427: Why Diversifying Your Website Traffic Matters with Arman Liew from The Big Man's World

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This is Emily from the Food Blogger Pro team and you're listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast this week on the podcast, Bjork is interviewing Armin from the blog the Big Man's World. Before we hop into the episode, just a quick note that the audio on this episode is a little wonky. Bjork was having some issues with his microphone, but we did our best to make it listenable and it really shouldn't interfere with your enjoyment of the episode at all. So with that out of the way, I'll tell you a little bit about this episode. Armand chats a lot about how he was able to leave his full time job pretty early on in his blogging days to focus on the Big Man's world full time. He shares about what strategies he found to be the most effective in growing his site, and a little bit of a cautionary tale about putting all of his eggs in the Pinterest basket, so to speak. He was really heavily focused on Pinterest in the early days of his blog, and that worked really well for him. Until it didn't, as often happens with social media platforms. He shares kind of behind the scenes of that journey, how he recovered from relying totally on Pinterest and now how he diversifies his income and focuses on on lots of different strategies for getting traffic to his site and monetizing his blog. Armin also shares more about what it's like to blog from Australia, but with a primarily American audience and how he's grown his team over the years. It's a really interesting episode, a great perspective to have a blogger from outside the United States on the podcast. And we know you'll get a lot out of it. So I'm just going to let Bjork take it away.

Armin, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks so much for having me, Bjork. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, this is one of those interviews where technology is amazing because we are miles apart right now, and yet it feels like you're just kind of hanging out in the room with me. So it's end of day for me, early morning for you. Thanks for getting up early. You're coming to us from Australia, so want to hear a little bit about your story? We're going to talk about your journey over the past, really 10 years. Is that right? That's how long you've been at this point?

Yeah, maybe a little bit less than that. I think we started taking it a bit seriously around, yeah, maybe seven, eight years ago. I think the blog's been on the Internet for maybe 10 years.

Sure.

But yeah, one of the things I.

Like to do is pull up the Wayback Machine. Do you ever do Wayback Machine? And it's always like, always the, like the worst fear for anybody who has anything that they've published online is like somebody going back to look at the early versions of it. But the. It's always interesting to see, like, how did people start? And it sounds like. And it would be interested to hear you talk a little bit about. More about this. The idea of the Big Man's World, which is the name of your site and kind of where you are on social everywhere, was all about this transition into like all of these things now about becoming an adult. Like, you were in university, you were studying, and it's like, okay, it's time to transit, transition into being an adult. All of these things that come along with it, including, like Cooking and making meals. Is that generally speaking, kind of where the name came from?

Yeah, absolutely. And it's probably one of the biggest questions. Everyone's like, how. How does that even relate Totally at all? And it's like, oh, it kind of doesn't because it didn't start off like that. But yeah, it was. That's sort of where the name sort of started because it was, it was a university assignment in my final year of university. And yes, it definitely didn't start off as. As a food blog and it sort of over time transitioned into that to sort of what it is now. But yeah, I'd hate to. Hate to go back to way back.

Which is totally anybody. Everybody does. Yeah. But one of the things that I think is great about that is, and I often talk about this, anybody who's thinking about starting a thing is the most important thing to do is to start because oftentimes it will evolve into something that you didn't expect. And it sounds like that was somewhat true for you. Where you started, you were publishing things online and then was it that you found like an interest or you found traction or maybe both? Like, what did it look like to start? You're on blogspot, is that right? Like you're publishing on Blogger or Blogspot, and so it's just kind of general content, talking about things and then eventually kind of found this avenue into food. What did that look like to discover that?

Sure. So it's a bit of a weird story. So what happened was I, I moved from Melbourne to Sydney to once I graduated university to start to start working for Qantas actually, so which is our sort of main carrier airline as part of the graduate program. But my final year of university for my media subject, we had to start a blog. So that's sort of where I had the URL and everything was on Blogspot. And yeah, once university finished graduated, I conveniently forgot that, you know, it's on the Internet still. I never deleted it or anything like that. So I, when I moved to Sydney, I sort of used it as like a log for myself to. I was cooking for myself for the first time. I was, you know, I had a personal trainer that was telling me certain things to eat and exercises to do and instead of just sort of having. I don't even think iPhones would definitely around there. But I didn't use like the notes function or anything like that. And I used sort of my website as like a log of things that I was doing, forgetting that, you know, random people on the Internet sort of stumble across it. And over time, over maybe about a six to eight month period, I started getting comments from people being like, oh, I tried this recipe out or I made this. And I was like, oh, that's really odd. I thought this was only for sort of my eyes. Yeah. And then I guess over time I just sort of used it as I started writing some sort of a bit more, I guess just sort of random stuff like just what was whatever's on my mind. And then intermittently would add some food content because that's sort of what I was eating and cooking at home. And accidentally I sort of grew a bit of an audience of. I think at the start was like other like bloggers in like the health food niche or like healthy living bloggers I think, and they would like, you know, come and comment and stuff. And over time I sort of saw that like traffic was going up, but I wasn't really intending it to. It was sort of like, oh yeah, I'm just posting stuff on here. And then one of. I think it was a fellow blogger, but I don't think she blogs anymore. But she actually wrote something like oh, on one of my posts that if you were in America you could do this full time. And I was just like, oh, that's such a, such a foreign concept for me. Because I think, I mean even still to this day blog Australian food bloggers. There's. There's not many, there's very, very few. Especially compared to, compared to America or even the UK or Europe.

Why do you think that is?

Ah, I think maybe it's just a very. Here. I think we're not a. I wouldn't say. How would I say it? It's what's popular in the States. It usually takes a couple of years to gain a lot of traction and popularity here. Whether it's like a type of food, a type of exercise, a type of work. And I think back then it just wasn't really, wasn't really something that people would go online to search for. Like we had lots of free resources without like grocery stores and it just really wasn't, wasn't super popular unless you had people that would use I think like livejournal or I think maybe MSN had something called like MSN Spaces where people would just sort of write like a diary sort of thing. So yeah.

And you would follow along with friends or it was maybe more of like a social network than it was a platform.

Yeah, absolutely. Definitely more a social network. So back then I just found out such a foreign, foreign concept. But gradually more and more people were saying that like leaving comments, being like, oh wow, you know this, are you a full time blogger or do you do this full time? And I was just like, no, like this is just a hobby. But I, it sort of piqued my interest. I sort of looked into it a little bit more and I was like, wow, there are a lot of bloggers, I think this is 20, start of 2015. A lot of bloggers who were food bloggers especially, who were doing it as sort of like a full time job. And I was just like, oh, this would imagine like being able to sort of work for yourself and that sort of aspect of it. So I worked out that with my university degree, because I'd graduated within a certain time period, I was able to get a one year working visa for the States. So I was just like, you know, I was, I was really unhappy with my job, but I was doing okay at it. But I was like, I wonder if I could take a career break and sort of have a stab and go to the States and see if I could, if I could try, you know, blogging full time. Like pick a niche, stick to some consistency. Instead of, you know, one week I might post like four recipes. The next week I would, I don't know, write some random jargon about my day. So yeah, got a one year working visa and that's when I flew, flew to New York in, I think it was mid-2015. But before I went I kind of like, I've always been scared about not having a job and not being able to support myself. So I just kind of made like a goal with myself that was like within. If I wasn't able to match my income that I was making at my graduate position, which wasn't super high, it was like straight out of the university within the first three months I'd have to use that, use the working visa to find like, you know, an office job, a corporate, corporate job over there. And I think that sort of scared me because I was like, oh look, I don't want to go back to that corporate work that was causing me a lot of stress. So I sort of went gung ho. I, you know, I started learning photography really, really, really well. I invested in like a camera, like a proper camera. I, I spoke to a bunch of other bloggers about like, you know, how do you reach out to a brand to work with them and which was such a big thing before I got there because brands were happy to collaborate or do a sponsored post. But as soon as they heard that I was in Australia, they were just like, okay, no, like we're going to share, you know, arm and across the globe. So yeah, it was a very busy first couple of months, but it was very fruitful because I think that drive of not wanting to go back to the corporate world, I sort of like, I really, really worked hard to, you know, make relationships with brands, you know, posting regularly on the website and sort of picking a niche that was quite popular at the time, which is like, you know, healthy recipes, healthy desserts. And I sort of stuck with that for the first, the first couple of years, I think. And yeah, that's sort of how it, how it all sort of started.

That's great. And the two things that are nice about that, having a little bit of a history and some traction with creating content. So it wasn't like completely new. You had a little bit of, there was, there was already something there that you could kind of shape and mold. But it sounds like what you did is like really put a lot of intentional effort behind it. Photography. You mentioned learning, connecting with other people. What were the things in those first few months that you did that you were, that were most fruitful or most helpful to accelerate that journey?

I think for me then was just really being consistent and only sort of posting recipes instead of like, you know, the odd post that would be sort of like an update sort of thing which, which actually alienated a lot of my initial audience because they were like, oh, you know, we sort of came for, you know, we didn't mind the recipes but we really liked your, you know, casual posts of, you know, your day to day or stuff that you're struggling with, with like travels and stuff. So that was a little bit difficult at the start, but it was also what really was the most intentional and most sort of helpful with, you know, getting into a routine of, you know, waking up and doing some recipe testing, doing photography and then having a post, you know, ready to go out and every week and sort of sticking to that because I think the first, the first couple of weeks was a bit tough because you're like, you're trying to work out what kind of schedule you can manage and balance. But after that, like, that was, that was probably the most helpful sort of thing, thing to do is yeah, be consistent, put out, you know, really good quality photos. Because I think 2015, like, that was a time where photography was just super, super important. I think there was like taste spotting and Food Gorko, I think were two big sites that you would really Excuse me. Really, really push adding your photos to. Because you know, if you managed to get a top spot on, on one of those websites, it would provide a lot of traffic. So that was, yeah, that was really, really a big thing that we, I sort of focused on back then.

Yeah. With things and in those, you know, I think people that are listening did hear like two months and they think, oh my gosh, how did you know within like two to three months that this was going to work? Is that, is that what it was like in that three month period? By the end of it, did you get to the end of it and say, like, I think this is going to happen, that I'll be able to replace my income. And like you said, it's, it's not like you're, you know, VP at a huge corporate job similar to Lindsay and I, I worked at a non profit, she was a teacher. And the nice thing is you're replacing. Your lifestyle hasn't adjusted to this point where you have a huge income to replace. But still it's a short amount of time to get to a point where you feel confident enough to say, I think I can do this. Is that what it was at the end of that kind of three, four month period where you're like, I think I can do this?

Yeah, I think I was, I didn't want to sort of like jinx it or you know, count my chickens sort of before they hatched, but I was able to get a lot of, I remember sponsored content within a short period of time. And I remember at that time, what was quite interesting was that I managed to get a few really, really great partnerships based on being a male in a mostly female niche at that. I mean, now there's a lot more guys doing it, which is great. But at that time it was, there was very, very few that were sort of doing food blogging that they sort of, they sort of like that. So it was, I think by, you know, by sort of reaching out to some brands and also who they sort of were looking for sort of like a newer sort of voice, I guess. Yeah, that it was. Yeah, it was, I think just the timing was just right that there was just a bunch of brands that were willing to work with. And back then it was also a lot less competitive or saturated than it sort of is now. So it was, it was a good time. But I, you know, still within that period, like it wasn't, it wasn't like, all right, sweet. Like, I don't have to worry about, you know, going back to the job, it was always like, okay, but what about next month? What about, you know, the forthcoming months? But what also sort of played well at that time as well was I managed to get on Pinterest like quite soon before everyone sort of was like, oh, this is a really, really important social media platform. And I sort of, I sort of took advantage of, you know, those at the time. Like, you know, those really long sort of pins were really popular, but I, I sort of was like, oh, look, I'm just gonna have a go and post these like, long pins that would have like some keywords and stuff in it and see how they do. And yeah, I don't know what sort of happened, but like a good. From maybe. Yeah, I think it was like August for like a year or so after that. Like, it just was such a huge traffic driver, like, to the point that it was like, okay, do I even need to sort of do sponsored posts anymore? I can just sort of focus on, on creating pretty images and, you know, recipes that would look really nice and just sort of. And it would just do well on Pinterest, like everything, everything I would sort of post would, would sort of do well on it. Which, you know, come the pandemic time, it came to sort of fight me from behind being like, all right, wow, I really should have focused on SEO and, and you know, on Google versus using a social media platform to, yeah, yeah, get all my sort of traffic on. So that was, yeah, big wake up call.

It's kind of the world that we live in. Like, it's one of the hard things is we're always figuring out what works well, but then always nervous once we figure that out that it's going to go away. It's like the curse of our industry is the ebb and flow of, wow, this Pinterest is working really great. Video on Instagram works really good. Facebook video works well. And inevitably it'll work well. You'll be able to take advantage of that and then it will go away. And so we're kind of in this perpetual cycle of figuring out, like, how do we diversify but also not stretch ourselves too thin. And so I think a lot of people can relate to that feeling of like, wow, this is awesome. But also, I don't want to, like, sit here too long because I know that eventually it's going to go away and it's going to change and look different before we get too far away from it. I think people would appreciate hearing from you, your experience with brands and so anecdotally what did those conversations look like? How did you reach out? How did you make the initial connection? How did you know how much to charge? You don't have to talk about numbers, but, like, for somebody who wants to do more of that work, or maybe they're not at the point where they have enough traffic to supplement income to the point they want it to be, so they're doing some more of that brand work. Any advice for people who are trying to figure that out?

Sure. So I was really fortunate back then that a lot of sort of bigger brands at the time would have set programs that were for bloggers that would be like, all right, we have our monthly two recipe collaboration with bloggers and we do a bunch of them. And all you'd have to sort of do at the start of each month was apply. Sure. But it was, I think back then, even Instagram wasn't huge. So you would never send like a DM to someone. You'd find you might reach out to a brand's website, like, who's in charge of like, marketing or pr. I'd love to collaborate with you in some regards. And. Wow. I. Yeah, it's been a while since I've done that, done a sponsored post. But I think back then, like, what was. Where you do the sponsored post was most important, which was on your website. You would create a recipe, have some photos of the product, and the brand would then sort of use it on their platform. So it wasn't, it wasn't super difficult to find. It was mostly like, all right, I use this almond milk, for example, all the time. I'm going to reach out to the brand that makes it and see if they're willing to do a collaboration of some sort in terms of charging, like, what rates and stuff, where I was so out of my league because I was so new to it. I was like, oh, wow, you know, $50 for a blog post. Like, I'll do that. Like that, that's great. And then over time, when traffic grew and things like that and speaking to other bloggers and being like, wow, like, I'm really sort of underselling myself. And then from there I would sort of gauge what they were charging and sort of charge similar. And. And then once when you kind of got to a point where you were too expensive for a brand, it would sort of, sort of start from there. But yeah, look, I think there's. There's so many brands out there now. I feel like every. Every few months, like, you just go to the grocery store. There's like A new type of peanut butter or a new chocolate on the market or the health food industry are always bringing out stuff. And I feel like in today, in today's day and age, like right now, like a celebrity actor or model and things like that aren't the first point of contact for these brands. It is, it would be an influencer, it would be a blogger. I feel like this is, this is such a great time, if this is something that people want to do is to, you know, work with brands for, for social media or for a blog. There's so many brands out there and they, I feel like I can quite confidently say, like, you know, a great majority, majority of them are putting budget aside for this specifically versus back, you know, 2015, 2016, where it would come out like the marketing budget, which have to include tv, print, you know, everything else. So it's, it is a really good time. And in terms of rates right now, I think there's so many people do themselves a disservice, like I sort of did at the start as well. Like, you know, really, really undersell yourself and what you're worth. And I think there's no harm in, you know, trying to, you know, work out an amount that you would find comfortable with. Like, you know, yeah, let's say it would take, you know, a couple of hours to do or a full day to do. Like, what would. If I was working at my day job or any job, right? Like, what would I be earning within that day period? Can I, you know, charge that to a brand? And you know, the worst thing the brand will say is no. And, you know, you can reach out to another one and, you know, there'll always be one there that would be willing to work with you and provided it's one that you actually would use, you know, actually enjoy. But yeah, it's a good time now.

Yeah. If nothing else, you know, I talk about my friend who works in the video industry and he talks about a day rate and that's just for like their time and effort and their expertise. And so he'll go out and shoot and he has a day rate for if he's a DP or if he's a director or if he's, you know, if he's editing. And then along with that, you have the variable of just exposure for the brand. So you're doing the work itself. What does that cost? But then also, what is the value or perceived value to the brand by getting that in front of other people or getting it for content that they use on their site. And we just had a conversation actually with a clothing brand who reached out to potentially work with Pinch of Yum. They're trying to diversify their media assets that they use on their side and they want more food content. So they, it's like an outdoors themed brand. And so they have a lot of like guys chopping wood and like, you know, like people in a, you know, wood chop, like crafting a bird feeder or something, but they want more people in the kitchen. And so not only is it the value of the exposure that they'd get from us posting it, but also that they'd use somewhere else and all of that they'd have to pay for if they went to some like production studio to have them shoot it. So I think to your point, like the value is, you know, beyond just like what, what do you think you should get paid? Which in the early stages probably isn't. You probably haven't level set for what you're actually worth. What, what the value of the content that you're creating. So it sounds like there's kind of some evolutions in that early stage. You're like, I want to figure this out, I want to make it work. One of the ways that you did that was when you're on this kind of one year kind of work, career exploration in this area is to work with brands. You had some success with that. And then it sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong in this, but you started to pick up some momentum with traffic, a lot of that from Pinterest. And then in that time was that when you started to realize, like, maybe I don't need to be doing as much sponsor content, or maybe it's more valuable for me to focus on creating content that drives traffic from Pinterest. And then was there a time after that where as Pinterest shifts then you start to say like, maybe I need to focus more on search. And has that been kind of a, a season of focus for you or are there other things that you'd say were kind of chapters along the way?

Yeah, I think that's a really, really sort of great way to, to sort of put it. Like I, I did sort of cease doing sponsored posts for a while. Like I was doing the odd one here and there, but I was, yeah, I definitely put all my eggs in one basket with Pinterest, which was such a dangerous sort of thing thing to, to do for. Because yeah, for I'd say one to two years. It was just such a huge driver for me that I really Just did start focusing on publishing more content, but I also didn't do it in the right way.

What do you mean by that?

Well, on Pinterest, like, like if a chocolate cake did well on Pinterest, I would just do another chocolate cake recipe, probably very, very similar to that one and kind of go from there. That one would do well. So I'd be like, all right, chocolate cakes are doing well, let's do another chocolate cake recipe. So I think I cannibalized my website within that three year period so badly that I don't even know what Google would have thought or like a search engine would have thought. Looking at it or trying to dissect the sitemap, they would have been like, what is this website about? Like, you don't need to have like, you know, 30 chocolate cakes or dirty mug cakes. Like it was, it was just not a, on that side of it, not a great thing to do. But on the Pinterest side, it was amazing because, you know, a chocolate cake always looks really nice and it just did so well on there. So it just sort of made me sort of want to create it more and more again, like just variations of it. And every time I would do that, it would just do well. Again, do another chocolate mug cake that would do well until I think mid 2018 or I think it was mid 2018. Like they changed the algorithm and I think they, I could be wrong with this. I don't know if that was the exact time, but they went public, they did something. I'm not super familiar with the stock market, but they did something at that point and it absolutely changed the whole algorithm with that platform that literally overnight I think I lost a significant amount of traffic. And it was sort of. Then that was like the wake up call that was just like, okay, what you knew, like during that two year period, I always knew at the back of my mind, like, you shouldn't be doing this. Like, this is just not.

But it's so great because it works.

Yeah, literally like that was the thing. And yeah, as soon as that sort of happened, it was, yeah, it was a huge, huge wake up call. And that was when it sort of forced me to be like, all right, so what exactly. I didn't even know what SEO was then. Like even like, you know, let's say two and a half years into sort of blogging full time. I didn't have a clue what it was. I was just like, okay, I just post something, I write about it, I write like, you know, you know how the People make memes about those, about bloggers that write like, you know, a whole life story. But I did that, like I literally wrote that life story, added the pretty picture and sent it to Pinterest. So Yeah, I'd say mid-2018 was a big wake up call that was like, okay, you've just relied so much on one platform for so long and now you sort of are in this boat where, you know, you've lost a bunch of traffic overnight. Now is sort of the time to focus on, on the website and creating intentional content, I'd like to say, like content that you know, that you are actually enjoying and enjoy making and stuff that isn't the same every day. So yeah, so that was, I think from then, like that's when I slowly, and the keyword is slowly. It took me such a long time to just understand, like, understand like how how a website properly works. Like, you know, how it goes when you, when you post something, what happens to that post from the day you post it to a month down the track, six months down the track, what goes into that post? You know, you can't just post it and pin it and then pray for the best. It was like, okay, now you have to take into account other social media platforms, email lists. And it was, yeah, it was like a huge, huge learning curve that, you know, still to this day, like, you know, it's something that I'm, I'm still learning and still trying to figure out certain things.

Yeah, it's almost like to, to recap. So I think, you know, Pinterest, I think I just did a quick Google search. It looks like it was 2019, April of 2019 that it went public. But I think a lot of oftentimes they talk about when companies are going public, they'll kind of like clean up their financials or like try and right size things so it looks better when they do go public. So a lot of before the company goes public, they'll be getting it ready and who knows the kind of inner workings of what happens. But one of the thoughts or kind of speculation around it is as a social media company, you want to, at some point you're going to have to turn monetization on. And so as Pinterest starts to introduce ads, they want people to stick around longer and so they start sending people away less and figuring out how to keep people engaged more. So then traffic shifts and I think everybody kind of felt that, yeah, especially people who were having success on Pinterest to see there's this shift or change And I'm curious to know for you, what was that like when you started to feel that or see that, like when those numbers start to dip, what was that like for you, knowing that you'd worked so hard, done a bunch of work and this thing that was working really well, suddenly, you know, before you put like a penny in and you'd get two pennies out and you're used to doing that every day. You like put a penny in and then nothing comes out and you put another one in and it doesn't come out again and it's like, wait, this doesn't feel good as this relationship changes from input output and suddenly you're not getting the same results. What was that like?

Yeah, oh, absolutely. So like at the back of my head it was like, there's something there saying that, you know, I told you so, like, you knew this when you started doing this, that this was going to eventually this could happen. And it sort of did happen. I think where I was really, really fortunate was so back when I, it was really, really, really popular and really great for my business. RPMs were super low back then. Like it was super, super low, especially for social, because Pinterest was just counted as social, social traffic. So when that sort of shift happened, I was really lucky that RPMs had really started to ramp up. Significant amount compared to, you know, 2015, 2016 when it was really, really not much. So financially I didn't really feel a massive hit as it could have been if like ad revenue was what it was like a couple of years earlier. But it just, it was just like a massive, massive wake up call. But also what I had to learn is just not something I could do like sort of overnight. It was like, all right, let me see how to use TikTok or let me see how to set up an Instagram account. It was like, okay, you need, you need to learn how to, how to publish a post properly, how to, you know, use a H2. All this sort of stuff that was so foreign to me. So yeah, I think that was such a big lesson that it sort of stuck with me to never, ever rely on one form of, you know, social media or one like an email list or something like that for. Oh, email list is probably a bit different. I feel like that one is a bit more reliable but like, like a social media platform for one source of income especially. So as, you know, interest, Instagram grew traction. TikTok retraction, I've been consistent on them, but not to the point where I'm like, All right, I am just gonna put all my effort into that because I think I was so scorned from, from Pinterest that it was such a. Such a big lesson to learn.

Yeah. And so to recap that, so RPM revenue per mill M I L L E. It's like a weird metric. Yeah, it's a weird name for metric, but essentially, it's like for every thousand views that you have on your site, what, how much do you earn? And so in our space, depending on how many ads you have turned on and what ad network, all that stuff, it could be 10 to, like $30, depending on a lot of different things. And so what you're saying is it was earlier on where there weren't as many optimizations, traffic wasn't monetized in the same way that it was now. And so there was a shift. Even though traffic went down, the amount you were getting paid for that, traffic went up. And so financially, it's not like there was a huge difference, which is always great. And during that time, that's when you started to say, you know what, I'm going to look at this more holistically and say, what does it look like to diversify? And you mentioned Instagram, you have 1.1 million followers there, which is incredible. Saying, I'm not just going to view myself as now an Instagram site. I'm also going to think of search and getting good at understanding search. And you talked about, did you say H2, like the idea, like, for those who aren't familiar, you talk about H1, H2. That's like different types of headers. And so in the world of search, you want to make sure that you are categorizing different parts of your post or your page in a way where it prioritizes it. So you have like a H1 header, which in our world is usually the recipe. And then you have an H2, which might be like a additional kind of header to describe the next section. So essentially getting good at other different things and diversifying. So as things are right now, how do you look at, in kind of rank order, what's most important for you? If you look at different buckets, the different social accounts, maybe email could be a bucket. Search could be a bucket. What does that look like for you now?

Yes. So for now, like, search is our big one. Like, we're really, really focusing on that, but also being really intentional with our audiences on the different platforms. Like, my website, like, I'd say is like, oh, maybe like 7% desserts, but if you went to my Instagram, you'd think I was like a dessert blogger or dessert just only did desserts. Which is an interesting thing is that like, you know, okay, we found that Instagram, our audience only wants that. Let's just create content that is in that realm for Instagram. And because at the end of the day we're just communicating with our audience and having a bit more of a personal approach with them. It's a bit younger on there as well and that's sort of what they like. So we sort of keep that as that is. But search is also something that, yeah, it's probably the thing that we focus on the most and being really intentional with our content. You know, I come from a very mixed background, so I've got a lot of sort of experience with different cultures and different foods and stuff. So stuff that I would make myself or if I go to a restaurant and really try it and it's something that I'm like, wow, this is incredible. I want to learn more about it then like, you know, learn the cooking process behind it. That's sort of the stuff that we would put out on the website and of course, you know, hope, hope that it ranks. Email, of course, is something that we are always trying to learn because it, for something that it looks really, really like quite straightforward. But I don't think it is as easy as people may assume it is. Like, there's just so much to learn about. Like, you know, how regularly should you push an email out? Like which segment of your audience should certain parts go out to? Like, it's a waste if you, if you've got someone that's subscribed that only wants chicken recipes that you're like, all right, here's a dessert, like not really going to open it. And if I was that consumer, I would be like, well, that's really annoying. You know, I don't want dessert recipes and you sent me this sort of thing. So, yeah, at the moment I think that's sort of where our, our priorities are. You know, search, email still being present on social media, but not relying it for any sort of form of traffic or anything. You know, if we do get traffic from socials. But it's, it's like a bonus, you know, when we get some click through some Instagram, it's a bonus, but it's not where we're focusing all our time.

And attention on and it, the nice thing about having those other platforms is it is a diversification. If you did want to do more brand related work, you Have a million followers on Instagram like that, that's there for you if you need it, but you don't need to use it. And so it's, it's available. The other thing that I think is important to point out about what you're talking about is this idea of understanding that each platform is going to have like a different voice and a different group of people and they're going to want different content and being aware of that and not just producing one piece of content and having it look the same and act the same across all platforms, but knowing like it should look a little different on Instagram versus maybe TikTok potentially not always, but I think that's really smart to think of it like that. One of the things we've talked about is we. Or are you working with other folks or do you have a team that you work with?

Yeah, that was, that was probably the best thing I've ever done, was like, I could have done for the business was, you know, not feel like I had to do everything myself, which, which took such a long time to sort of do such a long time. I think it was because I'd done it myself for a fair few years and it was like, okay, I can do this all. I can not have a social life, you know, have, you know, a 50 hour work week. It's fine. Yeah, it was, yeah, such a big turning point was like, all right, I want to invest the business, you know, the revenue that we make into other areas. And it was sort of starting small where it was like, all right, photography, it's, you know, the most, probably, to be honest, like the most enjoyable part for me was always a photography, but it was also the most time consuming. It was like, you know, making the dish, cleaning up, you know, and being in Melbourne, Australia. Like our weather is so unpredictable that, you know, within a 20 minute period, if I, if I showed you my Photoshop, like every photo would look different and I haven't changed anything. Like it'd be purple, it'd be blue. It was so frustrating. So that was, yeah, the first thing that I sort of did was get someone to shoot photography for us, shoot some recipes. So I would do, let's say 50%, they would do 50%. And then over time got sort of more, more photography done to the point that it's now about like, I'd say 90, 99. And I might do the very, very odd one. If I had to reshoot for something, I would maybe do it myself. But most of it is we've got Like a team of photographers to do that now. So there's three of them that would do the recipe photography. So we just, they're not sort of full time, but it's like between the three of them, it's sort of like a full time sort of role. The next sort of thing that we did was social media was a little bit of, a little bit of Instagram, like just sort of replying back to comments or just scheduling posts because we've never been keen on using schedulers. I think there's like this myth that, you know, Instagram schedulers or Facebook schedulers, as soon as you use them, you are done for. So we've always been scared of that. So that was something. And it's, it's not. I would, I wouldn't say that they would interact as me. It was more like scheduling the reel or the post, making sure it's published and just, yeah, making sure like same on TikTok and things like that, making sure it's all sort of there. And then I would go in and you know, interact with my audience or reply to messages, things like that. And then now I've got, we've got someone else that is sort of like, maybe like I'd say like a manager of sorts where they're sort of doing everything I'm doing, but at a higher sort of level where they're sort of across everything like whether they might do some scheduling, they might do some planning, they might do some testing. And then I also have, I'd say like more so contractors that would be helping with like with, with some posts, with some layout, with a little bit of updating older content as well. And of course like we use. I don't even know how would I brand them, like NerdPress. So they sort of manage all the technical stuff on the website. And also I'd say like, you know, the ad network that we're with, they offer a lot of support in some other areas that you know, are really helpful for us. Like with email, with knowing our audience more even with SEO. Like I'm definitely not going to count them out in that at all. Like, you know, they are an ad network but they also offer a lot of support in these key areas that really help our business as well.

And that's raptive.

Yes, yes, they, you know, it's been really, really, really great to have them be able to support us in. Yeah, these sort of key areas that are really important for us and something that we are struggling, you know, we're struggling with and needed that support.

Yeah, that's great. And it's amazing when you put all those little pieces together, how many job responsibilities there really are, and then you start to look at it as like, wow, I was kind of responsible for all those things. And for anybody, even who maybe doesn't have the budget or the resources to hire a team, I think it would still be worth it to go through the process of even building, like an org chart. But instead of people, it's roles. And so you have email marketing, you have photography, you have video, you have the technical elements. And you can look at it and say, like, okay, what are the things that I want to, as quickly as possible have somebody come in and help out with? Whether it be something I don't want to do or, you know, something that takes a lot of time, like you had talked about photography in your case, and to kind of build. Start to build that team around it. And like you said, it's one of the greatest things that can happen once you do get to that point of having that support in that team.

Are.

Those are the people that you're working with in Australia. And related to that, what has that been like? Like, you are building this business, how much of it is based on American audience versus an Australian audience? You know, I know you're not working with brands, so that doesn't really exist anymore. And just curious, you know, there's some really incredible businesses that have been built in Australia. Think of like Atlassian or Envato. Like, so maybe it's almost pointed towards those people who are building a business, whether in Australia or another country, but also have some level of involvement in the U.S. how do you navigate that? Or what have you learned other than having to get up early to do podcast interviews?

Yeah. Oh, it's. It's. So we've got a couple of team members in Australia. But to your point about dealing sort of with an American audience, because I spent that year in America, I sort of stuck with, all right, I'm going to. I would overall have a global audience, but my priority will be the American audience. And that because I was so intentional with it back then, it's sort of second nature to me now, where, you know, blog posts are written with American English. The recipes that we create are targeted towards more so, like, American holidays than, you know, American, Australian or Commonwealth sort of holidays. In the last couple of years, we've tried to incorporate a little bit more of that, but our primary focus has always sort of been like that. And in terms of being in Australia and Sort of, you know, working with people that are in America or like ad network and stuff like that. It's been trying to find that sort of happy medium. So for me it means, you know, I've got you know, an hour and a half window as soon as I get up to any important email that I need to do.

Yeah.

Reply on yeah 100% like that, one and a half hours. And it's not even an exaggeration. I mean daylight saving happens, it's even worse. But it's, you know, I get out of bed, I go straight to my emails, I see what I need to do. If there's anything that I need to email out I do asap. But it's also like a double edged sword because it's also in America it's like five o'. Clock. No one wants to be answering emails and stuff like that like you know, at the end of the day. So we're just you know being really, really if anything urgent we would do it work in that sort of way. But it hasn't been, it hasn't been so as difficult as I thought it would be. You know there's always a back like we've always got to reply to something. If we've got, you know, some of our team members are overseas, you know, we might not hear back from them for like a day. But it's not something that's like we've pre planned for it and but it was really interesting like when we went to the conference with Raptive earlier this year like it was so nice to be on the same time zone and be able to sleep in and all this other stuff that it was like wow. Like this is what it, what it would have been like if we were all on like a sort of the same sort of time zone. But you know we've managed to make it work and yeah sort of being intentional with that as well. You know, writing our posts in, in American English, you know, focusing on, on American holidays, American traditions and I think it was fortunate that I spent that year over there so I was able to experience it. I also, I don't know if I mentioned earlier, I did study abroad. I spent a semester in America so I experienced Thanksgiving with sure some friends and a lot of the other holidays as well. So it was, this is even before I started the blog. So it's really great to be able to share my perspective on some of those as well with some of the recipes. So yeah, it's interesting sort of thing.

Yeah, I remember when we were in the Philippines. One of the things we lived there for a year that was so interesting is starting our day when everybody else was ending their day. And the downside of it is missing that communication window or having a really short communication window. But the thing that I found nice was, like, you kind of have this protected time, or I did at least protected time where it was quiet. Like, I didn't have a bunch of emails coming in because it was midnight.

Yeah.

And so I think there's. One of the things I appreciated was, like, the ability to focus in a way that you maybe couldn't, or that I couldn't if I was just, like, being pinged constantly back and forth. So what do you feel like is working right now? Like, as we close out, what is the thing that you look at and you're like, I'm really glad I'm doing this, or maybe I'm really glad I did this because it's something that in your business, as things are going right now, it's like, paying off, you're getting traction with it. It's working because you've been much like us doing this for a long time, and you've seen things come and go. But I think it's always interesting for people to hear, like, what is the thing now that that feels aligned or that's working well, or you're glad that you're doing.

Sure. I think for us, it's not being afraid to put out content that might be a little bit obscure, a little bit different to other people. Because I think it's taken me a while to sort of be really. I wouldn't say proud, but really, I've always been sort of proud of my background and things like that, but sort of want to share a lot of more cultural recipes that I grew up eating and not being like, okay, people are going to look at this and be like, what is X, Y and Z? You know, it's not that so much that it's been working, but it's just something that we are. We've got a whole breadth of new content that we are so excited to share because, you know, we've got a relationship with it. It's something that, you know, it was part of my childhood, and a few years back, I wouldn't have even thought about it. I'd be like, people are going to find this so foreign, so obscure. But in some part, you know, thanks to the pandemic with people at home cooking more, you know, being more confident in the kitchen and trying new things and, you know, the world, like, there's so many more, you know, culturally diverse restaurants that people are more interested to try something. And if we look at like what a popular recipe would have been 10 years ago versus now, I think there's a lot more, yeah, a lot more scope for it to be, you know, be found or be tried by a wider audience. So for us, it's, you know, having more content that we can put out that is not super mainstream. But we're not gonna worry about it. All right. This is just like a post that's just gonna kind of go nowhere. It's like, you know, there's gonna be someone out there that will want to try to make it. There's someone that's gonna search it. And yeah, it's like just being consistent, I think, is still, still our big thing as well. You know, just regularly putting out content regularly, you know, interacting with our audience, whether it's on socials, whether it's through email, is just sort of being present and trying to put myself out there a little bit more, which is something that I've always, you know, for four or five years hidden behind. Like the blog is like, you know, no real face to it. Yeah, it's been, you know, more and more, I, I'd say enlightening to be able to sort of do that. And, you know, it's not as awkward as I thought it would be. And it's really, really great to be able to, to interact on a face level with, with, you know, the people that support the business. Right. Like, you know, they come into your website to make your things, they're following you on the socials, they are, you know, replying, they're commenting on your stuff like, you know, this is. These are people that are invested in your brand, in, in you that it's like, you know, it's something that we are going to continue doing as well. Like, you know, stepping out of our comfort zone and getting on there and interacting with them that way.

Yeah. That's awesome. Armand, I feel like we could have another hour to talk about your story, to learn more about what, what you've learned through the years. We'll have to have you on again. But for those who are interested in following along with you, connecting with you, I'm sure there'll be a lot of those people. What's the best way to do that?

Sure. So the big bands world on all, all social media platforms and of course the website is the big mansworld.com. so, yeah. Any questions? Anything? DMs? We check. I check everything. And answer everything. So yeah, that's where we'll be on.

Awesome, thanks. I'll let you hop off to get your maybe first cup of coffee. Your early coffee. I will finish my last one for the day. But thanks so much for coming on. It was really great to talk.

Thanks so much for having me. Bjork.

Hey there Alexa here and thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode and I wanted to just round out this episode with giving you a quick tip on one of the things that comes as soon as you become a Food Blogger Pro member. It's just one of the nice perks that comes along with the membership. So it's called our Deals and Discounts page and it has a bunch of companies that we've got partnered with to help offer our members exclusive discounts on their products or services. So we're always adding new and exciting deals to the page. But as of right now, some of the deals include NerdPress, which is the company of our WordPress expert, Andrew. He helps people with tech headaches on the blog, Core web, vital optimizations and more businesses and list Legal for all of your legal needs from our legal expert Danielle Simple Pin Media for all of your Pinterest needs from Kate. She is our Pinterest expert. Ericsson Surfaces for really beautiful photography backgrounds, LinkedIn profile, process, street Influence Kit and so many more. We have so many good ones here, including one that's been really popular recently, which is Cooking with Keywords. We have a nice 10% discount for food Blogger Pro members, so you get instant access to all of these deals discounts the moment you sign up for a membership. So if you're interested in learning more or signing up, go to foodbloggerpro.com join and you can learn more and sign up right there. Once again, FoodBloggerPro.com join to get access to our Deals and Discounts page. All right, that does it for us this week. We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time. But until then, make it a great week.

Sam.