to do that.

Mika Kinney  24:35

And it shows them your personality too.

Megan Porta 24:38

keep it interesting, right, like show a variety. You mentioned static pins. Do you guys do those regularly and then do you do carousels as well?

Mika Kinney  24:47

I don’t really because they don’t work for my account very well. So I don’t tend to do that. 

Mika Kinney  24:51

Yeah, and that’s something to note like what works for our account is not going to work exactly for somebody else’s. It really is getting to know your audience. So my audience is obsessed with cottage cheese, which is great for protein. And so like, I can do some static posts like that, that I just started trialing. And I’ve been surprised at how well they’ve done. And the other thing is, I’ve gotten to the like, whatever your niche like going to your peers who are in that exact same niche and just go there and see what works for them, like do a deep dive into their content. But like, you know, my competitors, has their competitors with their peers, it’s kind of a weird balance. They also can do static pins. So that’s I started testing it, and they’ve been working well. I’ve not tested carousels yet, though.

Megan Porta  25:38

That’s a good idea to go to your competitors and just kind of poke around and then do interact with their content to a lot and engage with it. 

Sarah Bond  25:45

Yeah, I have like my, my little group that we’ve just sort of informally all started commenting on each other’s things. So it’s nice just to like, as you’re consuming it anyways, be engaging and supporting other people who are doing similar things. So yeah, I’m in people’s comment sections pretty frequently.

Mika Kinney  26:02

Yeah. Yeah, when I one of the other things I did initially was, as I watched this, like two hour video on YouTube, about how to grow your Instagram, and I don’t remember who it was, but one of the things he recommended was following people who are in your profile, or in your niche, and then commenting on all of them. And there’s mixed feelings about that. But the idea is that it signals to Instagram, like, not only are you creating this type of content, you’re consuming this type of content. So that’s what’s showing up in your feed. So I will like once I post, I’ll go into the group that’s now like Thursday, and it’s just like, accidentally, we all comment on each other’s things. And like, I’ve had my, you know, group of food bloggers like Sarah, and then a couple others, but now I’ve kind of expanded that into protein and fitness folks, too. And it does seem to help because they want to, they want engagement, and you want to support each other.

Sarah Bond  26:51

Yeah, and I don’t know if it’s just by like, because that’s when I’m on the platforms, but usually when I post is when I’ll also go back and answer a lot of the comments from the previous day’s real. And that’s on all the social platforms just so I can sort of minimize the time I’m on them. So for Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Facebook. And I think that does help because I’m going back and liking people’s comments, like readers comments and responding to them. And I think it sort of brings me back up to the front of their mind. And so then they go and look at the next reel that I just posted. So I think that’s been really helpful. It’s not intentional. It’s just how it’s happened. But it has been helpful.

Megan Porta 27:28

And then what about lighting? Do you guys just do whatever lighting is happening in your house? Do you set up anything extra,

Sarah Bond  27:34

I have artificial lights that I’ve used just because I’ve moved houses so many times that it’s really hard to, you know, find a house that has just the right lighting. So I use artificial for my photography, and I was doing that for video, but I found recently that the ones that do really well have that really harsh direct sunlight. And so I have a window in my house, I get sunlight for like two hours. And so I plan my days around that which is a bit stressful, but the direct sunlight does seem to be working really well because it really just makes the colors pop and it makes it look so crisp. And yeah, it’s really nice, but artificial is a good alternative.

Mika Kinney  28:08

Yeah, I do all natural light. I’m an exciting glass door that I film in front of but Minnesota likes to be cloudy. And so we’re a little bit limited in that and I used to film like okay, only these days I’m going to film but I was getting too stressed out but now I film if I gotta get it done, it’s gonna be when it’s cloudy and like from my account those do well and like I was saying it’s very frustrating because I love that harsh bright light. But I have so and even outside so like when we had snow on the ground, they just film outside. So that’s another thing that like, there’s someone who traveled full time and they were like, how am I going to film and like go outside like go find a picnic table like one of my best reels of film that my parents house on like their 20 year old coffee table outside. But like there’s a lot of potential

Megan Porta 28:53

Mika I think one of your kind of distinct brand elements is that harsh lighting I’ve noticed like the light coming in your window and even like in your eyes but in like your eyes are so beautiful. So I’m always like, Oh my gosh, her eyes I get lost in your eyes. 

Mika Kinney  29:10

Yeah, thank you. 

Megan Porta  29:11

Yeah, no, it is something that stands out.

Mika Kinney  29:14

Right that’s what I wanted.

Megan Porta  29:15

I noticed that even before I knew that you were digging into Instagram extra. I was like, Oh, this is like an actual brand element for Mika and her Instagram account. So yeah, it’s definitely noticeable. Anything else about just kind of what you do for styling or setting up your scenes or anything like that that we should cover?

Sarah Bond  29:38

I think that’s pretty much it for me. I do highly recommend getting there’s like it’s on a tripod for your phone but it’s like a looks like a crane almost that I latch on to my counter. And that has been really, really helpful for getting all those different shots without having to like reset up tripod every time or move your phone. And so yeah, basically just works. And you can like move your phone all around your set. And I can send you the link, if you want to put it in the notes after this. But yeah, that’s been really, really helpful for quickly filming reels.

Mika Kinney  30:08

Yeah. And it’s also like, I like to have two setups. So I’ll have one static tripod and then the other one overhead. So that way, I can just move the phone and I’m not, when I go to edit the clip, the vote is still in the same place because the tripod hasn’t necessarily the main one hasn’t moved, but I can move that overhead. 

Megan Porta  30:24

Yeah, that’s a great recommendation. Okay, I had questions about going back to traffic. I know that most people on Instagram aren’t going to Instagram to go to your blog. So how do you train them to go from your Instagram account to your blog?

Sarah Bond  30:42

I think kind of going back to the Many Chat discussion, I think that does help a lot. And I’ve almost noticed that when I go into these Message Threads, like in my automation, send someone, a DM with the link, often go just to check that it’s working for the first few people. And I found that a lot of these people have requested many, many recipes from me. So I think that a lot of people are using that as a way of saving recipes, and so that they remember to come back to it. And so yeah, Many Chat has been very helpful with getting that direct link to people. And then I do have the link in my bio. And that’s just instead of being like the company called Lincoln buyer, or whatever it is, it’s just a page on my site that I’ve created. And so in the caption, sometimes I’ll say like the link is in my profile. But on that page, I have like my most viral recipes linked at the very top, because I figure a majority of the traffic is looking for those anyways. So I just have one right there. And then I have a button to all my recipes. And then I have all the recipes listed under that. But I have found that if you say that there’s a link that they need to go to, or if you use words like go to link in my profile or recipe on my site, in the caption, sometimes it doesn’t do as well. And I’m not sure if that’s the algorithm trying to keep people on the platform or not. But I do for that reason, sort of go back and forth on whether or not I want to include that in the caption.

Mika Kinney  32:04

Do you find that that your landing page has a pretty high click through? Like do people go to it?

Sarah Bond  32:15

Yeah, it’s like the number five post page on my site. Yeah, so it does really well. And the bounce rate is very low.

Mika Kinney  32:20

Yours is very clean. It’s easy to navigate.

Sarah Bond  32:30

Yeah, there’s not many ads on it. And then I took my Instagram bio photo, and I sort of made it look how it does on Instagram, like with a circle and like the gray thing around it. And I put that on the Linkin bio page so that when they get to, it doesn’t look like a totally different experience. It kind of still looks like Instagram, although it’s my website.

Megan Porta  32:47

That’s really smart. Everyone’s gonna go scope it out. Now.

Mika Kinney  32:53

I wanted to note with like the Many Chat, so like to give an idea of like, the percentage of people based on another video just to be realistic. And maybe there’s a fire. So like, one of my videos that has 160,000 views, it only has, well, I should do a different one. So it has 180,000 views, and 1200 comments, but 600 of those people requested the recipe and 40% click through. So it’s a low number based off of the overall. Like realistically, that’s kind of what you’re going for. And then something else you can do that someone gave me a tip one is in Many Chat, like you can set up an auto response. So like I’ll have an auto respond like DM sent, check your your messages, if you can also search. Or you can also Google quote, Joy to the Food Protein Parfait. And there’s been a couple of times where people have actually searched for the food, whatever it is, and that I feel like signals to Google like, oh, people are actually searching like this site. And so it helps overall on the other side.

Megan Porta 33:59

Yeah, that’s a great point, too. Oh, I had a question about hashtags. Do you guys use them anymore? Are they dead? What do you think?

Sarah Bond  34:06

I don’t have a great strategy around it. I include, like 10 for each. But it’s just hashtags that I think set the recipe based on sort of like the category of the recipe or the ingredients used. But yeah, I don’t have a great strategy for it. But I think it could be doing more, because I think they are still alive.

Mika Kinney  34:23

I don’t use any hashtags. I well. I just started using hashtag after Flavor Media periodically. So what I was I was doing was like say the name of it was protein fudgsicle, I would do protein hashtag fudgsicle and then do all my descriptions. I would include them naturally instead of at the end. And I only did like three to five. I didn’t see it have a great return sometimes, but then it really seems to still be more about the video itself. Like how much is that initial engagement. I have also started testing there’s been some tech chatter about doing this keywords at the bottom. So basically, you just type a keyword, so say protein, and then vertical bar, bunch of all vertical bar recipes, or whatever it’s like three or five of them. And now I’ve done those are my static posts, and they’ve done well. But they’ve only been shown mostly to my followers, I don’t think it has any relevant to the doing that. That’s basically you can do whatever. See what works for your account.

35:29

Yeah, I’ve heard that is all over the place to like, some people swear that hashtags work great for their account. And some people say, they never use hashtags. So I think just experiment with that, too, right?

Mika Kinney  35:43

Sarah’s captions are shorter, and then she does a hashtag, whereas mine are longer. So I don’t do the hashtag. And my theory is that as long as you have keywords in there, you’re gonna get some sort of reach. 

Sarah Bond  35:54

That’s a good point. I was gonna ask, how do you track your analytics? Because I feel like you’ve been talking a lot about analyzing this data. And I just haven’t had great success, like digging into Instagram analytics, because do you have to go post by post? Or is there an easier way of sort of looking at everything holistically.

Mika Kinney  36:11

You literally go post a post. It’s so yeah, so I will go into each one and like, calculate the engagement rate. And then I will, I guess you can look in your Instagram analytics and look at like your top posts by engagement by, you know, reach or whatever. So then I’ll basically cross reference those to see which ones have both the highest, whatever. And then I’ll go into analytic Google Analytics or Many Chat and see which one has the highest click through like, actually people going, but I guess I really even have to go to Many Chats for that, because I’m not great with G4 analytics so I cannot separate Instagram versus Pinterest social. And a lot of it is kind of just like, I’ll scroll through it and get a feel for it in a sense. And then I’ll go for it, whatever it be, you know, like I got a sense for cottage cheese is doing well. So I’m just pushing that out.

Sarah Bond  36:55

I think going back to what we were saying earlier about finding the thing about that viral recipe that’s working and figuring out what that is, I think that could be a helpful way of doing it. Because when you see, even if it’s just seeing which ones have the most views, or the most engagement or whatever, I think sort of seeing those clusters of types of content, could be helpful to like, bring out things about them that could be doing well that you’re not realizing.

Mika Kinney  37:19

And something to that I’ve noticed early on was I was I had felt like I cracked it as far as getting that reach, like my reach was really I was really happy with my reach, but the engagement was not what I wanted it to be. So then I went back and looked at the posts that have been good engagement to try and match, you know, what is that viral part of it? And then what is it that people like like about it, and match those because you want that higher engagement rate? If you want to do sponsored work and if you just want people to look good on your site.

Sarah Bond  37:46

Yeah. Which I feel like is kind of the end goal for us. And I think a lot of people listening is that it’s nice to have followers, and it’s nice to have a lot of likes, but if they’re not clicking through or, you know, helping build a readership then it’s all for nothing anyways, yeah.

Mika Kinney  38:04

Yeah, the whole goal is to have a community and to have people who seek you out, and you want to provide for them. I mean, these are your people. So we want to give them what they want.

Megan Porta  38:13

So what do you guys think about just this idea that I know, was not too long ago that people were holding on to about like, you need 10,000 followers? Like that was the magic number, right? Like you need 10,000 followers? And then I don’t know, somewhere? Oh, I think it got lost, because the was that when the link was available in stories? And then people kind of dropped that 10,000 number. I feel like there’s such a limiting belief around this 10k. What are your guys’s thoughts on that? Can you like, is it worth it to grow an account that’s outside of that number? Is my question.

Sarah Bond  38:53

Also, for me, I think eliminating thought that I had when I was less than 10k. And even like, in a majority of my blogging career, I had a very small amount of followers. And so my limiting belief was that I was never going to grow. And that Instagram didn’t like me and I couldn’t grow. And I have proven that wrong, I think to myself, which has been really nice. So yeah, I think that is one of the limiting beliefs. And the other is that you need it to make money or you needed to have an audience which you certainly don’t because I was doing this for a long time before I had any sort of following on social media.

Megan Porta  39:31

Yeah. Oh, go ahead, Mika. 

Mika Kinney  39:33

And I think, I was gonna say like, for me, the limiting belief was that ROI. So like, my husband and I are both engineers. We have a very, like, if he doesn’t equal pay Why would we do a? And so this idea that, like, why would I spend time on something? But deep down? I was like, I know. I’m weird, and I’m quirky. And I know people will relate like, I can do it. And so I was like, Yeah, I think that was my limiting belief is honestly outside forces because you hear that like, oh, I can’t do this, but I really yeah. I can. Let’s go.

Megan Porta 40:15

You believed in yourself. You believed in yourself? Yeah, what you said, Sarah, that’s so true. I think that if you have an account that’s under 10k, you just assume that you’re kind of stuck there forever? And that there’s no hope? Like, why would I try? Why? You know, there’s no point that you guys have proven that there is a point because I want to talk about numbers. So mica you went from? What did you start with before your viral video? And where are you at now?

Mika Kinney  40:42

So I went from 1300 followers that I was at for like a year and a half to 15,000 in a weekend. And then I’m at 27,000. Now. So yeah. All started, I guess it was April 19. Is when it took of.

Megan Porta  41:00

Oh, that’s so amazing. And once it starts, don’t you feel like the momentum is there. And it just kind of as long as you keep up with it and keep tabs on what’s going on? The momentum sticks?

Mika Kinney  41:11

Yeah, I think that’s where it comes into, like really understanding what your audience wants, so you can keep that momentum going.

Megan Porta  41:16

And then Sarah, where are your numbers at?

Sarah Bond  41:21

So I was at, like, in the 20000s for my entire blogging journey, for like, eight years of it. And then in November, I posted my first viral the Mary Me Chickpeas. And since November, I’ve got up to 260,000. 

Megan Porta  41:36

Oh, that’s amazing. You guys, you guys are killing it. Super inside.

Sarah Bond  41:40

It’s a snowball though. Because yeah, we were celebrating 100k one weekend, and then the next weekend I hit 200k. Which is just, yeah, so it’s just, it’s crazy how the momentum happens, it snowballs, and then it sort of just feeds itself. So yeah, it’s definitely not a true belief that you will be stuck. Right, right.

Mika Kinney  42:05

And once you have that viral one, it does seem like Instagram is like, oh, people like this content, people are engaging. So you’re more likely to have you know, it might be time between when you have that next viral one. But once you have one, it’s just a matter of time before you have another as long as you’re creating content continuously.

Megan Porta  42:24

I think this is such an important discussion right now, especially with other people are having HCU issues and Google issues and traffic loss, some devastating traffic loss. So I think this is going to be super inspiring. Is there anything that we have forgotten to mention that you guys want to touch on?

Mika Kinney  42:42

I did just want to mention that you can also use your Instagram following to grow your newsletter, which I know a lot of people are trying to do. So our newsletters started at, like 200. And we’re at just about 1000 now, which like seems small. But you know, that’s, you know, that 1000 numbers and like really exciting for us, because those are people who are actively signing up to be with you. And I know that that’s what a lot of people are trying to do now.

Sarah Bond  43:06

Yeah, and kind of going with that, too. I think this is I know, it’s a very scary time for a lot of people. And I personally was pretty hurt by the Google updates recently. But I think it’s also kind of exciting time to share who we are and share our stories. And really be unique because for so long, we were just making recipes, I think a lot of us for Google or for keywords, and they lacked a lot of personality. And now I think that personality, and unique angles are being celebrated on social media. And in turn, I think also on our sites. And so I think like Mika was saying, like building your email lists, like have readers who know you and want to come back to you and building your social is, is scary, but I think it’s exciting. And I think it is the way that we are going to need to start moving to stay current with how things are looking in this industry.

Megan Porta 43:56

Yeah, no, that’s so true. I talk to a lot of food bloggers on a weekly basis. And I love the ones who have this perspective that you guys have like, this is an opportunity to really get connected and to focus on different things. Because there are definitely food bloggers on the other side who are like, this sucks. I’m my business. I’m just gonna throw in the towel. So I really appreciate that you guys are just grasping the positive and running with you know, this new pivot. So good job you guys. And then do you want to share your Instagram accounts, please so that people can go check you out?

Sarah Bond  44:33

Yeah, mine is called liveeatlearn.

Mika Kinney  44:35

And I’m at underscore joytothefood underscore. Have somebody had joytothefood.

Megan Porta  44:43

Yeah, right. Yeah, everyone go check those accounts out. Thank you guys so much. And then we will put together a show notes page just in case you want to go there instead. And that’s at eatblogtalk.com/HCUtoInstagram, we decided to call it so yeah, Sara and Mika, you guys are amazing. So inspiring. Thank you for joining us and wishing you so much more success. Thanks for sharing your stories with us. 

Sarah Bond  45:08 

Thank you.

Mika Kinney  45:09

Thank you. It was awesome. And if anybody has questions like feel free to reach out to either of us. 

Sarah Bond  45:14

Yeah.

Megan Porta  45:15

Awesome. Thanks guys.

Outro 45:20

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk, please share this episode with a friend who would benefit from tuning in. I will see you next time.