Episode 450: Creative Ways to Repurpose Content on Social Media (+What to Do If a Post Goes Viral?) with Rebecca Eisenberg

EBT450 – Rebecca Eisenberg

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 blogs’ growth and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal or professional. 

I’m Megan Porta, and I’ve been a food blogger for over 12 years, I understand how isolating food blogging can be at times. 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.

I love talking about the topic of repurposing content because we all put so much love and energy and creativity into the amazing content that we create. So I love this idea of taking all of that and reusing it so that we don’t always have to be creating new things because that’s more energy and more time, away from our loved ones, etc. So Rebecca Eisenberg from The Practical Kitchen joins me in this episode to talk about repurposing content, and she has a unique spin on it that I absolutely love. She has really tangible things that we can do to repurpose our content, as opposed to just a broader perspective view of this topic. She tells us exactly what she does with filming video of her recipe while she’s making it, and how she can take that in use it up to four different times on social media, in order to get the most out of it. She had a recipe go really viral two years after creating the recipe because she just had faith in it. And she kept portraying it in a different light. And it finally took off and has literally changed her business. So tune in to this episode, you will be inspired to go back in your archives of your videos and photos, and your blog posts and re-use the content that you’ve already created. It’s so cool. I was super inspired listening to Rebecca talk. This is episode number 450 sponsored by the amazing RankIQ. 

Sponsor  02:14

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Megan Porta  03:34

Rebecca Eisenberg is a journalist turned to food blogger who built a career at media and tech companies like BuzzFeed Upworthy, Medium and Headspace before launching The Practical Kitchen in 2019. In 2020, she got her pastry certification at Cambridge School of culinary arts, graduating as valedictorian of her class. The Practical Kitchen is a food blog geared toward ambitious beginner cooks and bakers, providing lots of in depth tutorials and tips to give readers the competence to try new things in the kitchen. The Practical Kitchen is known for unfussy straightforward recipes, and is particularly well known for the viral mini focaccia recipe, as well as other mini bread recipes that use just one cup of flour. Rebecca Hello, how are you today? Thanks for being on the podcast.

Rebecca Eisenberg  04:23

I am doing great. Hello. It is so exciting to be here and I’m really glad to talk to you.

Megan Porta  04:29

Yay. This is such a great topic. We all put our hearts and souls into our content so repurposing is very good thing to do. But we’ll get into that in a second. First we want to hear if you have a fun fact to share about yourself.

Rebecca Eisenberg  04:43

Yes, my fun fact is that I’m afraid of butterflies and moths. 

Megan Porta  04:50

Oh gosh. 

Rebecca Eisenberg  04:52

Like deeply since childhood, I failed a unit of biology in ninth grade because I would not open the chapter on anamorphosis because there were so many butterfly photos. I don’t know where it comes from. But I am deeply afraid of butterflies and moths. 

Megan Porta  05:08

This is very interesting, because I currently have up to 20 monarch caterpillars upstairs in my home.

Rebecca Eisenberg  05:17

Oh my God, my actual nightmare.

Megan Porta  05:19

Oh my gosh, I collect their eggs during this time of year. And then I like feed them and grow them and then release the monarch. So I’m so sorry, Rebecca, you would not like my house right now?

Rebecca Eisenberg  05:32

No, I would not come over to your house right now. I know. They do good things for the environment or the world, but I just don’t want them near me.

Megan Porta  05:39

Oh, that’s so funny. Like, for me, it’s just the miracle like watching that miracle transformation. I don’t know. I’ve always been drawn to that whole metamorphosis. And I just every time I see a monarch, like, Thank you like, it’s so beautiful. So oh, well, I’m sorry. And it’s very funny that you mentioned that because we are in the throes like these caterpillars we have right now. We’re huge, and eating so much. So I have to go out every two hours and find food for them. And it’s like, my boys are like you love them more than you love us.

Rebecca Eisenberg  06:15

Yeah, you would never catch me doing that. Oh, God, never in a million years. Everyone, right? That’s no.

Megan Porta  06:21

We’re all called to and have passions for different things. And well, okay, so you’re here to chat about repurposing content, making the most of all that beautiful content you create. First, would you want to tell us just a little bit about your blog?

Rebecca Eisenberg  06:35

Sure. Yeah. So I started The Practical Kitchen in 2019. So like, almost four years ago, exactly. It was like late July, early August, I had built a career in like digital media and tech, I worked at Upworthy, Headspace, Buzzfeed, you know, digital media tech kind of places. And I burned out pretty hard and began freelancing. And while I was freelancing, I had some free time. And I knew I loved cooking, and I loved baking. And people kept telling me like, oh, you should start a food blog. And I was like, following recipes is so different from writing recipes, creating recipes, but I kind of had an inkling that I might want to go into food media. And so I decided to start a food blog in my spare time to find out, you know, do I like developing recipes as much as I like following them. And at the same time, sort of create a portfolio, you know, that I could use if I applied to jobs. And then also I had a friend who’s a blogger, not a food blogger, but I knew he had monetized his sites. And so I wanted to set myself up to be able to do that, you know, freelancing is hard, and having something that like I could control on the side, was very appealing. And it was shortly after that some of my earliest things I had a sourdough guide and a sourdough discard recipe. And when the pandemic lockdowns happened, those two posts were ranking ridiculously well. And I began, so this was maybe six months after I started, began to kind of really get a sense that like, this blog could really be something more than a portfolio more than a hobby.

That was kind of the first time I had something unexpected, like kind of go viral a little bit. And it was in 20… later in 2020, then that I decided, I really wanted to do this for real, and moved across the country in a pandemic went to pastry school so that I could really get kind of a crash course in baking science and efficiency in the kitchen. And yeah, I mean, from there, my site is very much, it doesn’t have like a really tight niche. But I think of it as like creative recipes for practical people. It’s creative recipes. So there’s some cooking recipes. There’s baking recipes, I’m doing mostly baking recipes. These days. I write for a sort of ambitious beginner, someone who wants to do something really fun, but needs it explained in a way that’s a little more beginner friendly. And it’s yeah, it’s been just kind of a wild ride. I’m now doing it full time. And it’s been very exciting and fun.

Megan Porta  09:18

Well, congratulations. That’s so awesome. I love hearing everybody has such a different journey and the way they start and the way they kind of get into, you know, that thought of like what you said about oh, there’s something here. There’s kind of a different thing that makes everyone click differently with that. So I think that’s so cool the way you got started. So you’ve been really at it for like two and a half-ish years or so. 

Rebecca Eisenberg  09:44

I think, four…four years. 

Megan Porta  09:46

Okay. Yes. Okay. So I’m sorry, I was like your pastry like when you just decided

Rebecca Eisenberg  09:52

Yeah, sorry. Yeah. So I started in 2019. And then it was like a year later I did pastry school. Yeah.

Megan Porta  09:59

Gotcha. So yeah. You’ve been at it for a while, and then at what point did you realize that you’re like creating all this content and you maybe need to recycle some of it?

Rebecca Eisenberg  10:09

I mean, I’ve been doing that since the beginning. My background like coming up as an editor at digital media companies where budgets were constantly getting slashed. We were always looking for ways to repurpose thumbnails, or, you know, oh, if this story did really well, what about it do we think worked, that we could use for another story to make that story, lower lift for us, but still bring in traffic, things like that. So you know, we were always looking for ways to drive traffic back to the website. And so it would be one blog post, but it might have a video with it, and an image and a link post and a photo post and a quote, post. So we were always trying to do that. And that’s, you know, what I came up, you know, in my career doing, and we often Upworthy in particular, we would write 25 headlines per story. Because there’s so many different angles, you can take on one piece of content. And, you know, we would test them to find the best ones. But you can also take that approach and say I can share the same piece of content with five different headlines or share texts, or whatever and see which one does best. You don’t need to constantly create something brand new, sometimes just a new title on it helps it find an audience that it didn’t find before. So I knew from the beginning, when I set up my site that I wanted to prioritize slow steady search engine growth, I was trying to avoid chasing virality chasing fickle social media stuff. And so I really wanted to find a way to create content that would allow me to focus primarily on my site, and not constantly be chasing social media while still keeping my social media fresh.

Megan Porta  12:00

Okay, yeah, I love how your previous job tied into the way that you see, like your whole perspective on content and like a title change, right? Like, that’s so easy, just changing a title. And it’s the same content can totally redo it. Yeah, that’s so yeah. So in what ways? Do you think through repurposing your content on your blog or their categories? Do you go like, you know, like, think about video titles, like, what are all the things that you think about when repurposing?

Rebecca Eisenberg  12:36

I’m, like, pretty chaotic, when it comes to the way I do content. And I’m constantly working on like, trying to turn that chaos into something sort of organized. So for a while, you know, I would film every recipe on my phone, and then I would just edit a reel, I’d be like, 30 seconds, here’s my reel, put it out there. Now I have more of a system where for every recipe I film, I cut three reels out of it, I cut like a long one that’s, you know, maybe 30 seconds to a minute, I cut a shorter one that’s maybe 15 to 20 seconds. And then a really short one that I like, in my head, I call them like a just vibes, video, that’s like just the hero shots are something that like, is aesthetic or whatever, that’s like, less than 10 seconds. And then for every recipe, I’m getting three reels, and I’m already shooting hero photos for the blog. So that gives me different, you know, static image carousel posts for Instagram. And then when I schedule them out, I’m you know, I have now that’s at least four pieces of content from one recipe. And then I might, if it’s a recipe that has a unique technique to it, I might cut another video that just focuses on that technique, you know, more slow down and not sped up so that I can share that and say, you know, if you want to make this recipe, here’s this technique slowed down, which people also find useful. So I’m just always looking for ways to take all this footage that I already have, and turn it into something useful for my audience.

Megan Porta  14:12

I love this. It’s so easy to do that upfront to take all the footage and the photos and then just kind of figure out later how to use them in different ways. Do you ever find that if something doesn’t work, like let’s say you take a clip and put it on to an Instagram reel and it just like people don’t like it, or don’t engage with it, do you go back and try to sort through and find something else for that recipe to put up? 

Rebecca Eisenberg  14:36

Yeah, I do. I really don’t take it to heart too much. If a reel doesn’t do well, because I think there’s so many factors. It’s like, Instagram could have flipped a switch that day. Maybe it’s a weekend maybe it’s a holiday you didn’t know about maybe, you know, whatever. There’s any number of things. It might not be your content, or maybe it is and so sometimes I’ll wait little bit before I try again. But usually I try every recipe if it if the first video didn’t do well, when I share the second one, I try something pretty radically different in the way I frame it or describe it or which part of the video I focus on to see if maybe that does better. And then I might share the, you know, say I shared the six second video first. And that’s the one that didn’t do well. You know, I try something different on the 20 second video. Maybe that does well, I might share the six second video again with a different angle on it, you know, maybe a month later. And you know, take what I learned from the 20 second video and say maybe this with the six second video. And if I time it closer to the weekend, maybe now it’ll do better.

Megan Porta  15:44

Yeah, so thinking through timing as well. So not just what you’re posting, but when you’re posting. Yeah. And then when you are doing your filming, how much time are you putting into that? You mentioned your phone that you use your phone? 

Rebecca Eisenberg  15:58

Yeah. Yeah, I use my phone. I mean, it definitely takes longer than if you’re making the recipe not filming. But I do just kind of make it in real time. Some, you know, depends on the recipe, it can be an hour, two hours, I shoot in natural light, I use artificial for photos. But for video, I shoot natural light. So I’m always a little bit at the mercy of the sun and the weather to try to fit things in. But yeah, I mean, I film I try to film, the whole process, even like prep shots, you know, mincing carrots, or peppers or whatever that you know, I might not even end up using, but sometimes they’re good to have because I might be able to turn it into a video on how to mince carrots and peppers. That is sort of completely separate from the recipe, the thing so for a long time, I filmed a lot of my recipes. And there was this app called Jump Rope that made it really easy to put together like how to videos, and I would use just one of my static hero shots as like the final photo because of the way their template worked. And then Jump Rope went away. And now the thing that I constantly have to remind myself, or I will forget is to film the finished recipe. Because for a long time, I didn’t have any shots like video shots of the final recipe. And so that’s often the thing that kind of takes the most time because you’re like, you need to wait for something too cool. Or, you know, you’re trying to get dinner on the table or whatever. But that’s the shot that is super important for me that I focus sometimes so much on the process that I forget, I need to get finished recipe.

Megan Porta  17:39

Once everyone’s eating the dish, then you’re like, oh, no, yeah, I forgot to get that. I’ve done that so many times, and then you had just an opportunity to make it again. Right and enjoy it again. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, so do you have any examples that you can talk us through? I don’t know, if you want to like, talk through how you think through repurposing from start to finish and a recipe. Do you know what I mean? Anything like that?

Rebecca Eisenberg  18:04

Yeah, I mean, I do the same for every recipe, because I think you really never know what is going to take off. So for every recipe, I’m going to cut three, two to three videos, sometimes I’ll cut four. Sometimes it’s just as simple as like I’m going to some of my videos will start with the finished product and then the shorter video will just show the process or the 30 second video, we’ll start with like the first step of the recipe, and you have to get to the end, to see the finished recipe, the 20 second one might start with the finished recipe and then show the process. So I tried to think through like what are some different things so that, you know, the it’s that first like three seconds that like kind of determine if someone is going to watch your video. So that’s where I try to think like, what can I make different about this that might grab people. Beyond that it’s obviously how you title it or frame it or whatever. But I tried to think about, you know, what is the first shot of this video because that I know is what could make the difference and and who decides to watch it. But again, you never know what is going to do well or take off. And so I kind of apply the same thing to every video and experiment as I go. 

Rebecca Eisenberg  19:19

In terms of an example. I mean, my best example is a video of mine that has gone ridiculously viral. It’s a mini focaccia recipe. It uses one cup of flour and it bakes in a loaf pan. And I first published it in July 2020. It was the pandemic it was hard to find ingredients. Everyone was obsessed with breadmaking I was like this is going to be it. This recipe is going to go bananas. People are going to love it. I knew it fizzled it just like didn’t do anything. Some people made it but it didn’t. It wasn’t any different than any of my other recipes. In 2021 I like got a comment from someone who said likes that it didn’t quite work for them. So I used some of my readers and had them test the recipe for me, gave it an update shot some new photos, but it was like an old blog post, it was like a couple paragraphs, some bullet points and a recipe like it was not optimized, none of that stuff. And I had shared a reel like a 30 second. Here’s the process of the video a couple of times in it. It was fine. You know, it did about as well as any of my other ones. And then in March 2022, so like fully, almost two years after I first published the recipe, I was like scrolling through my Explore page on Instagram, and someone posted one of those videos that was like, any video you put to this six second clip of music will go viral. Yes. And I was like, Yeah, right. There’s no way that’ll happen, whatever. And I cut together two clips, it was like the unbaked focaccia in the pan, and then the big patch and the pens six seconds long. It took about 10 minutes to put together. I like quickly added some texts that said, like making a mini focaccia and a loaf pan using one cup of flour, because I can, and I posted it. And this was me 2022 was kind of early in the reels, reels, you know, Instagram was promoting them. And for about a week, it didn’t really do very much. I had another reel about a pizza that like got 500,000 views. And I was like, Wow, that’s amazing. Like my reels never get that. And about a week after the mini focaccia show went up, I looked at my real time traffic and was like, What the hell is going on? There were so many people on my site. And I went and looked and that real I think that real now is sitting at like nine or 10 million views. Oh my gosh, I went from 5000 followers on Instagram to 10,000 in a week. And after a month, I was at 30,000. Oh, like this. And the craziest thing was that it continued driving traffic for months. And this is a recipe that I had first published two years earlier, that had done fine. You know, it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. There wouldn’t I had no inkling that there was any reason this was going to take off then. But because I repurposed old content, and I used that audio. It went bananas. And it quite literally changed my life.

Megan Porta  22:30

Oh my gosh, that is so inspiring. Because speaking from my personal experience, I look at something that doesn’t do well. And I kind of discard it, I shove it aside. And I think we all kind of do that at times were like, Okay, well, I tried that it didn’t work. Okay, next. But yeah, you had faith, like this was a new concept like doing the focaccia in a loaf pan, super easy. You kept trying, and it worked. And that is so cool. Rebecca, that you got so much traffic and your followers went up, wow.

Rebecca Eisenberg  23:04

It’s now one of my most reliable, so like I published it in March. And then you know, the traffic kind of kept coming, the audience kept growing, I think like in October, I was at like 50,000 followers on Instagram, and I tried when I first published it on Instagram, and it was going crazy, I put it on TikTok to see if it would do anything and it didn’t it was just fine on TikTok, but then in December of last year, so I think I shared it, I went like six months without sharing mini focaccia again, because it felt really oversaturated and then I started to notice you know, my traffic in October was kind of dipping down and so I was like I’m going to share it again. And it went viral all over again. Oh my God, because it had been six months and you know, everyone who had seen it had seen it months ago you know, or you know, anytime in the past six months, so when again it wasn’t quite as big this time but it went again. And then in December like my husband and I were watching a movie like on it was like Christmas Eve and I just like quickly there was a trending audio on TikTok that was from Wicked it was that “You will be popular” thing. And so again, it’s like a five second clip and I put it with like “POV: You just learned about the mini focaccia recipe you can make with one cup of flour, you will be popular.” And we’re like 30 minutes into this movie and my husband like so a little bit mad about this, but I open real time traffic on my phone and I have 1000 people on my site simultaneously. And my TikTok went from like 4000 followers to 95,000 followers in the span of like a week. Whoa. So I did the same thing on Instagram. I took the same audio from Wicked and I did it and I went from like 55 000 followers on Instagram to 100,000 on Instagram in like two weeks, for mini focaccia again.

Megan Porta  25:03

That’s incredible that I love that that’s so inspiring, I think for everyone listening are all going to be inspired by that. 

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Rebecca Eisenberg  26:06

And it’s the same footage often, you know I edit it in like in shot. It’s the same like six or seven second clip, sometimes I’ll share a longer version of it because people inevitably asked like where’s the full recipe? You know, but it’s it’s the same thing and and now I have a little more of a sense of what Q phrases you know, mentioning one cup of flour works well mentioning it bakes in a loaf pan works well, you know what kinds of things trigger these sorts of viral responses. But you know, if you go back to July 2020, when I first showed that recipe, I had no way of knowing that this was the recipe that would do this.

Megan Porta  26:41

Right? Right. You just never know what’s going to happen. Yeah, people. Yeah. Do you have advice for people? As far as just knowing what to lean into? Like you knew you it seems like you had a sense that that recipe could have potential? You know, how do we know what’s going to have potential?

Rebecca Eisenberg  27:01

Yeah, I think almost any recipe can have potential, but I think the ones that have something unique to them, or that solve a problem for people do very well. So I’ve since done some other mini bread recipes. I have a mini ciabatta and like a mini dutch oven bread that are both that same one cup of flour size. And they also do very well not quite as well as the loaf pan. But I just always think about what is the thing that is unique about this? Is it the texture? Is it the cooking method? Is it the time it takes to do it? Is it the size of it? Is this a big batch recipe? Is this a small recipe? You know, what about my version of this is different from other people’s? And I think finding ways to highlight that gives you a good chance of getting traction, because people like things that are surprising. And that encourages sharing, as well. I’m sharing kind of helps things grow.

Megan Porta  28:05

Yeah, so thinking through what makes it unique? What makes it easy? What makes it… I think did you use the word shocking or surprising? Yeah.

Rebecca Eisenberg  28:06

Surprising. Yeah. Is it a one pan recipe? Is it? You know, super creamy. Is it you know, using canned goods? Is it shelf stable? Is it you know, nostalgic? Like, what are the things that like make it unique and special or surprising? I have a focaccia pizza recipe that that does pretty well consistently. And I always emphasize that most recipes, you didn’t pull the focaccia and then put the sauce on and mine you put the sauce on and then you dimple it. So you’re pushing the sauce into the dough. And that always people are always like, Oh, that’s so smart. I have never seen that before I need to try this. So you know, there’s plenty of focaccia pizza recipes out there. But by emphasizing this thing that most people haven’t thought about that is unique to it. That resonates.

Megan Porta  29:07

Yeah, this is such a cool way to think through what we have already created on our sites and to kind of go back and just peruse our list of recipes and see what stands out if we have this at the top of our minds like thinking about that unique factor, the surprising factor. Easy, like super easy. One cup of flour. That’s super cool. And just maybe just seeing what pops up what sparks you know, creativity or inspiration. And just if you have footage, like take it and reuse it and see what happens, right?

Rebecca Eisenberg  29:38

Yeah, I always tell people like start with your like top 10 most popular blog posts, because they’re probably popular for a reason. And if you can find something in those, you know, you’ll kind of get a good sense like you’re sort of setting yourself up for a better chance of success. Yeah, because you’re already starting with something that is popular.

Megan Porta  30:00

Absolutely. So repurposing on obviously Instagram, you can try TikTok. Is there anywhere else that you should be thinking about with repurposing?

Rebecca Eisenberg  30:08

To be honest, I don’t really do Pinterest much like I put stuff there. But I don’t have a Pinterest strategy really, I was kind of sharing some of my reels there because I edit them without any audio. And then I use the library of whatever platform to find the audio, but they never really seem to do much there. And now Instagram has a thing, where if you’re connected to your Facebook page, it’ll share the reels to your Facebook page automatically, so I’m not really repurposing for Facebook anymore. Because the Instagram reels just go there. I do reuse, you know, I use the same footage that I use for my reels to edit my YouTube videos, and web story videos. They’re just a little bit slowed down. They’re not quite the like rapid fire that you expect of Instagram reels. But it’s all the same footage. I’m not going to film the recipe again, to do those and my YouTube template, you know, YouTube’s horizontal, my YouTube template has a vertical video slot in it. So there’s text on one side, and then I can just use my vertical video in my horizontal video without having to like shoot a horizontal version. And then I use the same edits. I guess the other place to be thinking about is if you’re on YouTube doing YouTube shorts.

Megan Porta  31:28

Yes, I’ve heard that’s pretty effective just for those really short quippy things that you want to put up and see if they go.

Rebecca Eisenberg  31:35

I don’t fully understand the YouTube shorts algorithm. But I’m kind of like, again, if you have the content, and I already have it edited. It doesn’t take long to upload it and get it out there. It can’t hurt.

Megan Porta  31:47

Yeah. And then one other thing, one other place. I don’t think we’ve mentioned that. I know a few food bloggers who really have tapped into the magic of this is Facebook reels. So just if you’re putting up an Instagram reel, it’s different. Like you have to do it separately, in order to get really good traction, I think but just trying Facebook reels and seeing if it works. 

Rebecca Eisenberg  32:09

Yeah, I was trying them for a while and I’ve tried, you know, it’s the same advice of like, try, try the things that you know, work. And mini foccacia never really did anything on Facebook reels. Facebook reels really didn’t work well, for me. They’re still not working that well. But now that they post automatically from Instagram, I’m getting a little like I had a mini foccacia one recently that got maybe 4000 plays on Facebook, which is great for a Facebook reel for me. Usually they get like 50 plays. Yeah, but it’s not enough that I’m like, this is again, why I’m like, I don’t want to create content for Facebook. Right, I don’t want to just create content for Instagram or just for TikTok. The only time I’ll create something unique to a platform is if there’s a trending audio, and it’s like I can quickly cut together three clips that I already have to match the audio or use like a CapCut template or something. That’s the only time because it’s trending on TikTok, but doesn’t mean it’s trending on Instagram. And so I don’t need it on both. But you know, if I’ve already cut together my three different reels, why not put it on every platform and see what happens?

Megan Porta  33:22

Absolutely. Might as well try. Right. And then I have a question about viral videos. So you mentioned you waited six months between the times when you got virality with your focaccia? Do you have any other tips about when things go viral things you should do/avoid? Anything at all?

Rebecca Eisenberg  33:44

Yeah, so well. So the first thing I’ll say is I waited six months the first time because I felt like it was oversaturated now I’m like once a month I have a mini bread recipe video that’s going up whether it’s mini foccacia, mini ciabatta, the small batch crusty bread, I’m sharing them a lot more often, I’m much less precious about it. Because I’m realizing, you know, not everyone sees everything. Not everyone is paying as close attention as I am and reels also tend to be shared more, not with your existing audience, but with new people. So I’m much less concerned with like oversharing that at this point, because it seems to sort of consistently do well. But in terms of like what to do if something does go viral. So when my mini focaccia went viral, like I said it was an old unupdated blog post and I watched my RPMs drop. And I watched… I was like my earnings should be going up well, what’s going on? And it’s because I hadn’t updated the posts for SEO or RPM or any of those things. And so at first because I was trying so hard to like not get pulled in by the lure of a traffic spike and I was like SEO, SEO SEO. I like, I was like any day, now the spike is going to die off, it’s going to die off. And then like with each day as it was getting bigger, I think like, on the third day, I was like, I need to update that blog post, I’m losing out on money. And so I very quickly shot new photos, processed shots, a video, and updated the blog post, like, literally while the bread was rising, like in between shots, I was dishing the blog post to try to turn it around. And my earnings like grew dramatically, like literally the next day. 

Rebecca Eisenberg  35:31

Once I had done that, so that’s one thing, I think another thing you want to do is like, make sure the trending recipe is on your homepage, I always have mini foccacia, sort of in the first recipe and my trending section at the top of my homepage, because people are looking for it. And not everyone understands how LinkedIn bio works or any of those things. And so just having it right on your homepage for people to find really reduces the friction and getting that traffic. You also want to check, you know, make sure your bio is up to date, especially if you’re like, look, I have like 5000 followers, I was like, I’m not being looked at by a lot of people, I don’t need to, you know, keep this updated that much. And once it started going viral, and I was like, oh, like I have a lot more followers now I need them to understand, you know, they only know me from one video. They don’t know me from all my other stuff, I need to make sure that my bio reflects that for them. I also created like an Instagram story templates, sort of introducing myself with like a photo of me, I’m like a Hi, I’m Rebecca. If you’re new here, here’s what I’m about, here’s what you can expect and was kind of sharing that like every few days, because so many new people were coming in with no idea who I am. And I wanted to make sure you know that they knew and I didn’t want to have to keep recreating it. So having that kind of template is really helpful. I’ve also found that when you have something going viral, and you have a lot of new followers coming in. And I mean, for all I know Instagram changed this, but I feel like your stories get shown to more new followers. So I’ve made sure to kind of use my Instagram stories to like promote my other social channels, my newsletter, promote YouTube, engage with like new followers and old followers. So like doing, not quite an AMA but like, I like to ask my you know, people who’ve been around for a while, like, what are your favorite recipes, because it’s a great way to like show new followers, it’s like social proof of like, there’s more here than just mini focaccia. You know, and it helps sort of create a sense of community and I start sharing, you know, if I have other mini recipes, start sharing those, I’ll move my social content calendar around to put more mini recipes in because if you’ve just followed me for one, you might not know that I have others and it will help those other ones do well as well. So, you know, it’s it’s like engaging with new people, making sure your stuff is up to date, and that people can find what they’re looking forward easily. And they know who you are, I think is really important.

Megan Porta  38:05

Yeah, that’s stuff that I don’t think through. But I mean, that’s really good to have, in my mind personally, just like yeah, obviously, if people are coming here, and they’ve never been to your site or your  account before, you want to give them the full picture, like I’m more than just this focaccia recipe. I am Rebecca and I offer this and here’s my value and doing that might get you some repeat followers and blog traffic and all of that. So I think that’s really great to think through.

Rebecca Eisenberg  38:34

Yeah, the other thing I would say is, obviously, if people are tagging you, because they made the recipe, like share that. And then the other thing I have taken to doing is if someone like DMs me, or even if they comment on a post, and they say they made it or if they just tagged me and they made it, I will message them directly and say I’m so glad you love my recipe, would you mind leaving a comment and review on the blog post itself? That really helps me out? Yeah, and that, that converts very well. People are happy to do it. And once they’ve left one comment, they’re more likely to leave other comments when they make other recipes because they’ve done it before.

Megan Porta  39:13

And they probably feel a little bit honored that you asked like, Oh, she wants my comment. Yeah, that’s cool.

Rebecca Eisenberg  39:20

Yeah, I also do in my newsletter, I share my favorite comments each week. So I often sort of promote like, if you want to be featured in my newsletter, you know, leave a comment.

Megan Porta  39:32

Okay, I’ve never thought to do that. That’s great. Like even taking a screenshot of it do you do just like a screenshot and what people say?

Rebecca Eisenberg  39:39

No, I use Flow Desk, which has like a little block format for like reviews or whatever. Yeah. And so I just pop them in there within you know, the put a little photo of the recipe and it links to the recipe. And people seem to like that. And it’s again, it’s that social proof of like, you know, your newsletter readers are seeing other people are making the recipes and liking them and what they’re liking about them. You know.

Megan Porta  40:06

Okay, it’s such a great perspective on repurposing the amazing content that we all create. And this is also a way to just kind of, I feel like take control of your content a little bit, whether it’s on social media or your blog. And instead of adapting to all of the changes, you know what I mean? Like just having a little control, like, I’m going to do it this way and, and be willing to make changes, whether it’s a description change, or clip change, or whatever. It’s like, we are taking the reins a little bit from the platforms. Does that make sense?

Rebecca Eisenberg  40:42

Yeah, I think so. And I think it’s, you know, doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results is like, I think, the definition of insanity or something like there’s a quote or set, you know, if you do that, and so I do think like, you know, I’ve noticed in the past week or so that some of the things that I’ve expected to do better, aren’t doing as well. And so I’m just sort of back in, like, observation mode. I’m gonna keep doing what I’ve been doing, but I’m paying a little bit more attention to see like, Oh, are they rewarding? shorter videos right now? Is it just that I haven’t had something go viral in a bit, and this is my new normal, and that’s okay. You know, you just kind of go into observation mode for a little bit and see is something changing? What is I always like, what is the lowest lift way I can respond to whatever change I’m seeing? Right, I don’t want to burn myself out, I don’t want to go, you know, nuts trying to chase whatever Instagram or Facebook is trying to do, my priority is always driving traffic to my site. And if Instagram is driving traffic to my site, then I’m happy to spend my time on Instagram and drive traffic to my site. But if Instagram’s not, I’m gonna focus on the things that are, you know, I’ll try to figure Instagram out. But I want to spend my energy on the things that are the most rewarding and valuable to me. And so I do think it kind of gives you some control back because it makes it really easy to just keep updating the platform without burning out and gives you kind of a lot of data to work with, you know, and not even data like no, like, you need a spreadsheet and hard numbers, but just anecdotal data of like what seems to be resonating. The more you post, the more feedback you get.

Megan Porta  42:25

Right? And not just resigning yourself to Oh, the focaccia didn’t work. Okay, I’m going to focus on the bagel right now. Like you can give yourself control by going back and like, wait a second, I have faith in this recipe. This is amazing. One cup of flour, people like, you know, and just reworking it. Yeah.

Rebecca Eisenberg  42:42

Yeah. I think also, like, if you’re having fun, your audience can sense you’re having fun. And I think sometimes being a little weird, or a little funny, or a little like, off the cuff and, you know, real or doing something that’s like a meme or whatever. You know, I think people respond to that kind of stuff. And so I think sometimes taking, like, throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks kind of approach, especially if you’re small, like, it can feel like everyone is looking at you and studying every single thing you do, but most people are not looking that closely. You know, it’s worth it to like, have a little fun, try something a little out there experiment with your voice or, you know, the way you you frame something, because you might be surprised by by what works. And if it doesn’t work. No one really saw it. So it’s fine.

Megan Porta  43:35

Right, exactly. This is so fun. I love this perspective. Thank you, Rebecca, is there anything that we’ve missed that you would like to touch on before we say goodbye?

Rebecca Eisenberg  43:43

I think the only thing I want to say is like virality, and you know, even not even virality, because when a video does well, but then especially if it goes viral, it’s very exciting. But also it can bring a lot of like hate comments, or trolling or whatever. And so just I just want to reiterate like, it is super exciting to chase traffic and numbers and plays and views. But also make sure you like take care of yourself. And you know, when remember that when people are when something is going viral, people are finding you for the first time and they don’t know everything else that you’ve done. They don’t know the the whole of who you are as a person, your other content. And just because they’re yelling at you or being rude about something, doesn’t mean you have done anything wrong. If you need to step away, if you can’t engage with everything if you need to take a break, like make sure you take care of yourself when these things happen, because it can be really exciting. But it can also be kind of hard to process sometimes.

Megan Porta  44:46

I love that you said this. This is something that we forget about we get so excited about the viral and the traffic and the attention. But then there’s that little part that’s like oh people are really mean and they are they can be really mean. And that can, yeah, that can be,

Rebecca Eisenberg  45:03

Yeah,  I just had stuff go viral in a really nice way. And then I had all of Italian TikTok mad at me once because they thought I was calling dried basil pesto, which I was not. It was a pesto made using dried basil. And like that also went mega viral, but drove no traffic. And all it did was get people mad at me. So like, going viral can be very fun and very exciting. But also there are times when you want to, you know, protect yourself. It’s okay, if you need to step away. It’s okay. If you want to turn comments off, you know, do what you need to do to you know, protect your mental health.

Megan Porta  45:38

Yeah, no, that’s a really good mention and piece of it. So thank you, Rebecca. This was amazing. And do you have a favorite quote, or words of inspiration to leave us with before we go?

Rebecca Eisenberg  45:48

Yes, I do. My favorite quote is from the original Star Trek series. Captain Kirk says, “The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.” And I think of this all the time when I’m blogging, and I’ve kind of touched on this a little bit, but I think a lot of times, blogging can feel like checklists of data and SEO and these numbers and this ranking and this DA and all this technical stuff. But at the end of the day, it’s ultimately about sharing recipes for our readers to enjoy. And it’s just as important to like, have fun and be playful and creative. And under you know, we understand all these complex technical things, all the things that make our sites work and rank and you know, perform well. But I found that some of like my best successes have come from the moments when I trust that I know those things well enough and decide to just have a bit of fun. And I think that’s that’s a good thing to keep in mind whether you’re you know, doing your SEO in your blog post writing or creating reels and videos and trying different things.

Megan Porta  46:54

Amazing words to end on. Thank you so much for that we’ll put together show notes for you Rebecca, if you want to go look at those you can go to eatblogtalk.com/practical kitchen. Tell everyone where they can find you online Rebecca.

Rebecca Eisenberg  47:07

I am at thepractical kitchen.com, @the.practical.kitchen on Instagram, @thepracticalkitchen on TikTok. I’m on Twitter, @practicalkitch, because I didn’t have enough characters to fit kitchen. And I’m on Facebook as well. If you search The Practical Kitchen, you can find all of my social stuff. I’m on YouTube as well. You can find all of it on my site and at the link in my bio on Instagram.

Megan Porta  47:33

Awesome. Go check Rebecca out everyone and thank you so much for listening. I will see you in the next episode. 

Outro  47:42

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.