Episode 779: The Instagram Strategy Behind 200K Followers (In 5 Minutes) With Natalie Battaglia

EBT779 – Natalie Battaglia

[00:00:00]  Megan Porta 

What if growing on Instagram did not require daily posting or viral content? Nat Battaglia built a global brand with smart, simple and sustainable growth strategies. And today she is sharing her best tips from one 5 minute video that brought in 200,000 followers to intentional repurposing and community first content. This episode is a gold mine for food bloggers who are ready to grow without burning out.

[00:00:31] Intro  

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

[00:00:48]  Megan Porta

Hello, Nat slash Natalie. How are you today?

[00:00:51]  Natalie Battaglia 

I’m really well. How are you?

[00:00:52]  Megan Porta 

I’m doing so well. You are across the world. It’s early for you. Kind of later for me. So, so happy that you joined us today and got up early for it. Thank you. We’re going to talk about Instagram today. I know that you are crushing it on Instagram. You have been for a while and we’re so eager to learn from you. First, though, I’m going to ask you two questions. Do you have a fun fact to share? We’ll go with that.

[00:01:17]  Natalie Battaglia 

First, I absolutely do have a fun fact and it’s related to my name. So my surname is pronounced Battaglia. And. And I have that name because I took my husband’s last name when we got married and we were talking to some family friends of his a couple of years back and they pointed out that if we lived in Italy, my full name would be Natalia Battaglia.

[00:01:43]  Megan Porta 

I love that so much. I mean, how cool would it be to have that name, Natalia Battaglia?

[00:01:50]  Natalie Battaglia 

I know it makes me sound far more glamorous than what I actually am. It does.

[00:01:54]  Megan Porta 

It sounds like a very glamorous name. Oh, that’s so great. And my next question is regarding what we’re going to be talking about today. What would you say the pain point is that people are having who are listening to this episode and like, yes, this is going to help me. What is their pain point?

[00:02:14]  Natalie Battaglia 

I feel like hopefully we will be solving the problems or at least providing some tips around, you know, if you’re having a situation with stagnant growth, if you’re finding that your engagement isn’t great, you find that your content just isn’t landing. And really, I just have so many people say, throw up their hands to me and say Instagram is just a huge, big drag and I just need to make it easier and I don’t know how to make it easier. So they would be the pain points.

[00:02:44]  Megan Porta 

Perfect.

[00:02:45]  Natalie Battaglia 

That hopefully we will solve by the end.

[00:02:47]  Megan Porta 

I think a lot of people listening can relate to a lot of those pain points. So I think this is going to solve everyone’s problems. Thank you for showing up, Nat.

[00:02:56]  Natalie Battaglia 

Such a pleasure.

[00:02:56]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about Mindful Mocktail, your amazing blog.

[00:03:01]  Natalie Battaglia 

Thank you. So yes, my blog, the Mindful Mocktail, was born around six years ago now and it was a Covid baby blog, like so many out there, but it does have a quite a personal story behind it. I had, I was going to say alcohol and I were not good friends, or maybe we were too good of friends.

[00:03:24]   

And I did get to a point where I thought, you know, you know what, I really do need to cut back on my drinking. And I decided to have a period where I didn’t drink alcohol at all. And when I did, I was really, I don’t know what the word is. Disappointed. Outraged.

[00:03:44]   

I felt excluded. All of the things when I searched online for decent non alcoholic drink recipes, don’t get me wrong, like there was some out there. But the starker difference when you googled cocktail recipes versus mocktail recipes was just, you know. Yeah, they were just miles apart. And I just was outraged at the injustice of it all.

[00:04:10]   

And I thought there needs to be better resources out there for people who make the choice, or some people don’t make the choice. They have to, whether they’re on medication or whatever it might be to cut down or stop drinking. And it was born out of one of those, you know, create what you wish existed in the world.

[00:04:29]   

And during COVID I did some, a couple of mixology courses online. I had a herb garden growing in the backyard and you know, I had my boys home with me. We were homeschooling. We had the longest lockdown in the world here in Melbourne. So we certainly had time to, to focus on other things.

[00:04:50]   

And yeah, I had some experience with SEO and I thought how great would it be if I started sharing these recipes with the world? So I did. And yeah, it just, it absolutely took off. But I did know from very early on with what I knew about RPMs and blog traffic and things like that, that I would need to, if I wanted to make it a full time business for me, I would.

[00:05:22]   

Or make a full time income, I should say that I would need to look at other ways to expand other than my website because RPMs for drinks have always been lower than food, which is totally understandable. People spend less time on the page and you know, they just don’t need to spend as long on my website for drinks.

[00:05:45]   

And I went through a very short stage of feeling down about that. And then I thought, oh, hang on a minute. This is the perfect opportunity to make sure that I have, you know, multiple income streams. And I threw everything into Instagram and, yeah, and it’s definitely paid off. And it’s. Yeah, it’s been a wild ride, but it’s been fantastic.

[00:06:07]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Such a fun journey. And you have a cookbook out too, with mocktails, correct?

[00:06:13]  Natalie Battaglia 

Yes, yes. I released a book around this time last year. It’s called The Mindful Mocktail. And my drinks have always. So I’ve. I’ve done, you know, quite a few of recreating the classics and things like that on my website. But the one piece of feedback that I used to get when I started making mocktails is I don’t want to stop drinking alcohol or cut down alcohol and replace it with a ton of refined sugar and other nasties.

[00:06:41]   

So a lot of my recipes, I would say the vast majority now, have taken on more of a functional twist, whether it be using teas or adaptogens or whatever it might be. Yeah, yeah. So I do quite a few electrolyte drinks and things like that now. And it’s very. It’s niche. Niche. It’s, you know, it’s not just drinks, it’s non alcoholic drinks and then it’s not just non alcoholic drinks, it’s functional non alcoholic drinks.So I’m niching further and further down, but. But I’m finding that that’s really resonating well with my audience.

[00:07:15]  Megan Porta 

Amazing. So you said you took some time to grow your Instagram account. How long did it take you? Because your Instagram account is huge. You have a lot of followers. How long did it take you to get there?

[00:07:30]  Natalie Battaglia 

I started the Instagram account side by side with the blog. So it would have been around five, five and a half years ago now that I started Instagram. And I found that the initial. It sort of came in in waves. So the initial growth was very strong because I was telling a lot about my personal story as well with drinking.

[00:07:57]   

And I feel like that really landed with people. So. And, you know, it’s really adopting the storytelling approach that, you know, everyone talks about today. But I was just doing that five years ago, so I wouldn’t just share a mocktail. I would share a mocktail and an experience or a story that I might have had about, you know, a situation where I went to a party and everyone was drinking and I wasn’t drinking.

[00:08:21]   

And this is how I felt, but this is how I handled it and this is what I learned. So I feel like I really connected with people early on. And I’ve had so many people say to me over the years, you know, it’s never just been about the drinks. It’s always been about so much more than that.

[00:08:38]   

It’s about understanding people and creating an inclusive space for people who don’t drink. So the initial growth was really strong. And then I went through probably a year, year and a half where it was. It was steady and then steady, but probably not quite as sharp as that first sort of year. And then the last couple of years, it has absolutely exploded.

[00:09:03]   

And I think the reason for that is, you know, I’ve had lots of time to test content. Now I really know what lands with my audience. I know what my community wants. I poll them regularly. I do all of the things. I ask them lots of questions in my stories about what they’re looking for and what they want.

[00:09:21]   

And now I’m at a point where. And I’ll talk about it in a moment, but I’m able to. I’ve tapped into them so well, I suppose that I am able to create content that really lands because I. I just, I know what works now. But that all comes from posting and making mistakes and posting again and improving on last time and all of those things.

[00:09:45]  Megan Porta 

Lots of experimentation, it sounds like. So that kind of leads into our first point. I think that is the foundation, would you say, is just really understanding who you’re speaking to, what their pain points are and what they’re needing from us.

[00:10:01]  Natalie Battaglia 

Yes, yes. And I’ll give you an example. And this might seem. Seem uber specific, but I feel like there are ways that we can all adapt this story or apply this story to our own audience. So when Taylor Swift was doing the ERAS tour.

[00:10:24]  Megan Porta 

What conversation am I having?

[00:10:28]  Natalie Battaglia 

So this is uber specific, but when she doing the ERAS tour, I. I noticed a lot of Swifties commenting on my posts. And you can tell that they’re Swifties because they have this special handle and it’s Taylor’s. Taylor’s version. Any Swifties out there will understand, but they have their name and then in brackets they have Taylor’s version.

[00:10:49]   

And you know that her tour was just going off and I was getting so much Taylor Swift content in my feed, like it was just crazy. And I thought, this is really interesting. I feel like Swifties love mocktails. You know, I’m seeing this same. These same Songs pop up over and over again.

[00:11:06]   

These same like people mentioning Taylor Swift. Every time I used a Taylor Swift song, people would comment on, I love the song and it, and I just thought this, this is really interesting. So one night I’m on the couch, I see a trending audio, a Taylor Swift trending audio pop up on my feed.

[00:11:27]   

And I thought, you know what, I’m just going to do a little compilation of like my best performing videos. Just like a one second snapshot of each. And I think there were maybe eight to 10 drinks. And I put a text overlay. So there was no voiceover, there was just a text overlay.

[00:11:46]   

It’s still pinned in my feed. So if you go to my reels tab, it’s still pinned there up the top. And it just talked about, you know, it was something along the lines of POV. You’re looking for nourishing mocktails and you find my account. Now that piece of content took me five minutes.

[00:12:06]   

I shared it and over the course of the next three weeks I got over 200,000 followers from that one. 200,000 followers from one piece of content from five minutes on the couch. And you know, stuff like that, I mean that’s life changing for creators because I feel, I think that actually like doubled my following at the time.

[00:12:29]   

So I went from 250 to 400 and just over 450,000. So not quite doubled but the what that led to. You know, obviously I was able to, I do a little bit of brand work, so I was able to all of a sudden charge more for brand work. I had all of these new followers that were visiting my website and signing up for my email list and it just this one piece of content really exploded.

[00:12:58]   

So as I said, I feel like that is a really specific example, but it’s a really good example of what can happen if you truly tap into your audience and pay attention to what’s going on, like who is commenting on your posts. There’s even an option now on Instagram where when you go to the trending audio section, when you go to add an audio to a video, you’ll have an option, there’s trending audio, but then there’s another tab which is called something along the lines of audio your audience loves.

[00:13:31]   

And you can tap across to that and see what kind of audio is my are my followers using? Am I seeing the same artists turning up over and over again? Like just really getting specific about who you’re speaking to and who is naturally being drawn to your account? I’m hoping that that’s making sense.

[00:13:54]  Megan Porta 

That makes perfect sense. So impressive. So for that video that you just talked about, did you have Taylor Swift audio, I’m assuming?

[00:14:02]  Natalie Battaglia 

Yes. Yes. So I had a Taylor Swift audio and it was very short. And we’ll talk about retention in a minute because I do believe that retention is probably the number one algorithm factor at the moment for Instagram. Based on what I am seeing. It was Taylor Swift. It was very short, the drinks were very pretty, so aesthetically pleasing.

[00:14:25]   

And then obviously the text overlay was also speaking to my audience as well. And I knew at the time I was writing the book, so I was. And the book does have this nourishing element to it. It was put together with a nutritionist and we tried to make them as low as sugar and as.

[00:14:42]   

As, you know, better for you as possible. So I knew I wanted to also attract and speak to that kind of audience as well, which is why I put the nourishing theme in the text overlay.

[00:14:54]  Megan Porta 

Okay, so we shouldn’t exactly go and copy your reel, but we. What can we learn from this? Just tune in, experiment, and then sit on the couch and hopefully get 200,000 followers like you did.

[00:15:09]  Natalie Battaglia 

Well, look, Yeah, I feel like it’s all about experimentation, right. And those compilation type videos. And I. I’ve got that as a point to talk about soon. Actually. We could probably talk at a about it now if you like. Go for it. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to make the point that even putting that particular piece of viral content aside, I have made almost.

[00:15:38]   

I have grown more than half of my following using recycled content, not brand new recipes. And what I mean by that is creating compilations of my best recipes or my most aesthetically pleasing recipes where maybe 8 to 10 recipes will feature very quick bursts. So I don’t like to have any frame longer than a second each and I usually put them together, matching the beat of a trending audio that is quite short.

[00:16:15]   

Again, uber specific. But I have found that this work and you’ll see examples of this all through my feed. I now use that same method to attract email subscribers. So I use grocer’s list for. I call it Molly’s method. So Molly, from what Molly made, just discussed this at a conference that I went to earlier this year and she talked about creating a freebie or an opt in for your Instagram followers.

[00:16:48]   

And like, as a. Like, in order to get the opt in, they need to sign up to your email list. So I used this same method, like short. Another one is pinned in my feed at the moment. But short, sharp clips. Put them all together and then, you know, it’s say, I’ve got a Christmas one at the moment, so I’ll use that.

[00:17:09]   

But it’s say, merry to get your free holiday ebook. And, you know, in the last week, I’ve had over 7,000 subscribers from one that I posted last week. So this kind of content really lands. It shows who you are, what you do in a very short amount of time. Because, as I said, retention.

[00:17:30]   

Retention is so important. And. Yeah, and it’s the perfect way to attract your ideal audience. And I think of content sort of in two buckets like that. You know, compilations like that is designed to attract a new audience. And then my recipes are designed to nurture my current audience. And while the recipes do sometimes attract new followers, I feel like the.

[00:18:01]   

The ratio or the percentage, like, I probably get around 20% of my new followers from recipes and 80% of my new followers from these compilations that I do.

[00:18:12]  Megan Porta 

You just solved a pain point of mine. Thank you so much. So I. I have put my Instagram account on hold for five years, and I’m just getting back into it for the past month or so. And it’s so wild. Nat, I noticed that I have been publishing content every day. It’s. I’m like you, doing a lot of experimentation.

[00:18:33]   

I’m learning every day. I’m making better hooks, I’m improving. It’s not just like, I’m throwing stuff up there just to throw content up there. Like, I’m actually truly engaged and learning from it. And I feel like I’m getting better and better and better. I am not getting any new followers. Literally, it’s the same follower count than when I started.

[00:18:54]   

Zero. Like, no new follower. Lots of, like, views. Some of my reels are getting decent views. So this just gave me the idea that maybe my recipes aren’t the ticket to get some traction with new followers. Maybe I should do some compilation videos just showing what my brand is all about.

[00:19:14]  Natalie Battaglia 

Absolutely. And it’s such an easy thing to do. And this is quite a, I suppose, an advanced tip once you get the compilations nailed. But even now, when I’m editing my recipe videos, I call them, like, hero shots. So, like, the best clip of a. Of a recipe where you’re like, yep, that will be the clip that will make people want to make this recipe.

[00:19:40]   

And I now save them into a different folder. Yeah, just that one shot so that they’re easy to access. So you’re not going back and you’re not editing a bunch of old videos or anything like that. You’ve got all your money shots or your hero shots saved in a folder and you can just chop and change them and add them in different orders and add a different text overlay.

[00:20:02]   

And you know, I would recommend that people do, I would say at least two compilations a month, if not more. I mean, if you’re posting every day, you could make one out of seven a compilation. And these are the, you know that that’s the ticket to sort of growing the, growing the account.In my experience, recipes don’t do it as well. For me, it’s all about these compilations.

[00:20:28]  Megan Porta 

Price of admission right there. But we have so much more to talk about. Thank you. So honestly, that helped a lot. I was right before our call. I was actually creating a little schedule and now I’m gonna have to redo that, which is great. Super excited. Okay, so creating content with intention, experimenting.

[00:20:46]   

Talk about some of the repurposing you talked about too. But let’s talk about some of the kind of logistics. So we’re gonna talk about how long should we make it? How do we know how long? Because we can make it up to a certain amount or as short as two seconds. So let’s start there. How long do we start with.

[00:21:05]  Natalie Battaglia 

Before we talk about length, I’d really love to talk about retention because I believe that retention, based on what I’m seeing is one of the key algorithmic ranking factors. However you want to word it for Instagram right now. And retention, you know, put really simply, is if your video is 10 seconds long and people watch 8 seconds of it, on average, your retention rate is 80%.

[00:21:29]   

Right. So the idea is to get that retention percentage as high as possible. So I will have videos that might have. Let’s just say it’s a really quick six second video. If I do a quick compilation, it’s a six second video. I might have a 90% retention rate on that video. I might only have.

[00:21:52]   

I’ll just pull a number out, a thousand likes. So what I would consider quite a low amount of sort of likes and engagement on a post. But it’s being pushed out to an incredible number of people because the retention is so high. So I feel like we need to be, you know, and all of the Instagram experts that you speak to at the moment, it’s like, no, people aren’t engaging as much on posts.

[00:22:18]   

Really what these platforms are looking at now is watch time. So when we talk about length, I think we really need to think about number One, do we make our content shorter and more punchy and straight to the point in order to get that retention rate as high as possible, or do we have a story to tell?

[00:22:44]   

So there is. I’m not a storyteller. There are some brilliant storytellers out there, though, in Food Bloggerland, where I, you know, they’ll make the recipe and tell a story at the same time. I have. That’s never been part of my method, so I can’t speak to that. But what I will say is we do need to be our own harshest critic in terms of deciding is this story interesting enough for someone to sit here for 30 seconds, 40 seconds, whatever it might be?

[00:23:12]   

I try and keep all of my videos under 20 seconds. I’ve just found that that is the sweet spot for me. Some of my recipe videos are as short as 12 seconds, and I know that mine are drinks. So it’s, you know, it’s a different sort of thing. But we really do need. When we think about length, we need to think about retention. Is this going to retain the user for as long as possible? And if it’s not, cut out some of the fluff.

[00:23:41]  Megan Porta 

And if somebody doesn’t know how to find that, how long people are watching, how do they do that? Is it easy?

[00:23:48]  Natalie Battaglia 

Yeah, it’s actually in your Instagram analytics and it’s under I should have had a look before we got on. So if you go into View Insights for the post, I’m actually going to have a look while we’re right here on the call. While I’m talking. If you go into View Insights on the post, it will actually tell you your retention rate for any given piece of content.

[00:24:16]   

It is under, yeah, View Insights. And about two thirds of the way down the page, you’ll find your retention. And you’ll also find your skip rate and your typical skip rate. So your skip rate is when someone swipes past your video, as in they’re not interested. So it will tell you what your typical skip rate is and what that real skip rate is.

[00:24:43]   

So that really will be a huge determining factor as to, okay, do I create this sort of content again? Did this land with my audience? Did they skip away from it really quickly? And if they did skip away quickly, why did they skip away quickly?

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[00:26:04] Megan Porta

So, okay, so I have a reel that’s doing really well as far as views go. But the Skip rate is 64%, which I assume is not good.64%. Does that mean that 64% of people are scrolling past it before it finishes?

[00:26:18]  Natalie Battaglia 

It does. I’d be interested to know your typical.

[00:26:21]  Megan Porta 

Skip Skip rate is 58%. So that also is not good.

[00:26:27]  Natalie Battaglia 

Oh, well, that’s not too bad. So my typical skip rate is 55%.

[00:26:31]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:26:31]  Natalie Battaglia 

So, yeah, you’d be surprised at some of the averages. So what is the length of the piece of content? Do you know?

[00:26:37]  Megan Porta 

It is. Let’s see. I think it is about. I think it’s 18 seconds. 18 to 20 seconds.

[00:26:45]  Natalie Battaglia 

Okay. I feel like that might be, like, based on what I’ve seen from some of your videos, I feel like that might be a little bit shorter than normal. So I do wonder if, is it that retention? Is it because, like, skip rate and retention, two different things. Yeah. So I do wonder, are you retaining people for longer on that piece of video and is that why it’s being pushed out to more people?

[00:27:08]  Megan Porta 

Right, right. So, yeah, dig into your analytics. I think this is something I hear a lot too, from people who really crush it on Instagram is, look at your analytics. Don’t be afraid of them. Look and see what people are watching, what they’re not watching, what they’re skipping, what they’re engaging with. And then you take it and you learn from it and you adapt.

[00:27:27]   

Right.

[00:27:29]  Natalie Battaglia 

And if you don’t know how to. You know, sometimes numbers, for me, I look at numbers and I think, well, that’s great, but I don’t know what to do with that. Like, what is that telling me? So I have been known to screenshot my analytics, put them into ChatGPT, and say, what is this telling me?

[00:27:47]   

What should I be creating more of? What should. What do these numbers tell you about this piece of content versus this piece of content? And I know it’s getting really granular, but you’d be surprised what you can learn in 15 minutes. You don’t have to go digging down a huge rabbit hole. It could be as simple as adding it into your workflow on a Monday.

[00:28:08]   

Do a quick 10 minute. I’m going to throw my retention and Skip rate into ChatGPT and say, what can I learn about my content from last week? And just, you know, use that to inform decision making for future pieces of content.

[00:28:22]  Megan Porta 

Such great advice because this is a major hang up. A lot of us don’t like digging into analytics and we don’t even, like you said, we don’t even know what we’re looking at. We’re like, okay, that’s great. What does this mean?

[00:28:33]  Natalie Battaglia 

Yeah. Yes. What does this mean? I don’t like looking at it either. Yeah, use ChatGPT.

[00:28:38]  Megan Porta 

Exactly. Lean into the robot technology. Okay. Anything else about length and retention rate?

[00:28:47]  Natalie Battaglia 

No, that was. Length is probably the longest point because I just really wanted to hammer that point. Home retention seems to be such a big deal right now. Just we need to be retaining the user for as long as possible.

[00:28:58]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:28:58]  Natalie Battaglia 

So it’s either do, do I do shorter pieces of content or do I tell a story so compelling that people can’t possibly flip away?

[00:29:07]  Megan Porta 

Okay, perfect. Now let’s move on to audio. Do you feel like you need to use trending sounds? I know some people say yes, some people say no, or it depends what is your take?

[00:29:18]  Natalie Battaglia 

Me personally, I wouldn’t know what non-trending audio videos perform like because I never not use a trending audio. I’ll just be completely honest. So I use a trending audio for every piece of content that I create. It’s just something that I’m in the habit of doing. I actually follow a couple of Instagram creators.

[00:29:40]   

I don’t know if we can pop them in the links or something like that where they post trending audio every week. And I will literally just go to these two creators, I will look at their trending audio and I save them to my audio even if I don’t plan to use them. I just have a ton of saved trending audios in my bank at all times so that if I need to, you know, if I need to use them, I can.

[00:30:05]   

So yeah, but I have seen creators be very successful without using trending audio. So I would say if that’s going to add a ton of time to your process of getting content content out, don’t get too hung up on trending audio. But I Do feel like Instagram is making it much easier for us to find trending audio even when you go to add audio to your clips. Now there’s a trending audio tab, so why not use it, right?

[00:30:30]  Megan Porta 

So yeah, that’s kind of what I do is I just tap on that trending audio tab. But you go kind of the back way. You have trending audio creators or who are these people that are creating the audio?

[00:30:44]  Natalie Battaglia 

So one is, I think you’ve spoken with her, Shannon McKinstry. She. Yeah, so yeah, so she has. Every now and then she’ll put up a post with trending audios for this week. There’s another one. Yeah, there’s another one. Eve Longoria, I think her name is. But I’ll share the couple that I use if you like.

[00:31:05]   

And the reason that I do that often over using the trending Audio tab is because I do still think there is merit and weight in using an audio as early as possible when it’s trending. So I do try and find those early trending audios that are around 5k uses or less and I found that that can help boost especially if you’re coming into seasonal content like the holidays and whatnot.

[00:31:31]   

Now I would try and use, you know, early Christmas trending audio or I’m not sure when this is going to be shared, so it might not be relevant then. But if we’re coming into specific seasons trying to use that audio as early as possible.

[00:31:44]  Megan Porta 

Okay. Do you ever use the like more spoken audio? Some of that is trending. I know, but sometimes I have to search for it too. Just like the. Not necessarily a sound, but somebody speaking.

[00:31:56]  Natalie Battaglia 

Yes, yes I do. And some of my really high performing pieces of content have had an inspirational quote or something in the audio and I’ll share that in relation to a drink. So I might be doing a stress relief sprint or something and the audio is related back to that. So how to live a less stressful life.And I do find that those two things together work well.

[00:32:20]  Megan Porta 

Isn’t this fun? I feel like this is such a good creative outlet for me to get back into this now because there are so many different pieces to put together. It’s almost like putting a piece of art together. Like, okay, you have to think about the audio and how long is it and what is the imagery?

[00:32:35]   

Is it video? Is it images? What’s your text? I feel like this is so much fun now in this moment in my life. I didn’t always think that, but just curious on your take on that.

[00:32:48]  Natalie Battaglia 

Look, I Love putting together pieces of content. I mean, I love creating art and putting it out into the world. I think it was like Brene Brown who said something along the lines of, I love creating things that didn’t exist before I touched them, before I put them out there. And I think it’s just.

[00:33:06]   

It’s. It can really be a beautiful thing if we just take the stress out of it. I mean, even I hear people getting down on, oh, I only got a thousand views or 2000 views. And I know that this is a very cliche thing to say, but just imagine if you had 2,000 people standing in front of you and you were trying to get a message out there.

[00:33:26]   

You would look at those people and think, I mean, this is a ginormous amount of people. So I feel like, you know, if we have heart and fun and realize that this piece of content, it might not help everyone, but it’s going to help someone. Like, for someone, it’s going to land. It’s going to make their weeknight easier with their kids.

[00:33:48]   

It’s going to. Whatever it might be for you. Yeah, I just. I think it’s a beautiful thing. I think we just need to maybe not take it so seriously and just have some fun with it.

[00:33:57]  Megan Porta 

I know, because we hear people in our space all the time getting frustrated. I hear frustration more than I hear fulfillment and creativity. Right. It’s like, oh, Instagram didn’t deliver Pinterest and deliver or whatever the platform is, where we could just spin it and see it more as a creative project and something that we’re enjoying and that’s fun.And like you said, 2,000 people. Imagine that in front of you. That’s pretty amazing.

[00:34:24]  Natalie Battaglia 

Yeah. I mean, I know if I had to go and do a presentation for to 2,000 people, I mean, I would be nervous. That is a lot of people. So if 2,000 people are seeing my piece of content, hey, you know, I am happy with that.

[00:34:37]  Megan Porta 

Incredible. Yes. Okay, that was a little side note. So let’s move on to a few of the other pieces. What about captions? This one gets me hung up a little bit. I never know if I’m saying too much, if I’m saying too little, if I’m missing something.

[00:34:52]  Natalie Battaglia 

I would say say what needs to be said in the shortest. It’s like a video. It’s again, about retention. So say what needs to be said in the shortest amount of time. I do think of captions kind of like blog posts. No one wants to click that see more button in a caption and See a giant wall of text.

[00:35:11]   

In the same way, we don’t want to see a giant wall of text on a blog post. So I would say say what needs to be said without going overboard. What I would say is you’ve got to think of that first line of your caption like a hook. So as people are scrolling through their feeds, you’ll notice you can see that first line first, obviously, before you click that see more button.

[00:35:35]   

So use it. It’s like a mini hook in itself. Make sure you say something compelling. Use the word my viral, you know, say big news, say, I mean, you guys know all sorts of examples of like, how do you capture a reader on your blog post? How do you make them skip to your blog post and stop on the page?

[00:35:57]   

Want to keep going? Can it be made in five minutes? Does it only have four ingredients? Whatever it might be, you know that first line of your caption, Use that as a hook.

[00:36:06]  Megan Porta 

Okay, I love that. I don’t often do that, so thank you for that as well. And then what about posting full recipes? I assume that most people listening are going to want to send people to their blog, if possible, so not to publish the entire recipe.

[00:36:24]  Natalie Battaglia 

So I have a bit of a mixed view on this. I think that if so I do a little bit of both is the answer. Sometimes I’ll share the full recipe and sometimes it’ll be, you know, comment for recipe. I think we’ve got to understand that Instagram does also reward saves and shares as a, you know, it is a ranking factor or an algorithm factor for Instagram.

[00:36:51]   

And I think we’ve got to think about what would make someone save or share this recipe if it doesn’t have the recipe. So again, that might be something to test. When I share the full, I will often do things like I will share the recipe, but I will say for full batch instructions and extra tips and tricks, say recipe and I’ll send you to my blog.

[00:37:16]   

And then people have the choice. So then you’re sort of touching all bases. You’ll have people that will just save it because the recipe is in the caption. You’ll have people that will share it because again, the recipe is in the caption and they have a friend who might like it. But you will also get an awful lot of people that will still comment and want the recipe sent to their inbox or saved to their email.

[00:37:36]   

So test that. I think we’re living in a land where more and more creators, especially on TikTok, are including the entire recipe and we need to be realistic that, I mean, that is what we are competing with. So. So. And we can be a little bit precious isn’t the word, but a little bit like, no, I will not give up the full recipe because I spent time doing this.But you’ve got to remember that growing your Instagram also inadvertently grows your income in other ways. So. Yeah.

[00:38:07]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Okay. That touches on caption. I know we talked about content a little bit in different formats. Do you have anything else on content?

[00:38:17]  Natalie Battaglia 

Content? I would just say ask yourself the question, why would someone save this? Why would someone share this? Why would someone watch this? What would make someone watch this until the end? And each piece of content you put out, ask those questions before you release it.

[00:38:36]  Megan Porta 

Okay. And that brings to mind a question, a call to actions. Do you ever put call to actions in your videos? Like, like as text overlay, like share this or save this or comment or whatever?

[00:38:47]  Natalie Battaglia 

I don’t usually do a save and share, but I will. When I’m doing the freebie ebook or opt in that I spoke about before, I will quite often say at the end of the video, say merry and I’ll send you my holiday ebook. And I do find that those videos convert better when I actually put it in both the caption and.

[00:39:11]   

And the text overlay on the screen. So if it’s at a length where it makes sense to you and it still looks nice, then definitely add it as a text overlay as well.

[00:39:21]  Megan Porta 

And do you do that for both email opt ins and URLs or just the email opt in?

[00:39:26]  Natalie Battaglia 

Just the email opt ins.

[00:39:27]  Megan Porta 

Could you do it for, I mean, for the URL as well?

[00:39:30]  Natalie Battaglia 

Do you know what, now that you’re saying that there’s no reason why you couldn’t, that might be something that I add to my list to test. Absolutely.

[00:39:37]  Megan Porta 

I’m writing it down too. I have so much to test. Thank you, Nat.

[00:39:42]  Natalie Battaglia 

Pleasure.

[00:39:42]  Megan Porta 

Okay, this is another question I have and I’ve been experimenting with this as well. Time of day, it really does seem to matter. If I publish something at 8am, it kind of flops. If I wait until 6 or 7 or 8pm on most nights, it does so much better. Is that true or is it just my imagination?

[00:40:01]  Natalie Battaglia 

No, I have found the same thing and I know it can be a little bit restricting and it’s probably not what we’d like to hear because sometimes our best posting times are not convenient times. But at the end of the day that is, you know how it works. So I would say that, yeah, for me, my optimum posting time is actually 6:30 in the morning.

[00:40:23]   

That’s not fun for anyone. But I do, I do try and utilize that time. And yeah, so I do believe that timing matters. I would be looking at your analytics for that. It’s like anything on any of these things, platforms. Early engagement is important. Early engagement sends a message to the Instagram gods.

[00:40:44]   

Yes, people like this content and we’re going to keep pushing it out. So I would definitely be paying attention to the timing.

[00:40:51]  Megan Porta 

And does that align with what Instagram tells you are your good times? Because I know it has the section in your dashboard under I think it’s followers. And if you scroll way down, it tells you day of the week and times to post. Does that align with what you’re saying?

[00:41:07]  Natalie Battaglia 

My analytics are a little bit funny because obviously I’m in Australia and it sort of works in a little bit of reverse. But I have, again, I have put that information into ChatGPT and I have said, based on this information, what would you recommend are my optimum posting times? And have also said to ChatGPT, what are my optimum posting times?And based on what, you know, what are the optimum posting times for me? He/She has worked out a little schedule for me.

[00:41:44]  Megan Porta 

Okay, that’s great advice as well. And that just brought up something in my mind. Oh, do you experiment with trial reels at all?

[00:41:53]  Natalie Battaglia 

I don’t. I do not experiment with trial reels currently. I did hear though, again, I think this was a Shannon McKinstry tip that she is seeing in great success with editing through the Edits app, sharing a copy of a reel to her feed as normal, but then also sharing a copy at exactly the same time to trial reels of the same thing.

[00:42:24]   

So you’re sending identical pieces of content out at the same time, one to your normal feed, one to trial reels. And her followers seem to be having great success with, with that. So I can’t speak to that personally, but she would be a great one to look at for trial reels information.

[00:42:42]  Megan Porta 

Okay. I experimented with a few recently that did absolutely nothing. But I think there was a prompt that came up before you published a trial reel that said something like, Instagram prefers that this is a new piece of content, so it has original content. I was assuming that meant on Instagram reels, but maybe not.

[00:43:05]   

If that’s really interesting, I’ll look into it though, because I know, I know they’re pushing it, so it’s something to at least explore. Right. If Instagram wants you to do something, then it’s usually a sign that you should maybe, maybe try it.

[00:43:17]  Natalie Battaglia 

Yes, absolutely. For sure.

[00:43:20]  Megan Porta 

Have we covered everything that. As far as all of those logistical pieces, or are we missing anything there?

[00:43:26]  Natalie Battaglia 

The last thing I did want to cover that I made a note of is the importance of SEO. I realized that wasn’t in my original notes, and I do want to talk about it really quickly because I had a good example the other day of a mulled wine mocktail that I shared on my Instagram account and when I Googled it for something else later on, because I was looking up something to do with the post and where it was ranking four hours after posting that piece of content on Instagram, Google had ranked it and it was on the first page of the search results.

[00:44:01]   

Okay, so this is important. And I think as we move into like a video first type world, people are going to be potentially using Google to also find video content. And it’s working. And these pieces of content are ranking. So in order to do that, I use my chosen keyword, which is usually similar to whatever the blog post, you know.

[00:44:28]   

So basically, whatever I’ve optimized the blog post for is usually what I optimize the video for. And people will say, oh, but then you’re competing with your own content. No, you’re not. Because Google will show a mixture of different results. So it will show the blog post, it will show the video, it will show whatever else it deems necessary for that particular keyword.

[00:44:52]   

So I find what ends up happening is that instead of having one piece of real estate on the first page of Google, for a keyword, I have two, I end up with a blog post and a video. So in order to do that, you need to include. My advice would be include your keyword in your text overlay.

[00:45:10]   

If you have a text overlay, include it in your caption. Be sure to include it in your hashtags, which we haven’t touched on. But yes, I do still use hashtags. I usually use three to five hashtags. And, you know, if you speak in the video, use it there. So use it in all of the key places.

[00:45:33]   

Think of a piece of content like a blog post. How do I optimize this in order for Google to understand what it is and what it’s about?

[00:45:42]  Megan Porta 

Wow, okay, so hashtags are still working for you, you think?

[00:45:46]  Natalie Battaglia 

Look, the jury’s out. I just figure it doesn’t hurt. It’s not going to hurt a piece of content. So again, I would say it’s just all about testing As I said, I still use my 3 to 5. I think it sends. If anything, it’s just an extra message to Google about or Instagram about what this piece of content is about.

[00:46:06]   

So I figure it can’t hurt.

[00:46:08]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let’s talk about consistency. How consistent should we be publishing? I hear many different numbers from many different people who have figured out Instagram. What are your thoughts on that?

[00:46:24]  Natalie Battaglia 

I do have slightly different thoughts. I. I grew my account posting twice a week because I focused more on quality over quantity. And I’m not saying that creators that put out a piece of content every day, I. The videos aren’t quality. But for me, me being one person, me having other aspects of my business, I needed to focus on me having a family, all of those things, that was what I could realistically publish without burning out.

[00:46:54]   

And to maintain a high quality of content. Even to this day, I only post 2 to 3. I can’t remember the last time I posted more than three pieces of content in a week. And yeah, my view is post as many times as you can without losing quality of your videos. And I don’t buy into the narrative that we have to post seven days a week.

[00:47:22]   

I think that that is a lot. I know I would burn out posting seven days a week. So two to three seems to be my sweet spot. And again, it’s all about testing what works for you. But I feel like, you know, this idea that we have to post five times a week, seven times a week really stops a lot of people from starting or from getting into it.

[00:47:43]   

And I just would say throw that idea out the window. If you come back to Instagram and think realistically, I can only get two pieces of really decent, fabulous content out there. Then just do two. Don’t have to come back and post five, six, seven days a week. It’s too much in my opinion.

[00:48:01]  Megan Porta 

That is a load off a lot of people’s shoulders. So that’s great news. And then a couple little things I was going to ask you about. Series. Do you do series?

[00:48:11]  Natalie Battaglia 

I did. I’ve done only experimented with one. Well, every Christmas I do a Christmas series, which is obvious, but for actual series, the only other one I did was a series of homemade electrolyte drinks. And I will say that was absolutely incredible. Okay. Yeah, it was. It was amazing. And there was a series of six of them and it worked incredibly well for me. I need to get better in 2026 at at focusing on some more series that I think people would love. I think that’d be A great thing to. To quiz your audience on or survey them on. If I was to develop a series, what kind of series would you like to see?

[00:48:53]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:48:55]  Natalie Battaglia 

All right.

[00:48:56]  Megan Porta 

And then I think that was all I had. Community, I think, is really important too. So focusing on that over just like I need to go viral or I need to get so many followers or really hyper focusing on the numbers. Is that a correct statement?

[00:49:12]  Natalie Battaglia 

Definitely. And I would say, yeah, community is everything. And I do still to this day respond to all my DMs. I do still respond to as many comments as I can. I do interact with people in the comments and answer the questions and everything else. Because, you know, I feel like these people are offering you a great gift by following you, by asking you the questions and everything else.

[00:49:38]   

And, you know, people love it. They really feel special when they get a comment or something back from me or a message back from me. Yes.

[00:49:46]  Megan Porta 

Is there anything we’ve forgotten? We covered so much and we’re. I’m getting to time here, so I’m really sorry I took so much of your time today, but thank you. And is there anything that we’ve just forgotten that you want to mention before we start saying goodbye?

[00:50:00]  Natalie Battaglia 

Do you know what? I think we’ve actually done a really great job. And I’m sorry, I feel like I talk way too much, but I could talk about Instagram for hours.

[00:50:07]  Megan Porta 

This was absolutely perfect. I have so many notes and I’m going to actually put these all into ChatGPT when we’re done so we can formulate a new plan for my content. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of this.

[00:50:22]  Natalie Battaglia 

Such a pleasure.

[00:50:22]  Megan Porta 

Amazing value. Now, if you had a top tip for food bloggers, this doesn’t have to be Instagram related, but it can be. What would your number one top tip be?

[00:50:33]  Natalie Battaglia 

I would say let’s not take things too seriously. Like I said before, let’s just get back to creativity. Let’s get back to really loving what we do, like putting heart and soul into videos and, you know, serving the people that exist. Because even if you only have those 2,000 followers, I mean, that is.

[00:50:56]   

That is a gift. That is a huge amount of people. So let’s, let’s not look at the numbers too much unless it’s analytics, of course. But let’s not feel too down on ourselves about, you know, what I deem to be vanity metrics. And let’s just get back to serving our audience and, and asking them what they want from you.

[00:51:15]  Megan Porta 

Love it. Letting them lead a little bit. Right. Which takes the pressure off of us.

[00:51:19]  Natalie Battaglia 

Absolutely.

[00:51:20]  Megan Porta 

Thank you so much. We are going to put a show notes page together for you, Nat, if anyone wants to go look at those. And we will put those links you talked about and everything else from this episode. You can find those at eatblogtalk.com/mindfulmocktail tell everyone again where they can find you online, Nat.

[00:51:37]  Natalie Battaglia 

So my blog is mindfulmocktail.com and you’ll find me on Instagram via the same name and. And yeah, happy to answer any questions anyone might have.

[00:51:46]  Megan Porta 

Everyone’s going to be going to Instagram immediately and looking at that video that you talked about that’s pinned to the top of your account. So I’m going to do the same.

[00:51:54]  Natalie Battaglia 

It will. It will be there.

[00:51:57]  Megan Porta 

Well, thank you again, Nat, truly. And thank you so much for listening, food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:52:04]  Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. If today’s episode sparked an idea for you, snap a screenshot, post it on Instagram Stories and Tag me at Eat Blog Talk. I love seeing what resonates with you. I will see you next time.