383: TikTok, Whisk, and the Importance of Leaning into Video as a Food Creator with Julie Tran Deily

Hello.

Hello Leslie here from the Food Blogger Pro team. Before we jump into this episode, I wanted to give you a quick heads up about a change that's happened since the recording of this interview. So a big focus of this episode is Whisk and today's guest, Julie used to work for Whisk and in this episode she shares a lot about how you can use Whisk to link to your recipes on TikTok. But that said, there have been a couple changes to how TikTok and whisk work, so we wanted to give you a heads up before we jump into the interview. So TikTok actually decided to sunset their Jump program. So the Whisk Jump feature is no longer available as of December 1, 2022. So that is something that Bjork and Julie talk about during this interview. So just know that that feature is no longer available. That said, we did chat with the Wisk team and as an alternative they recommend linking directly to whisk from your TikTok profile and they've said that they've had lots of creators who've had success with pointing people to Wisk and their website by doing that. So keep that in mind as an alternative if you still want to to your recipes on TikTok. But like I mentioned, Whisk Jump is no longer available as of December 1, 2022. So keep that in mind as you listen to this interview. But without further ado, let's get into it.

This episode is sponsored by Clarity. C L A R I T I and I kid you not, I was going to record this half an hour ago, but I was in Clarity and realized there's an opportunity for Pinch of Yum. That is a project we should move forward with. So I created a video, communicated it with the Pinch of Yum team and said hey, we should move forward on this and really get to work cleaning this up. In our case, what I had done is I said hey, show me all of the posts in the past year on Pinch of Yum. And then I sort ordered that in reverse order by page views. So I was looking at pages that on Pinch of Yum in the last year got zero page views and I realized we have a lot of really thin, not valuable content and it's important to clean that up. In our case, we're gonna delete a lot of that content and we should have done that a long time ago, but we just didn't get around to it. And it wasn't until I was using Clarity that I realized that that was something that we should have done. I was able to see that it's a lot of, like, old giveaway posts and things like that. So we're gonna move forward with that and clean up. Pinch of yum. And that's what Clarity is for. It's to help you discover that actionable information to create a project around it. And either you can follow the project or you can assign it to somebody within your team and then track the impact that that has by making notes or seeing when you made those changes over time. We bring all the information in from WordPress, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics. You hook it all up, and then you can sort, order, and use Clarity kind of like a Swiss army knife for your content. So if you're interested in checking it out, go to clarity.com food C-L-A-R-I-T-I.com food and that will get you 50% off your first month. Thanks to Clarity for sponsoring this episode. Hello. Hello, this is Bjork. As many of you know, you're listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. So today we're interviewing somebody I've known for a really long time, Julie Trandilli. She has a site called the Little Kitchen, started in 2009. So she's been on this blogging journey for a really long time. She's going to be talking about what it was like for her to start, but she's also going to be talking about what her time at Whisk was like, what Whisk is, and how that is an important company to be aware of, how it integrates with TikTok. And as we know, TikTok is an important platform where a lot of people are getting traction really quickly. And so if you are looking to build a following, one of the best ways to do that is to think about where do you best align in terms of how you create content and what are the platforms where you're able to get traction in a significant way. And for those of you that like to create content that works well on TikTok, and you need to spend time on TikTok to understand what that is, that might be a good platform for you because people are able to build a following relatively quickly on that platform. So. So Julie's gonna be talking about her story, the things that have been helpful for her, how she continues to show up every day, and also being willing to try new things out, like working for a company in an industry that you are interested in and aware of, and that aligns with your passions, and that's what we're all about here. How do you find alignment? Find the type of work that you want to be doing, and it doesn't have to be working on your own. It doesn't have to be building a blog that creates revenue from advertising income. What it's about finding that sweet spot, the focus for you as a creator, as somebody in the world who is creating things, whether for your own site or creating things with a group of people at another company. The purpose is to find that alignment, to find that sweet spot where you're showing up and excited about the work that you're doing every day. So excited to share this conversation with you. Let's go ahead and jump in. This is Julie from the Little Kitchen. Julie, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me. Bjork.

Yeah, we've chatted before, multiple different times, conferences, different touch points along the way. This is the first recorded conversation that we've ever had. So this would be really fun. We're going to be talking about a lot of different things. Your story, we're going to be talking about the importance of video. TikTok and Whisk. But before we do that, I wanted to kick it off with kind of a fun story that you have recently, proving the importance of video and how it can really be leveraged in a cool way, where you had a video that went viral, had like many, many millions of views, and. But you're also able to get ad revenue from that. So can you tell that story and what happened with that video?

Yeah, I mean, I'll. I'll just share really quickly. Yeah, it's. It's a Facebook reel, so I uploaded it directly to Facebook via the iOS app on my phone. I know you can upload it on desktop, but I don't usually do that. And I got 25 million views on that video.

What was it? What was the video about?

It was a crab rangoon recipe that's been on my blog since, gosh, since the beginning, 2009 or 2010.

The amazing thing with that is, and I think we forget about this, but for people who have been blogging for a long time, creating content for a long time, as you have, we forget we have these gems that could be 4, 5, 6, 10 years old that we could go back to and produce kind of content around it. And it sounds like that's what you did in this case, where you're like, hey, I published this a long time ago, where the. The word real wasn't something that we ever talked about as content creators. But you can go back to that and you know, the recipe, you know, it's maybe been successful in some capacity as a published piece of content. So then you can create in this case a reel around that. So what do you have any idea that it was going to be successful where you're like, I knew this has kind of some of the elements that might go into a successful video.

Yeah, a little backstory and I can share a little bit more if you want me to. But back in April I actually joined and hired a social media coach. So I worked with her for about three months, but I actually filmed this footage with a filming assistant or video assistant before I actually started chatting with this coach. And you know, we basically leaned into and I did a lot of deep work on how I want to show up on social media and what I want to do and kind of, I mean, it's going back a little bit. You know, I have to. Everything that I do has to be authentic to me, even if it's a part time job or what I share on social media or on my blog. So we worked on that and then I edit that video and she gave me some feedback and I posted it on TikTok actually. So first it did really well on TikTok. It's over 2 million views on TikTok and kind of leaning into a trend. Right. Crab Rangoon was actually trending for a while on TikTok and I was like, I have a recipe already, let me just make it. And it's a tried and true recipe. Like so many people have made it, I've made it. I don't even know if it's hundreds of times, but I've made it so many times for family and friends that I just know this recipe works. And I thought, let me just make a video. And I hadn't got to editing it until I actually worked with that coach.

And what. Working with a coach? What, what were the things that came from that? What did you learn from those three months of working with somebody?

It was really interesting. I really liked working with her. Her name is Sabrina Lawyer. And basically we did not make any traffic, any numerical followers, views, likes, any kind of goals like that. So it was actually really just doing a lot of deep work and figuring out what kind of content that I want to create on TikTok. So that's kind of what the platform I was focused on and it's really interesting and I think a big takeaway for a lot of people is you've got to experiment and you've got to try different things. And a lot of times I hear, like, among food bloggers and content creators were like, I don't want to. I don't want to do this other thing. Because here's another platform doing the same thing that TikTok is doing. And if I hadn't done a longer version of the video and shared it on Instagram reels, which also hit over 2 million views, and then thought, you know what, let me just try it on Facebook reels, and I'll say, you know, this is really interesting because I get. I overthink things too. And I also get stuck. And I put. I say, I put mental albatrosses in front of me too. And so I understand how hard it is. And so I know a lot of times the things that I say is actually saying I'm saying it for myself too, is that I posted the Facebook reel originally and it was before. You know, I don't even. I don't even want to say this. You know, we know that, like, Instagram is really trying to lean into what TikTok is doing, right?

Sure.

And Facebook is wanting to do the same thing. And so I felt like they just ported a bunch of code from Instagram to Facebook, but basically there were not a lot of the features that we see on Instagram reels. On Facebook reels originally, you either had like the voiceover and your audio, or you could pick a song and it would like, dominate your. So you lost your voiceover if you picked a song. So I had visually done that. And then I don't know how many weeks later I noticed that they had actually added in where you could change the levels of your voiceover and the music, just like TikTok and Instagram Reels. I thought, let me just try to put this video up and let me just try it again with my voiceover, because I feel like the voiceover and the ASMR with the sound of the crunching of the crab rangoon really helped. So I posted it again on Facebook reels. So the second time, Interesting. And it took, I think, a couple of weeks to hit a million. And then in 24 hours after it hit the 1 million, it did another 10 million views.

Wow. Huh? And so you had posted it before, and that's maybe a little bit of an encouragement to people to iterate to continue to look and think about how something can be a little bit better. In your case, the thing that was important is like, peeling back the music and increasing the voiceover and also just the sounds surrounding the video itself. Reposting it. So deleting the old one, I'm guessing.

No, I didn't even delete the old one.

Oh, so there's two. There's.

Yeah, yeah, there's two versions. And, like, we're so precious about this stuff, and I am so guilty of it. Also, like, really wanting to make sure our grid is, like, really pretty. And because I was just in the spirit of experimenting on Facebook reels, I'm like, let me just try this.

Yeah.

So that original video, I think, has like, 236,000 views on it.

Sure. Interesting. So one of the things you talked about as we were doing kind of the podcast intake form was ad revenue from that. So can you talk about how you're earning ad revenue from the video?

Yeah. So Facebook actually makes it a lot easier. I've always had this pipe dream that Instagram would make the links in our captions on Instagram hyperlinkable, like clickable, tappable. And so I've just had a habit of always putting my URL in my caption on Instagram. And so I copied it over and I changed it a little bit, and I added it to the caption for my Facebook reel, and it was really interesting. And then I just thought, you know what? Let me just put it in the first comment. You can't pin it, but on Facebook, the first few comments are usually the most relevant. The ones that are posted on the top, and those are the most visible. And so Facebook is between TikTok and Facebook and Instagram, and it's easiest to link to your content.

Sure.

And when that day when I had the 10 million views, I had enormous amount of traffic. And so I made ad revenue from mediavine in one day, equal to a previous month. So it was actually the month of May. It was like, pretty much the same amount.

Yeah. And it was like this video, it goes viral, and with that, then you have a link in the description, but also commenting saying, like, hey, here's where you can find my blog, or the recipe. And therefore, you get, like, a ton of traffic to it. So it's a great testament not only to experimentation, but also thinking strategically about what's. What's the outcome. Like, what is the purpose of a piece of content? Why are you posting it? Sometimes it's just to grow an audience and a following, but oftentimes there's ways, there's strategies, kind of a call to action that we can be thinking about with any piece of content. And in this case, it was linking back to your site. So you've video is an important piece for you. You talked about working with that, that coach and it sounds like working with that coach was less about like here's a new tip or trick and more about how do you want to be creating content in the world and aligned with the process where it feels like what you want to be doing. And I think with alignment comes sustainability. And sustainability is so important in this game because it takes a long time, as you know, as we know, to build a following, to get momentum, to get traffic. And so I think that's really cool. But I'm curious to know video. Why is video a draw for you and why do you think it's an important medium in general for creators?

Oh gosh, that's a really good question. Why is video a draw for me? So I'm going to peel back a little bit just because I remind me how many years ago were like tasty style videos, like the really fast forward really fast videos were like really really popular.

Five, six, seven years. It's hard, it's hard to. I think there's a Covid time warp as well.

Yeah. And even before then I created a couple of videos with my DSLR and I was editing it on my computer using Final Cut Pro and I posted to YouTube and I joke because one of the videos it took eight years to hit a million views. And then I have a couple of videos that only took a couple of weeks thanks to TikTok and Instagram Reels and Facebook reels and I did a little fast forwarding in some of those videos but they were a different angle, it wasn't the top down. And so when tasty style videos came to the forefront I wasn't really a fan of it. And like I have a lot of great friends who have been had a lot of success with it but to be honest I just, it really wasn't a draw for me. I didn't feel like there was value for my audience and value for me to create it. It just didn't feel right for me. So I really didn't lean into video for a long time. And then with the advent of TikTok and really getting excited about my when I started work with Wisk last year and I know we'll talk a little bit about that. I started a part time contract physic with Whisk. It's a recipe sharing app owned by Samsung and I was really already getting into TikTok and really like playing around with TikTok and really seeing the beauty of their algorithm. It is Literally, to me, like a symphony. I just was so. My mind was so boggled. If you spend a little bit of time on TikTok, it figures out what you like. Like, how did they know that I was going to like this? How did they know I was going to like digital planning, you know?

And what's interesting with it, just as a quick point, is I've heard it talked about as a shift from a social algorith to a content algorithm, and what a significant change that is. When you think of Facebook, it was a social media platform. It was social first. And it feels like TikTok was really one of the first platforms of that type of content, which would be video, primarily, where it was content first. Like, it was optimizing around content. It wasn't optimizing around your social network or people you followed necessarily. It was just like, let's surface the best content to, in TikTok's case, to keep people looking at the app, but also they're looking at the app because they're interested in it. Do you feel like that's a fair assessment?

That is exactly it. It is not based on your follower graph. And so anybody that might be drawn to that type of content can find you. And if they decide they like it and they want to follow, they can hit the follow button. And they make it really easy to grow your followers because the follower button is right there on the video. I know that, like, when Instagram reels first launched, people were saying, I'm getting all these great views, I'm getting all this great engagement, but I'm not getting followers. That little follow button wasn't there for a while because they weren't putting in. You know, obviously they have to add new features as they go along. And so once people started seeing that follow button, it was just really easy. Right. We always tell when we talk to each other, we're like, make it really easy for somebody to follow you or to do that call to action that you're asking them do. Don't make them hunt around for things. And that's part of, like, the problem of, like, people's follower growth on Instagram. When Instagram reels first, like, came around on the blog.

Yeah, interesting. So you so whisk. Tell me a little bit about whisk and then the connection of with whisk to TikTok.

Yeah, I don't know if you want me to go back a little bit, like, kind of like my journey.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Yeah. So I actually started the little kitchen. My food blog in December 2009. And I was working as a software engineer at the time. I know Bjork and I, we bonded over this. We've talked about this, how I'm a former dev, I was a backend java developer for 10 years, and I decided to start this little food blog just because I really do have a little kitchen. That's why it's called the Little Kitchen. And it was just a hobby. And then a couple years into it, I actually started making money and thought, wow, like, could I do something with this? But it really wasn't my dream to do this. This was never my intention to like quit my job or anything like that. And then while I was working, I actually helped organize a food blog conference. That's how we met. Begoric. Remember that? In 2015, you and Lindsay spoke at it. And then I've spoken at different conferences over the years and it was a little bit before I met you in 2015. I actually got laid off in 2012. And so I was really like, at this crossroad of like, deciding what I wanted to do. And I was distraught because I really thought that I was going to retire as a software engineer. Like, I really, I would do my reviews at the company that I was at. I was there for eight years, and I would say, I'm going to retire from this company because when I know what I want, I just really, like, I just say it. I don't really, not really shy about it. And then I was kind of like a little like, unhappy with where I was at at that company. So then I decided to like, hop to another company. And that was the position that I was there. I was working remotely. And that's the. That's the company that I got laid off from and then decided to do this full time. And I was doing this full time for like over nine years, right? And then over the last couple of years, it's been tough, right? Like, I feel like it's been tough for a lot of people. I want. I don't even want to say the word anymore. But yeah, it's. It was tough. And I was like, the word being like starts with the P. Yeah.

Ends with endemic.

Yes. Thank you. Rhymes with yeah. So basically I wasn't traveling that much. I wasn't really motivated or inspired. Like, I really need to be inspired and feel like I'm having meaning in my work. And I was really wanting to pivot and do something a little bit different. And it's so funny I told you this story, but I don't even have to go into it, but I basically was working on my LinkedIn profile and I found this posting for a job at Wisk. And it was like, preferably, you know, maybe has a food blog and loves food. And it was community growth manager. And I was like, let me just try this. And I have a couple, like, other crazy stories that were like, kismet, basically. And then I ended up having the interview and, gosh, it was like literally the best interview that I've ever had. Like, yes. And so how come.

What about. It was.

It was just. The person that interviewed me was just so open and I was very open. And it's literally the way I like to operate. Like, I. I'm full transparency, like, really open. I don't really beat around the bush and I really don't like being cagey. And if you're trying to hide something from me, it's going to give me, like, a feeling and I'm not going to feel, like, really trusting. And I need to trust you to feel like, like this is going to work. Right? And I felt like. And yeah, like, my, my former boss, Jason was like, really great. And I was just like, so excited. Like, I want this job. And it's like, this is crazy. You're a food blogger. You're. You like to work for yourself. Like, are you going to work for somebody else? Can you do this? You know? And I hit the ground running and I actually ended up just leaving there last month in August because it was too hard. Like, it was too hard to try to do the little kitchen and whisk. Yeah. And I still don't regret it, though. Like, the pivot was great for me. It's what I needed and I learned so much. But I know that I also taught them a lot about creators and bloggers, what we care about. And I feel like, also I feel like that's. Realize that that's one of my strengths is being able to synthesize and take my technical background and really be able to share, like, the space that we're in, just because it's a. It's a hard thing that we do sometimes. And I think, like, it's. It's a struggle and sometimes it's a real grind. And I think that some brands don't really understand, like, many hats that food bloggers and content creators wear in the.

Mindset that people have. And yes, like, totally even, even really small things. Like, I think of Whisk and the integration into TikTok and like, how much content is pulled in or not pulled in and the opinions that would be the, you know, what different people would have on that. But one thing I want to point out that I think is an important point when you're telling your story is the constant evolution that we should have within our working careers around, like, what our needs are. And that changes on a consistent basis. And it's, you know, sometimes it's drastic where it's like, you. You really need something different. Sometimes it's small changes over time that eventually lead to a big difference. But, you know, in the case of, like, I think of Lindsay, a big change was we have our two girls and like, okay, that's a really significant change for Lindsay because she wants to spend more time with them. So what does that mean for her career? We're in the middle of a name that shall not be mentioned. That's happening globally.

Yes.

The needs that different people have within that period of time, from a social perspective, from an impact perspective, like, all of those should be considerations as we. We think about what does the work that we do look like and how is our day made up. And so I think it's great that you point that out and for people to stay light on their feet to say, like, hey, let's give this a try. And that's what you did. And you tried it out. You got a feel for it. Seems like it served you well, and you also serve the company well. What was it like to make the decision to go back to working on your business full time?

I struggled with that decision for a couple of months because I really. There were some projects that I worked on. And early on, I'll say, like, I. It really says a lot about the company just because early on, I think I was only there for like, less than two months. I decided the company is distributed over, like, 10 time zones, like multiple countries. And so a lot of it was in Slack and we'd have some meetings, but, like, a lot of times it was like a lot of async, asynchronous work environment, which I know a lot of bloggers, when you hire a freelancer or a contractor, you know, like, how that is. And I made a video for the CEO, like, in late December last year. And I was like, here's all the things that WIS needs, and this will be great for creators and food bloggers. Like, this is what I want, but I know this is what other food bloggers would want. And pretty much, I think 100% of the features and everything that I suggested ended up on the product. Roadmap for this year. So if you know anything about software development life cycle, you know that like, like you can't just request a feature. It's not going to end up there in like two weeks. It takes time and, and, and resources and priorities are shuffled around and stuff like that. But it was really exciting and like, really, it just was like an aha moment and, and it was, it was awesome to feel respected and valued and really listened to and then like all those features, right. And some of them are still coming along on the way and I'm hoping they come out like before the end of the year. And it's really exciting because I got to like put my mark on that product and I still really care about it and really passionate about it. But like, that's why it was really hard because there were a few things that were like, oh, I just want to see it to the finish line.

Yeah.

But like, you know, Q4 is coming up and then also I just know myself and this is one thing that I hope that more people like really work on, like self awareness and really. And you know, obviously it's always a work in progress, but I know that I'm very wishy washy and indecisive until I decide and once I decide, I'm very decisive. That doesn't make any dang sense. Right.

Like. I know, I know you mean. Yeah, yeah.

Like I, and I'll seem to other people like I'm being indecisive and like I would think I'd be like, oh, I'm gonna probably drive that person nuts, like going, oh, what about this and what about that? A little bit of a researcher, like in that respect and really trying to think about it, but knowing myself and knowing that like, I was really like torn between the decision for a couple of months. So I kind of pretty much knew before I knew that this was going to be the right thing that I need to do. And it was really like last month I was really focused, head down on like finishing up a bunch of projects and giving a bunch of feedback and tying up like all the stuff so that I could just wrap everything in a pretty package. And you know. Yeah, I still, I still miss my coworkers and I think that's a testament to the work environment and the culture.

Yeah, totally. Can you talk about, for those who aren't familiar, what is Whisk and then like a component of it is integrated into TikTok, but can you just explain kind of what the platform is and how it works?

Yeah, it's a recipe sharing platform and there are some social aspects to it. You have a profile and you can post recipes and comments on recipes. You can save into like a, like a recipe box. Recipes from all over the Internet, but you can also add your own recipes. There's also communities and you can. What I really like about being able to save recipes from anywhere on the Internet is that the instructions are not saved.

Sure.

Like on there. So you're going to view the instructions and if somebody saves your recipe, say they come to the little kitchen or pinch of Yum and they save the recipe into the recipe box. The instructions are there and the link, the integrity of the link to the food blogger is kept so they can tap over and, or click over and see the instructions on our website so we can get the ad revenue.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So essentially it's a platform that allows people to save recipes if they're somewhere and, and they see them. But to your point, it doesn't save the instructions. So if somebody needs to see how it's made, they'd have to go there. Similar to like Pinterest, we think of rich pins. It does a similar thing where it will save the ingredient list so you know kind of generally what the recipe's about, but not you won't know how to make it. So you have to go to the platform. How about the integration within TikTok? Like what, how does whisk talk to TikTok and why is that beneficial for a creator on TikTok?

Yeah, so the Whisk is owned by Samsung. It was actually acquired by Samsung in 2019. It was a startup and it still kind of operates like a startup within Samsung, which is pretty neat. And it's not integrated in. It's a partnership with TikTok, actually. So whisk has a partnership with TikTok and there's several different companies that have a partnership with TikTok. And when you are able to add a link, like when you're about to post your video, there's a little ad link button, I think. I hope I have the terminology right. Sometimes you know how like it's like looking at the phone dial. You need to like look at it so you can tell you exactly what it is. There's a little ad link button and there's all these different options to link to different sites. And Whisk is in there and that little section is called a jump. So that's what TikTok calls it. That's the terminology. So you can add the whisk jump into your video and and unfortunately the the whisk jump is only available in certain countries and I could give you the list so that you can put it in the show notes.

Sure.

It's five different English speaking countries and basically it they can tap into inside the video and it goes directly to wisk shows the instructions and then they could tap over and click over and see the instructions on your website. Did I just say instructions? The ingredients.

That makes sense. So you have a recipe, you're first putting it on whisk and then from Whisk linking in TikTok. Do you know percentage wise like let's say you post recipe, it has a thousand views. Would you have a guess as to like how many people click that whisk button and then from that whisk page how many people click over to the recipe?

I don't have like exact numbers. Like I know we've had like percentages that like TikTok shared with us and I don't even know if I could share them but like basically the amount of information that you could give the user if they're really wanting to make the recipe the more likely if they're wanting to engage. Right. And to me if they're willing to tap over and then also tap over to your website, that's a really highly engaged, highly motivated person who really wants to cook that recipe. And so it really depends on the kind of content that you're creating. Whether you're doing like entertainment type style cooking on TikTok or if you're really like here's how to make it, let me give you some value and here's like how to make it so that it is you can be successful at making this and they really want to make it and bring them over and it's kind of like you know, it really depends on like the content. Right. I know it seems like a a wishy washy kind of answer, but creating like great content that make people want to take action from it. I think that's very important and part.

Of it probably has to do with like how much explaining are you doing within the video itself. If you're explaining kind of start to finish people aren't going to need to go figure out via the instructions. But from what I understand it's the one way that you could get people to your site from TikTok versus like putting in the text to what the URL would be or something like that. Like there's not like a clickable way to add a link within TikTok is that right? Other than.

Yeah. There's not a clickable way and it's not in the caption. And then once you post the video, you can't edit that jump. You can't edit the caption in TikTok. I mean, you could put the link in like a pinned comment in the first one, but I don't think those are even tappable either. And you've got a, like a link in bio type situation. You could do that. But it's more of like we're thinking about like how many touches it takes them to get to your site.

Yeah.

You know, like if they have to go through a couple of different hoops. But I will say that if they are willing to go to that hoop, they're like, they could be, you know, they could become a super fan. Right.

Yep. Yep. That makes sense. So am I remembering right that WISK has like a creator platform? Is that something that exists there or is that somewhere else that. That I'm thinking of.

They actually do have a creator fund and when I left I actually did join it. Yeah.

Okay. Can you talk about what that is?

Yeah. So bloggers and creators who are, you know, mainly social media creators who are creating recipes can totally join and you make money off of your recipe views and reviews and reviews on Whisk are called made it. So somebody left a comment saying, oh, I love this, I made this. I might have changed one little thing here or there and they leave a comment, then you actually make money on that.

No, that makes sense.

Yeah.

If you were to say like percentage wise when you look at your, the makeup of your business, I think it's something that's always interesting for people to hear about, let's say on a normal month, not a month where you have 25 million views on a video. Like, is it like, you know, 90% from ad revenue, 5% trans content, 5% from creator fund? Like what. How does that fit into the pie graph of, of your business right now?

I would say it's probably. Ad revenue is probably more like 70, 80% which I really don't like just because it used to be a little bit more split with sponsored content. I'm not doing as much sponsored content this year and last year. I just like the climate of everything has changed a lot and I want to get back to like working on pitching and working with brands again because I actually love working with brands.

Yeah.

So it's, it's one of those things where it's like it is a little higher with ad revenue. Than I'd like. And that's. Oh, I know you've talked about this before and you guys do it with your business very well. Like of having multiple streams of revenue and like really, really leaning in on that. But one thing I wanted to share about the ad revenue overall is that even though I didn't really. It took me a while to lean into video. Right. It was. It's still really important for my ad revenue overall. So I actually will. I do, I shoot the video in like vertical and I use actually Adobe Rush to edit my videos and they make it really easy. You just click a little button and you can make it horizontal and then I download that. And I've just started doing that recently because I've done it different ways. Like I used to use Inshot and stuff like that to make a little bit longer video just for the media player on mediavine. That's who I'm with for my publisher network. And a lot of times video is anywhere from 20 to like 30% of my ad revenue. Like so I think whether you're not wanting to like lean in on social media because you don't believe in like creating content for somebody else or another platform, really leaning in on it for your audience and your blog is really important because I mean I just think about that little chunk would be a lot less, right? Like that my overall ad revenue would be less if I didn't have that 30% really from the video ad revenue on my website.

Yeah. It point being two pieces that I'd be interested in talking with. That one point is you have a piece of content, it's a blog post that you've published. A strategy to that would increase ad revenue is to think strategically about putting a video player in that post. Because video, there's really high earning potential on ads that are run against video. You talked about the universal player. Can you talk about what that is?

Yeah, there's a universal player and it actually shows up when you visit the site. So it doesn't necessarily have to be that actual. Like I don't. They don't have to go to the Crab Room post. Right. To see the Crab Room goon video. And so it'll start playing. It does a pre roll ad and then it will play the video and then it will also play another ad. If they're still on there, it'll play another video. So it'll go through. You can create playlists. There's all these things I haven't really done enough diving into it and remember and I don't know if mediavine added it, but I also requested at one point have like categories so that if I'm like, sure, if someone's joining like a, if they like went to my site on a vegetarian recipe that in the roll it would just show like vegetarian recipes and if they're like baked goods and just show them like other cookie recipes or other cakes or something like that.

Yeah. Do you have, if you create an individual video for a piece of content, are you showing, are you replacing the universal player with that individual video?

I'm actually just putting the video. I have the universal player turned on always and then I have the, I can also embed the code in the video for that post.

Got it.

In the blog. In that blog post. But if that blog post doesn't have a video embedded, it's going to play a video from the playlist. Yeah.

Cool. The other piece that was interesting that you talked about was Adobe Rush. So is that a IO like a iOS or mobile app that you're using or is it on your computer?

Yeah. And full disclosure, I'm actually an Adobe Ambassador. And what does that mean?

Like you're like kind of like sponsor kind of thing or.

Yeah, well I, I'll, I'll occasionally like create like video content or social content and I get paid for it promoting Adobe. But it's so interesting because I was already a champion of it's Adobe Express is what I'm an ambassador for and I was championing like Adobe Spark and it turned into they, they rebranded to Adobe Express for many years and I would create my videos in Adobe Spark Video. But now and I wish I had like even more in with the Adobe Rush team. But yeah, sometimes they get emails from me for like feature requests. Yeah, I'm like.

Seems to be a trend.

Yes, yes, yes. So yes, it is a trend which.

Is a great thing. Like as somebody who has software that we run, like it's really val, you know, that's when you're onto something is when somebody's like hey, could I, could you also do this? Like you want that kind of stuff.

And I hope they're, you know, and you also feel good as a consumer, right. As a customer, as a long time Adobe customer, Creative Cloud customer that like they're, they're willing to listen to it and hear the feedback. They really want to hear, hear from it. So yes, I use Adobe Rush to, to edit my long, I mean my short form vertical videos and what I have like a whole workflow that I learned from a few other like video Content creators, but they use Premiere Pro. But I felt like, you know, I was getting really good at Final Cut Pro years ago, but I just didn't want to sit on my computer. That was really like what I said. I don't want to sit at my computer all the time. And it's so funny because now I'm 42, I have a herniate disc in my neck and my back. So I do have to limit my time on the computer totally. I'm back on the computer editing using Adobe Rush. But what's cool is There is an iOS and an iPad version too, so you could edit on your phone. I, I just like doing it on the computer. I use a, an Apple trackpad for. I've just switched from the mouse to the trackpad, thanks to my friend Janelle. But basically edit that. And I like that you can like copy a sequence really easily. So I'll like. It's really great. You can select all your video, add it. It creates the timeline based on what you shot, how you shot the video. So if you do shoot it out of order, you're gonna have to move things around. And then when I do my workflow.

Does it know that when you drop it in like you drop a file in and it knows via the timestamp when it was taken and then it orders it that way?

That's a good question. So if you just do like command A and select all of it, it does it in order and then you could also pick it in different order. But if you have like 20, 30 clips like I do, I just don't even bother. I just wanna, I just wanna do it as. I just want to be as quick as possible and use as many keyboard shortcuts as possible. And then what I do is I actually will save that sequence and leave that sequence. So it's like if you know that Crab Rangoon video that we initially filmed, it was like 18 minutes long. No one wants to watch an 18 minute long video, right? So we cut it down. I leave that sequence as is so that I don't have to like try to figure out like what's the order of what anymore. And then I copy that sequence in Adobe Rush and then I do a version for my blog. So anywhere from two to four minutes long and then I will copy that sequence and then do a shorter one, like a minute long for like YouTube shorts and then copy that sequence again and then cut even more for like anywhere from. I don't know, it could be 7 seconds or 30 seconds or 20 seconds or even 45 seconds for TikTok. So I like to do the shorter version for TikTok.

I mean 0.7 seconds for TikTok. So one of the things you said was it will take a vertical and make it horizontal. What did you mean by that?

Oh yeah, so there's a little button like on the top right of when you're edit where you're like the viewer for your video and you could Change it to 4 by 5, 1, 1 by 1 which is square and then you could do it's a 9 by 16 or 16.

I always get the two numbers to the. Yeah, whatever. You pick.

Yeah, yeah. It will take all of the, the clips in that sequence and zoom in and make it horizontal for you. And then you might have to like readjust a little bit, but it's like a literally a one click button to do it.

Cool, that's, that's great. You had mentioned a couple of different platforms, YouTube shorts, TikTok, you know, Instagram reels, Facebook reels. Have you found like, if you were to rank order those in terms of significance or like where you're seeing the most traction or growth with your videos, what order would that be?

Okay, so I always do this where I can't give you like a definitive answer. I'm gonna, I, I, okay, so I'm gonna say yeah, I suck. I'm not gonna give you a full answer.

Partial answer that works well.

It's gonna be hopefully a more well readed answer or like, like whoever's listening is like what is she gonna say? So I love TikTok because I feel like I'm finding my people on TikTok. I don't know if that makes sense.

Sure.

This great community of people and TikTok, the TikTok audience and even my for you page or, or shortened fyp, like just it's giving me life. The content that I'm seeing, the creativity and the feedback that I'm getting on TikTok is great and I'm as you can tell already, you know, I'm an opinionated person and I'm a little snarky too and I love that like TikTok is helping me embrace my inner snark and sharing that on social media too because I've always wanted to be like, ooh, I don't think that's going to be appropriate for social media. Right. So I feel like TikTok is helping me really be Julie and really finding the people that really want to connect with Julie. You know what I mean? Julie from the little kitchen Julie. So that's why I really like TikTok. And I really love that there are people making the recipes on TikTok. I got, when that video was going viral, I got screenshots of my TikTok saying, Where's the recipe? You know, even though they had the little whist link in the video. And so it does minimize the number of questions you're getting, where's the recipe? But some people will still get it. And I was getting the DMs on Instagram and so it's really interesting. I love TikTok because I've been able to really organically grow my Instagram account because of TikTok and leaning into reels, if that makes sense. Because I really do believe that my TikTok followers are coming onto Instagram and following me there. But also when Instagram was really suggesting a lot of real content in our feed on Instagram, I was able to grow, I doubled my growth on Instagram. And then, I hate to say it, you know, the Kardashians and a lot of content creators complained, so they shut that valve off. And once they shut it off, I was like, oof. My follower, like my little graph was like this. And then it just was like steady again. And I was like, holy crush. Like, this is awesome. Because they were kind of leaning into the way TikTok is on based on content, not your follower graph.

Right, right.

And I was like, oh gosh. And they were also saying that, that smaller creators were going to benefit from that. And I really did benefit. It was like a month long thing where I grew from 30,32,000 followers to 62,000 followers on Instagram. And I'm like, who does that today on Instagram? Not organically. Right? Not using ads.

Yep.

So it's TikTok. But I'm sorry, I'm going to like keep going for one second. I still think YouTube shorts is still important, even if I'm not getting like the growth that I'm, that I'm wanting to see. Like, we always want to see like this exponential growth and that's not always possible, but I am, we're realistic and we know that like leaning into YouTube really does help with backlinks. Right. From YouTube because of Google search. And also YouTube videos are showing up always on, on search. So definitely seeing a benefit on posting on YouTube shorts. And then obviously because we can really the easiest way to link to video on Facebook. So I'm gonna give the like cruddy answer of like all of it. And I know some people are not gonna like that, but if I hadn't, like, posted it on Facebook reels and just given it a shot, like, I just couldn't have dreamed of 25 million views for one video. Do you know what I mean? Like, so that whole, like, experimenting. Don't overthink it and just try it and get out of your own way of saying, oh, gosh. Because one of the things I did share with my. With team members, my former team members, is that as bloggers and content creators, sometimes we get overwhelmed with, like, a new platform or a new idea or something else to learn, and we're, like, worried about one more thing that we have to do. And sometimes maybe we kind of need to just get rid of that and going. And really think about, is this going to work for me? Is this something that would work for my brand? Is this something that works for my personality, That I could just give it a try instead of immediately putting that block in front of you and saying, this is not for me. Because I really do feel like you kind of close yourself to the universe for other opportunities when you do that.

Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things that you see with platforms, social platforms, is like, you'll see people who are really good, naturally really good at a certain type of medium. When that medium is prioritized, you see this, you see them kind of catch that wave. And I feel like for creators who are catching multiple waves, what it requires is, like, reinventing yourself as a creator in different ways. And use the Kardashian example, like, seven years ago, they could post a photo that's very different than producing a piece of video content that's 30 seconds long. And if somebody's not interested in reinventing themselves, like, the wave eventually subsides, and you just kind of sink into the ocean where you are. Unless you're willing to get back on the surfboard in this analogy and try and catch another wave to then, like, be able to ride that type of content and the. And the traction that you get from that. But it is hard. And I think to your point, like, sometimes people are just like, gosh, this is really tiring. And, like, I'm gonna tap out, like, yes.

And I totally get that.

I'm done. Which is. It's not bad, but it's. But what you can't do is, like, be like, I'm gonna persist and just cross my fingers that the old way of doing it is actually gonna work moving forward, because sometimes that might shift and change, like, to your point with Instagram, like, they. They had the Kardashian thing and, like, who knows, kind of how that all played out. But for the most part, it's just a constant evolution and we're having to produce content differently in the world and needing to be okay with that, which is hard because you kind of start from zero again when you are back to a new medium or a new way to produce content.

Definitely. And I will say, I feel like that is actually like a motto for life too, right? We have to constantly evolve. The economy shifts, culture shifts. Things are changing constantly. Things were totally different when I was born 42 years ago, you know, and like even 10, 20 years ago and 13 years ago, almost 13 years ago when I started my blog. And it's really interesting to me. It's really cool to see, like, some of the things are coming back, but some things are really just not coming back. Right. I do think that, like, blogs will continue to be relevant as long as people are still really going to Google and being in Yahoo and really searching for stuff. I mean, we're always searching for stuff. I don't, I don't always. I'm always dragging down on my phone and hitting the search to go as fast as I can. Right. Instead of trying to go through my bookmarks even, right? But, like, saying that, like, I want to share something really quick, I'll try to be really quick on it is I was invited to an event years ago, and I'm not going to say, like, the name of the event or anything like that, but there were a bunch of food writers there. And it was, I don't know, maybe like 40, 50 food writers and like, me and two other food bloggers. And I was like, this is crazy. They invited me. This is like, so crazy. And I heard one of the food writers, journalists working for, like, print publications saying, why did they invite them? Why did they invite them? And I was like, I at that moment could have been like, oh, I don't belong here. Can you believe she said that? I was like, no, I belong here. I was invited. You know what I mean? And I had a lot of fun and I didn't let that ruin my day. But I saw the evolution over the years of the print journalists that did not embrace social media, right? Like, a lot of them and some of them even, like the ones on tv, some of them are editing their own video and they're. They're on Instagram doing reels and stuff like that. So if you're not embracing what. Or at least trying to lean in and learn and kind of see what can I use for this, what will work for me? I know this doesn't work for my personality or this is not what I want for my business, but if you just close yourself off to it, you're going to be like the person who was like, why are they there? And then within a couple of years, I kept getting invited to this event. Within a couple years it was like five food writers and like 50 bloggers that they invited. So it's totally, it's, it totally changed, shifted over the years and being able to like look at like see the force for the trees. Right. And not just always keep looking down and like having tunnel vision, I think. But I think that's also a part of like the way my brain works too. And probably the way your brain works too. Right? Like really just paying attention to like what's going on and pick what can work for you and what works for you. Because it is like you said earlier, I feel like the theme is like creating a sustainable business for you. You can't do all the things, but like, don't close yourself off to all the things, if that makes sense.

Be open minded, but also be willing to be focused on a specific thing and not try and do it all.

Yeah.

So Julie, come to the end here. You've been at this for a long time and have a ton of experience in this world. What would your advice be? For somebody who's just getting started, let's say it's their first year or first couple of years that they're kind of jumping into this world of creating content online, building a business online. What would your advice be?

My advice would be to really find some of the people that you really connect with like on social media and try to like connect with them offline a little bit. I feel like the people that I've been able to like meet along the way and have chats with, chats that we've had and also with other food bloggers and other content creators constantly learning from each other and talking to each other and doing that, venting. If you need to complain or vet with somebody who really understands because they're, they, they have a stake in the game too, right? Like they're, they're in it too and not really kind of like complain about working with a brand or like stuff like that on social media. So like being professional but also finding your like community among other content creators and other bloggers, like really like building the relationship. Because you can't do this alone. You really can't. I wouldn't have been able to. Like I say all the time, like I've been organizing like a little small mastermind group and it's not paid or anything. It's really just people that I love and respect and we just kind of chat with each other. And the group has evolved over years and I started different ones, but the one that I had over like 2020 and 2021, like they helped me survive. Yeah, those two years because like you can't do it alone and you really can't talk to like your in real life friends about some of this stuff because they don't care about it nor do they even know what you're talking about. So it's really finding your friend group and your community, like your co workers. Right. Like in the community. I think that's like really so important.

And it's something that you'd usually have built in. If you have a job that you're going to where you would have coworkers, whether it's a big company or a small company, you have people that you work with that you go and get lunch with. You can process out loud things that are happening. You don't have that in the same way in the work that we do. And so what's the outlet for that? Well, sometimes you have to create it. And I think it's important to point that out. In your case, you created it. You know, sometimes people come to me like how do I get into a group? Or how do I figure out how to like join this group of people? And so often I think the answer is you don't necessarily like make your way into a pre existing group. You instead think about what your needs are and try and find other people that have similar needs and create that group. I think that's a great.

Yes. You have to build that water. You have to build that water cooler yourself. Yeah. So you have to build it yourself. But also I, you know, you said something that I, I've heard that people say that all the time, like, well, how do I join a mastermind group? And like you said and some people will say, well, how do I get invited to a retreat? You know, and I'm, I'm on the same page as you. Create your own retreats, create your own groups, create your own like little community and like lean on each other and support each other, but like truly support each other, like celebrate each other's wins and Yeah, I mean I really, truly believe in building relationships that have. No, you don't have like A ulterior motive. You just want to, you know, get to know somebody and you never know like what you can teach them and what they can teach you.

Yeah, that's great Julie. Super fun to chat as always for anybody who wants to follow along with what you're up to, maybe watch some of your content that you're creating, whether it be a 3 minute video or a 30 second video or a 3 second video for TikTok, where can they find you and follow along with what you're up to?

Yep, my blog, the little kitchen.net and on social media for the most part, everything but YouTube. I'm at the Little Kitchen but there's no E in Kitchen.

Great.

So it's T H T H E L I T T L E K I T C H N awesome.

And we'll link to those in the show notes as well. Julie, great to chat today. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you so much. Bjork. Hello.

Hello Leslie here from the Food Blogger Pro team. We really hope that you enjoyed this episode of of the podcast. I wanted to really quickly mention something awesome that all Food Blogger Pro members have access to, which is our deals and discounts page. So if you are a Food Blogger Pro member, you can access this by going to our homepage and then just clicking Deals once you're logged into the site. And essentially what we've done is that we have partnered with lots of amazing companies to offer our members exclusive discounts on their products. And so we have deals for lots of companies like WP, Tasty, NerdPress, Slickstream, Linkin, Profile, Tailwind, ConvertKit, Influence Kit, the list goes on and on. And a lot of these are companies that we know bloggers are already working with or are familiar with. And just by being a Food Blogger member, you get access to different deals and discounts on all of these different companies and their products. So if you do want to become a Food Blogger Pro member and get access to these deals and discounts, you can easily join by going to foodbloggerpro.com join and there you'll be able to look at our membership and learn more about it and join our community. I really hope that you enjoyed learning a bit more about our deals and discounts. It's one of the awesome features of FoodBlogger Pro I think a lot of people might not know about. So we wanted to quickly mention it in today's episode, but I think that's all we've got for you. Thanks again for tuning in and until next time, make it a great week. It.