How Pinch of Yum Uses Instagram to Grow Their Email List

If you're a food creator, chances are you've come across comment for DM tools. Using that functionality within Instagram can result in some huge wins. But the tools are really complicated and they're oftentimes built for marketers like people who are in the tool day in and day out, not built for food bloggers or recipe creators specifically. That's where Grocer's List comes in. It's built from the ground up for food creators. So if you're looking to grow your email list, get more traffic to your site, or maybe earn more affiliate sales, all without spending a ton of extra time or having to learn a complicated tool, then Grocer's List is for you. And what's really cool is they're seeing some pretty impressive numbers like 75% click through rates, which is kind of mind blowing, and 5% opt in rates from people who are engaging with content that is sent through the Grocer's List platform. And they're actually doing an office hours session soon. So if you want to see the behind the scenes of how creators are using it, you can. You can sign up@grocerslist.com and a little bonus for you as a podcast listener, if you use the promo code podcast, you'll get your first month completely free. Again, that's grocerslist.com promo code podcast.

Hey there, this is Emily from the Food Blogger Pro Team and you are listening to the Food Blogger Podcast. This week. On the podcast we are welcoming someone you all might be pretty familiar with. It's Lindsey from Pinch of Yum. We are also happy to kick off our miniseries sponsored by Grocer's List. In this conversation, Bjork and Lindsay are talking all about Pinch of Yum's current Instagram strategy, especially when it comes to using reels and DM automation tools. Lindsay shares more about why her opinion of DM automation tools has changed over time, and she gets into the nitty gritty of how she's been repurposing old blog content and using Grocer's List as a strategic bridge to get Instagram followers into Pinch of Yum's email ecosystem. While historically Lindsay had viewed Instagram primarily as a means to build awareness around the brand and new recipes, she is now being more strategic about the Instagram to email pipeline and she shares her practical tips for getting started with this mindset shift. It's a really interesting conversation for thinking about the value of Instagram as a food creator and how you can use it to support the other aspects of your business, like your blog and your email list, and make it a more valuable tool for you. We are always happy when Lindsay's on the podcast, and we know you'll love this episode, so I'm just gonna let Bjork take it away.

Lindsay, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

This feels like the first dedicated time that we've had to have a conversation, maybe in months.

I was gonna say maybe this could be like a date, kind of like.

A recurring podcast interview, and we can re. We can just cover all the things that we need to talk about in our lives. Love it. Um, so that'll be the first segment. Is reviewing the schedule for the next week. Laundry. Who's taking the kids to school? Uh, no, that won't be what it is, but it is fun to sit down and talk with you. We're gonna talk about a really specific thing. Uh, we're gonna be talking about Instagram. Uh, we're gonna be talking a little bit about kind of the return on investment in using Instagram and spending money with a video editor and producing video content. But specifically, we're going to be talking about kind of the Instagram and a transactional nature like Pinch of Yum has always been showing up. You've always been showing up on Instagram for over a decade. And one of the things we've always kind of wondered is, like, what are the best ways for us to use this platform? And historically, it's been building awareness around a certain recipe with the hopes that people eventually go to the site. We've occasionally done things like selling meal plans on the platform, but recently we've made some really cool. Had some really cool unlocks when it comes to building the email list, getting traffic from Instagram, using Grocer's List as a tool, which we're going to be focusing on, but not just the tool. I think it's helpful to talk about kind of the nature of that type of transaction on Instagram because you had experimented with it maybe like a year or two ago and then kind of moved away from it a little bit. So talk about what that season was like and starting to experiment with it and maybe some of the initial reasons to hold off on it, and then we'll talk about what it's been like recently.

Yeah, so I started using manychat probably a year, two years ago. Could go back and look kind of around the time that a lot of people were using kind of a DM automation tool. So I think most people who are listening are Familiar. But if you're not familiar, it's the idea that you could comment on a post on an Instagram post and with a. With a trigger word, so like, recipe. And then the recipe would get sent to you in a DM through an automation. And I was using manychat to kind of give that a first run. I was excited about it because, you know, you see people with a lot of engagement, you see people with a lot of. It's like these posts that. That gain a lot of traction because they're getting a lot of this juice of people being like, you know, I want this, I want this. And those are the signals to Instagram to. To show that content to more people, that this content is popular. People want this. So it's like using the automation to. To get people what they want in a quick way and to also amplify the content that you're producing. And that kind of, like, help to justify the time a little bit that's going into that content and getting it to more people. So that was my hope. I tried it for the first time with mini chat, was okay. Hopefully this can deliver. Not only deliver, like, give people an easy way to get what they want, but also, like, amplify the content that we're creating and. And get it to go farther and pretty. I think it was literally one post. I think I did one time, like, I picked one of our popular recipes, I posted it, and my first reaction was like, this is amazing. My phone is. You know, I had the app open and I don't keep notifications on for Instagram, but, you know, I could see the little. The little DMs filling up almost immediately.

Everybody loves me.

It's like. It's like the. The very best and worst of social media, where you're like, whoa. Like, this is amazing. Because it's a whole different way to use. It's a whole different way to use it. It's a different ballgame than just like, here's a thing that I like. And then, you know, people may be saying something about it versus, like, do you want this? Here's a shortcut to get it. And all of a sudden it feels like it's blowing up. Okay. Um, so I felt amazing initially with it, and then, like, over the next couple days, maybe the next couple weeks, I started, you know, trying to sift through the DMS that I had. And a lot of what I use my DMs for on Instagram is to grab people's pictures or their comments about making a recipe and what I found is that I couldn't find any of the stuff I was looking for because my DMs were all junked up with salmon recipe. Send salmon recipe. Chicken.

Chicken. Chicken.

Right.

Exactly like recipe. Nonsensical. Well, it wasn't nonsensical but it was like people trying to get the automation to work. Or then I'm troubleshooting people, they're like, why isn't this sending? And it just all of a sudden like after the, maybe after the initial like 12 to 24 hours of this feels amazing. It was like, this is terrible. And I can't find, you know, I'm publishing a new recipe. I know people have probably made it, but I can't find their, their comments about it. I can't find their pictures about it. And that's a really valuable part of Instagram for me and, and, and how we use Instagram for pinch of. So ultimately I decided like, I don't think this is worth it. I don't think the engagement boost and like, you know, the amplification of the content, I don't think it makes sense to lose the authentic communication that I'm able to, to get from my DMS and especially the like user generated content that people, that when people send a picture of a recipe. So ultimately it was too messy for me. I did decided I didn't like it. I didn't think I could handle. And it wasn't even because of, you know, how it worked like for people. It was how it felt for me in my DMs. It was such a mess. It became something that was taking away from one of the, the best parts of Instagram to me which was like kind of that, that communication around recipes.

Yeah.

So that's the, that's like the, this is setting the stage for like boo. That was a bad experience. Didn't like it.

Yep. And part of it too, if I remember at the time it was purely just traffic. Like hey, you will comment on this thing, send a link, you can click on that link and then you can go to the site. I think this is a little bit of a teaser. Not that you can't do this within manychat now, but I think one of the things that kind of helped shift our opinion on it. I'll speak for both of us. You can maybe speak for your individual kind of thought processing with it was not only traffic but also email. And the significance of email and email has always been this thing I think for food creators where it's been an afterthought partly because for a lot of us, not for all of us, but for a lot of us, we're not necessarily selling a thing, we're just trying to get traffic. And email works, but it works really good for transactional content. It was pretty good for, you know, sending traffic. But one of the things that's changed now is the value of an email click around first party data. So not only is it traffic, but it's traffic that's really valuable because now you're going to have that identifiable information from somebody that clicks over and there's reporting that they do around, like how much you're actually earning from email. And for a site like Pinch of Yam, it's pretty substantial. Even if the traffic from email isn't astronomical, the value of that traffic is high. And so that was one of the things too that that shifted. But it seems like there was two things that was one of them. But another thing along the way that maybe helped in the decision making for you was understanding this area within Instagram that allowed you to access a different place where people were responding to stories that you could interact. Do you remember? And I think Gina from Skinny Taste was like, hey, here's a little tip on where to find that. Am I remembering that right?

Yeah. So I've got a bunch of, you know, blogger friend. I mean, everybody who is doing this knows people that are using this tool. I would say, like the vast majority of people are using a tool like this. And for dm, automation of sending a link, sending a sign up. And so I messaged this group and I was like, you guys, I'm gonna try it again. Like this is a year later. I'm gonna use a new, you know, service, which is groceries list. I'm gonna, gonna try something different, try it, give it another try. But the one thing I'm still trying to figure out is how do I grab people's pictures or when people send me a message or they tag me, like, I don't want to lose that. And, and having it all show up in my DMs. And I knew that like it's like somebody's doing this because like, for example, Gina from Skinny Taste, Gina, she, she's getting tons of dms that are the automation, but she's still somehow able to go through and find. So I'm like, somebody has figured somebody knows how to do this. And she was like, oh yeah. She was like, there's a Gina. This just changed the game for me. So thank you so much for, for explaining this to Me, there is a tab. I don't know what's the best way to explain it to people without like a screenshot or something. But where it says Create, like it's over on the left hand side, there's a little, A little. A symbol, at least at this moment in time. And it says it's for the Create mode. And once you're in create mode, you can swipe through, keep swiping until you get to the one that's mentions. And then all your mentions are in one place, I think another. So for me, that's super useful because I can go and I can find thing that was most valuable to me, even from like a marketing perspective like this. A really great way to market your content is to show when other people are making it.

Yeah, there's social proof that other people are making it. They like it.

And I really didn't like the idea that I was going to like lose out on either just responding to people one to one, or sharing that content. So that's an amazing resource where like you can see all of those. This is getting into the weeds a little bit. But like, technically there's this little circle. People will know this, people who are avid Instagram users. But, but in your kind of. In your likes tab, the little heart on top, there's a little likes and mentions. There's a circle where you can see your mentions, but they expire after two hours. And that was my issue is like, I'm not, I'm not going on every two hours. You know, I need a place. And that, that Create mode and then finding all your mentions will show you everything from 24, the last 24 hours. And another thing that I think is a new thing since I had done it the first time, is that Instagram has now segmented the, the dms. They've done this a couple different ways, and I think they've rolled it out differently to, you know, every account kind of like gets a different version of it as they're trying to figure it out. But what I have right now is, is the primary, the general. And then like the requests. For a while they even had like a business, like they're, they're helping you organize your DMs. And so I feel like vast majority of my primary are my more meaningful messages. And the general tend to be this. This is not. Instagram's not filtering this. There's just. Basically what I'm trying to say is there's more tools available. The app is set up better to help you categorize that stuff and, and make a little more meaning with it. And so the TLDR is like, I've, I'm using the tool now, and it's been so much more useful because I've been able to kind of harness the power of that while still maintaining the parts of Instagram that I felt were most valuable, which is that, that communication, that direct communication with individual users.

Yeah, we often talk about this idea that we being collectively on the podcast, but also a lot of it comes from the conversations that you and I are having once a month, when we actually have the time to like, sit down and talk without our daughters asking about if we spritzed rice the frog. And suddenly that becomes priority number one is making sure that rice has crickets and has been spritzed with dechlorinated water. Um, but one of the conversations that we have is around this, this idea that you are a marketer and you are marketing the content that you are creating. And one of the things that we need to do is figure out, like, what are the tools that are best that we can add to our tool belt. You know, if you think of you're a carpenter, you're going and building every day and it's. You're going to be able to build better if you have a nail gun versus just a hammer and nails. And so part of our job as creators and then as marketers of the content that we are creating is building our tool belt with the tools that we're going to use to then market the content. But what you talked about before is like you lost one of the tools and you gained another tool. And that was a bummer because you couldn't as effectively market if you didn't have a type of marketing available to you, which is really important, which is social proof. It's sharing with an audience around other people who have had success with the thing that you are promoting, which in our case is recipes to, you know, and that's in all forms in all different types of marketing. This idea of testimonials or case studies or whatever it might be. And so now you have both of these, and you can use this new tool while still having access to that tool that you didn't have before, which was the social proof and the content marketing. So can you talk a little bit about what that looks like now or, I don't know, a few months into using the kind of DM for link or email sign up and maybe some of the things that you have learned as a marketer of content now that you have this new tool in your toolbot that you've been using.

Yeah, I, I, it feels weird to have, like, such a proper business conversation with you because it's just like, you're just you. But I love that you use the words like learner and marketer or like, I don't know if you use those exact words, but iterations of that, because that's like how I've been thinking and we've talked about this, like, you know, in just side, side chats or whatever. But like, I've said to you, like, I've kind of tried to take the approach for where I'm at right now as like, okay, I'm, I'm putting, I'm a learner in this season of, you know, Pinch of Yum and in this season of what I'm doing, which feels weird because I've been doing it a long time, but, like, I think this is a good season for me to like, put on a learner hat and kind of like, see what tools are out there, see what, what strategies are out there and try some different things and learn some different things. And to that point, I took a course. I, it's one of those things where I bought this course. It was like a video, I don't know, viral. Some like, kind of embarrassing name, like, make your videos go viral or something like that.

Be popular on the Internet.

Right? Exactly. And I bought this, this course, like, you know, a year ago, a year before I actually took it. And it just sat and, you know, like, I paid for it and I thought, I'm probably never going to take that. And then I got sick this winter and I, there was nothing I could do except just like, sit and be so congested. Like, I couldn't, like, I couldn't taste anything, couldn't do anything. And I'm like, okay, well, I guess this is when I'm going to watch through this, this video course. And I watch through the video course and I feel like just as we like the learner side, I feel like I learned a lot of different things about video and about, like, how to structure videos and, and anyways, and so this was just a helpful thing for me in thinking about what do Pinch of Yum videos look like as I now try to market something which is, and the point of the video course was like, how to make your videos go viral, which doesn't totally apply because what I am actually doing isn't necessarily trying to go viral. I'm trying to get people to have something that will help them or solve a problem for them. It might be a recipe, it might be a set of recipes. So as I'm now approaching it as a marketer, I'm thinking, okay, how can I set up this? You know, it's both of those things together. It's the video, it's the production, it's the flow, it's the hooks, it's the multiple levels of hooks. And then it's also like on the, you know, on the marketing side, like what is it that I'm trying to get them to do? What will make this an easier process for them and what's going to be most beneficial for us and for me as a business. And it might not just be a click to the website, it might be getting people to sign up for an email list. And one of the great things about having, you know, using groceries list now is that's automatically folded in to the, to the process. So people get a little DM card. Whether I'm sending an individual recipe, like hey, here's a, here's a. I'm trying to think of one I did recently. Here's a chicken recipe with a pistachio avocado sauce. If you want this recipe, respond. And in the DM card there's a direct opt in for email. But I think even more powerfully than that and something that I've had a lot of fun thinking about is how do I not how almost like how do I expand from the little hamster wheel of like an individual recipe. Here's the link. Come to my website. Individual recipe, da da da da da. Like I've been doing this long enough now we're almost one of the most valuable things I can provide. And I think a lot of creators would be in the same boat and is I can provide you with a set of recipes or I can provide you with a resource that I've spent time building based on years of not only my experience but like other people's reviews. I can tell you what's most popular. I can tell you what's going to be good for summer. I can help you with freezer meals. Like I've got a lot of stuff I can pull from so it's almost like the, the best value I can provide for some of these things besides the individual recipe are more around the organization and the packaging of a thing and then figuring out how to use the tools, how to use groceries list, how to use a good well structured video and well structured wording and email thoughtful hooks to like combine those things together. And if I Can loop that in. So people are getting that via email. They're getting value. I'm adding to my email list. It's just been a really fun thing to like play around with this year and kind of like a new focus for me as I think about Instagram. Like, what is the point of Instagram? What am I really doing there? Is it enough, is there enough value for pinch of Yum to just get the, the clicks for the individual recipe? Maybe, but how could we amplify it even further? How could we like put a multiplier on it to make it even more valuable to our business? And I think email and delivering things to people via email and using like catchy videos and good organization of recipes to do that is like, has been a winning combination. That's kind of wordy. Sorry.

No, that's great. I was talking to Madison. She has a podcast. She has a company called Grace and Vine in a podcast associated with it. Was talking to her yesterday and she was asking about, hey, what does it look like for you, this idea of, you know, we talk about tiny bit better every day, forever 1% infinity. Do you have examples of that? And what I talked about was just adding little things into the system or process that you repeatedly do. And this is a great example of that, where you are consistently creating videos, publishing videos, showing up on Instagram, creating content. And so the word that you use is like a multiplier. What does it look like to create 1 1/2 more value from that 2x more value by introducing something that will allow you to get more traffic, get more email signups, reach more people. And I think so much of, especially if you've been grading for five plus years and you have that bank of content, so much of what we can do is start to think strategically around, okay, not only how do we syndicate that content as opposed to just create new content, but in doing that, how do we add in something that's going to make it even more valuable or make it more helpful for us to go through that process of pressing publish and to find opportunities along the way that we fold in and that are just forever a part of what we're doing? Another example would be adding an email to your welcome sequence. And maybe it's not an email. Like in one week you send out five emails, so then you send out a sixth email. But maybe it's two weeks after you send out your most popular pieces of content and that becomes something that then everybody just gets naturally after they sign up, you know, you might send out a Broadcast email, which is great, but then you have to go and write another broadcast email a week later. But if you add one to your email sequence, people are going to continue to get those and it's going to continue to add value, or maybe it's an affiliate email, things like that. So it's one of the really fun things, like you said, that we can do, which is look for ways that we can creatively add to our process or a system that's going to make our content more valuable. Before we continue, let's take a moment to hear from our sponsors. If you're a food creator, chances are you've come across comment for DM Tools using that functionality within Instagram can result in some huge wins. But the tools are really complicated and they're oftentimes built for marketers like people who are in the tool day in and day out, not built for food bloggers or recipe creators specifically. That's where Grocer's List comes in. It's built from the ground up for food creators. So if you're looking to grow your email list, get more traffic to your site, or maybe earn more affiliate sales, all without spending a ton of extra time or having to learn a complicated tool, then Grocer's List is for you. And what's really cool is they're seeing some pretty impressive numbers, like 75% click through rates, which is kind of mind blowing, and 5% opt in rates from people who are engaging with content that is sent through the Grocer's List platform. And they're actually doing an office hours session soon. So if you want to see the behind the scenes of how creators are using it, you can sign up@grocerslist.com and a little bonus for you as a podcast listener, if you use the promo code podcast, you'll get your first month completely free. Again, that's grocerslist.com promo code podcast. How do you view right now specifically to Instagram? How do you view that in terms of the. The why behind it for the business? So, you know, you publish a reel to Instagram, what is kind of the purpose or the return on the effort from creating that piece of content and publishing it?

Yeah, that was a good question.

Thanks.

Cause it's really what I do.

It's people know what you do. You might not know what I do, but my job is literally to sit here and ask questions to creators on the Food Blogger Pro podcast. Please follow along and listen already. Lindsay.

Okay, now I can't remember what your good question Was, it was something about Instagram. What's your. Why?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's like what's the, what do you imagine the return on that time and effort being as a creator and, you know, business owner, the effort that you're putting in, which is a lot like, yeah, you know, there's a team and we have a video somebody who comes and shoots video and edits video. Sometimes it's just you, but like, usually it's somebody who's coming and shooting. We have, you know, somebody coming and helping in the kitchen. And like, you guys, there's a team, there's money, there's time. What's the return on that?

I really view what's happening on Instagram with video and with kind of some of these. I mean, with the singular new tool, a grocer's list and using DM automation to, you know, to, to do some things differently. I really view Instagram and, and what we're doing there as like a bridge to connect what's happening on the website and what's happening in email. It's almost like if all of them are big blocks, you know, and big like pillars and they're kind of all connected, but it's a little floaty and like, you do a little of this and then you do a little of this and you kind of do it all. It's like the website for us is the base, like pinch of yum.com is, is the base of that. And maybe I used to kind of feel like, and view Instagram as kind of the next pillar in that building of the, you know, the structure, maybe like a pyramid. And now I would say like my view of email has, has kind of, is kind of flip flopped. It's like that's almost my secondary focus. We're thinking about the value that we're giving via email. We're thinking about the resources that we're giving and then we're thinking about Instagram as a tool to connect people to both of those things. Not, and I don't just mean like by way of a click, but to let them know what we have, what value we have there, what they might want, what might be helpful. And I kind of spoke to that before about like the organization of things, but I feel like Instagram is like a place where those people might not know what we have going over here in our most important place. And so how can we kind of like maybe, maybe the bridge is groceries list. We're over here, we're, you know, on Instagram and all these people have no idea that we have a freezer meal resource that's a really great resource and it has a printable and it has all these labels and it's a very clear system. And it's like, if I can create a video that shows people the resource in a way that's catchy and like, catches on and for people to be like, oh, like, that would be a really helpful thing. And then I can use the Tool of Groceries list as a bridge to get people to the email, to the website, to. I mean, right now, like, a lot of what we're focusing on is email and kind of viewing that as like the ultimate goal, getting people into our email ecosystem so that we can continue to provide more value that way and like, have a little bit more control over the relationship that way. But that's kind of how I'm viewing it. Rather than viewing Instagram as like second tier, I'm almost viewing it now as a separate place where those people. There is a disconnect. It's like we've had that freezer meals resource. This is a real example. We did a video for Freezer meals. It kind of went bonkers. It was like one of the most, I mean, for by far and away the most like, you know, engaged with posts that we've ever done on Instagram. And it's like none of that was new. That wasn't a new resource. We've had that for years. Yeah, we've been updating it. I literally didn't create anything new. I just made a video to show people what we have. Hey, we have this. You might not know about it. It's super useful. A lot of people do, you know who follow. They do. But the beautiful thing about Instagram and Instagram reels is that if you on click, create a video that has some of those kind of like viral like marketing techniques that will be appealing to people and reach people. And then you use a tool like Grocer's List to kind of amplify the engagement on that and to connect. It's like a win win all around. Like you're sending that out into all these untouched places, these, on these audiences that you've never reached before through the power of social media. That's what social media does best. And you're kind of saying like, hey, I've got this great thing. Do you want to come over here? This is where I'm delivering that value and would love to give that to you. So that's kind of like how I'm Viewing, I guess, those as, as two separate but connected things.

Yeah, it's one of the things I always like to do is think about, okay, what if everything froze? Like, you never had more traffic, you never were able to create new content on the site, but you had the availability of these platforms and, and tools and your own creativity, what would you do in order to continue to create a thriving business? And that what you just shared is such a great example of that. Where, okay, we have this thing that already exists. What does it look like to remix that in a certain way, syndicate it to a platform where you haven't really talked about it before? And this idea of, you know, I think there's kind of three ways that you could look at it. Creation, syndication, and optimization. And I think for a lot of us, we focus on creation. Okay, 80% of our time is on creating a new thing. But if we distributed that more evenly and looked at syndication and optimization, there'd be. Especially if you've been creating for a long time, there'd be some really great opportunities to syndicate to new places or to just optimize what you're doing in order to remove friction, to, you know, get people information in an easier way. Which is fun to think about, because sometimes the actual creation process of a new thing, start to finish, can be a grind. And it's not to say that you don't do it at all anymore, but I would imagine you're doing the creating. And I would. But I would imagine it's, like, refreshing to not have to do something from 0 to 1, but to take something that's already existing and to look at it kind of from a different angle, um, feels like it could be.

Yeah, I like those buckets. And I think, like, it's almost like what I'm creating isn't the thing, it's the marketing of the thing. I have this thing. Maybe it's not even a collection of recipes yet, but it's like, I know which recipe, I know which summer desserts I have are. That are most popular. I know which ones are going to be a hit for people, and that's valuable. And a lot of that for us as creators, I think, just lives in our head. Like, we. Oh, yeah, I know I have this thing over here. But, like, as much as possible, I think people don't know a lot of times what's out there. And one of the most helpful things I do think to your point, like, creators get stuck, or I'll say for myself, I get stuck. You just. This is what you do you create a new thing, you're excited about new things, so you're always trying new things. But I've felt myself working so much smarter in, even in these last few months as I think about how can I not just how can I get outside of just the single recipe loop to really provide value? And a lot of times that correlates with where we're delivering the value, which is email. And so getting kind of directing people to that pipeline, it just feels it, it feels much more strategic than I've ever thought before about what we're doing on Instagram.

Yeah. And I think there's something to be said around this is broadly speaking starting to look at the different platforms that we're creating on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Like a lot of people have a really significant following on TikTok and saying how do we generally just like transact on that? And that sounds so non relational transact. But how do we, how do we not try and pull people out of that place, but instead as much as possible interact is maybe a better way to say it on that platform. And it's not to say that people don't eventually come back to the site, but I think what you'll find more and more over the Next, you know, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 years is that that type of creators, influencers, people who have a large following, more and more will be able, will be interacting on the platform and that's where the value exchange will actually happen, as opposed to needing to get somebody somewhere else in order for the value exchange to happen. And so I think that's, this would be a question, I guess, do you feel like a little bit of that is what's happening, where suddenly you, within the last few months have been able to interact and create value on the platform and as opposed to something that was felt a little bit more nebulous, where it still is valuable, you know it's valuable, but maybe not in the same concrete way that you'd usually be able to track and say SEO we know is valuable because we can look and see here's traffic from Google, whereas Instagram, we know it's valuable, people are talking about it, they're aware of it, but it's harder to track other than just a view because you're not getting paid for that view directly. Whereas now there's something that you're able to look to a little bit more concretely and say, okay, we knew that that piece of content resulted in 5,000 additional email signups or whatever it may.

Be that one wasn't as great of a. But so main question being like, what? Like, clarify it for a hell of it for me. Do people ever ask you this?

Do people ever say, like, well, I don't think people. I think. I think I do this a lot. People just aren't as comfortable as you are to call me out on like a statement question?

No, I was tracking with everything you were saying. I just lost the qu. What the question was in the middle of it.

The question was, do you feel like part of what you're gaining or have gained in these last few months is the ability to interact and create value on the platform in a way that you are able to understand and track? It's almost like there's a new game.

Yeah, yeah.

And the game is email signups. Or even to me, it feels like that's primarily what it is. Hey, we. We produce this piece of content. What did email signups look like from it? It's also beneficial to get traffic, but to now be able to have something that allows you to pretty easily get. Increase your. Yeah, yeah.

Yes. Yes is the answer to the question, I think, to clarify, like, value on the plat. Because I think when you say that term, like value on the platform, I imagine that is like, you know, people get their recipes right on the platform. They get, you know, it's like putting your. Putting your valuable stuff on the platform. And how I understand, if I'm understanding correctly with what you're saying, it's like making that platform and. And our involvement specifically with Instagram, making that more valuable to the business, like making that the return of it, basically. And I. And the answer is yes to that question. And I have. Yeah, that's just how I'm thinking about it now. I'm not thinking about views and I'm not really. I mean, great, I hope that we get a lot of views, but I'm on videos or whatever. And it also is different on each part of the platform. On Instagram stories, I feel like a lot of the value is. It's almost like a mini version of email. Like, I'm very. My face is there. I'm talking to people. It's like a very direct connection. I'm responding to DMs, I'm showing what other people are saying. It's like, has a conversational nature, but with reels specifically. I've really shifted my. My view of the value of those videos and their potential reach to be specifically honed in on. Like, how can we bring people back to our main ecosystem? Maybe the website. But really ideally email, you know, it should they choose to like, you know, collect value with whatever we're offering from email. Like that would be the new focus and the, I think the most valuable thing for us that we could be doing with Instagram right now.

Yeah, there's an interesting balance that we have or you have collectively both where we're creating content. In the case of Pinch of Yum, the majority of that content is free, 99% of it will occasionally do me on plans, but the majority of it is free. And so as a business, our job is to think about how do you. Because in the extreme example, like if there's a spectrum and it's way on the left side, you never work with a brand, you never work with a sponsor, you never charge, you never have any ads. You know, on the other extreme, it's like everything is paywalled and you can only access the content by paying. And we're probably in the like lower quartile of a content business on that left to right spectrum where we aren't usually asking people to pay for a thing, but we're asking for something on the site. What we're asking for is them to have some level of a reduced user experience through ads being present on the site in order to justify, you know, the value that we are creating and then capturing. And so then the question is on social platforms, what is that? Is it, is it? Everything is completely free and you give all of that regardless. Great. But at some point you have to think about what is the way that you are going to ask that person to, you know, commit something on their end. It's not money, but commit something in their end in order to, for the business, create income. And there, there is no point in that other than there's all of these decisions that we have to make as content creators around what that, to what level are we going to ask people to commit to a thing in order to create value for ourselves? So all that to say, agree with what you're saying around, you know, as a business owner, how are you offering value? But then also what is the value that you are asking readers or followers to give back to you in exchange for the thing that you are creating, if it's not money directly.

And this is like a little bit of a mindset shift on that. I think it's true everything you said, but like, I don't really think of it as like asking for something from people. I think of it as like it's a, it's a service. We can offer you if you're interested. Like it's an offering, it's not an ask. Even though I, I know what you're saying. It's like anytime you're asking someone for email address for my, for my mindset, like that's how I think of it. And especially if you take the example of like a DM that sends an individual recipe, for example. So let's say it's like, hey, I made these chicken bowls, they were great. If you want the recipe thing and people comment, they get the DM card and it says they have an option. It says take me to the recipe. That's if you don't want to give your email or you don't want to, you know, get this delivered to your email, you can go right to the recipe or email me the recipe. And I think it's been, I have this, I went into it with the mindset of like ask people for their email address. But it's like, actually it's a service to people. Like a lot of people opt in and I don't think they're doing that because they're like, oh, I should, you know, help and give. It's like, because it's a helpful thing is because then they get the recipe emailed to them or they get whatever that resources emailed to them. So just like a slightly iteration on that thought that's helpful to me to think about is as long as whatever you're offering is valuable and people want into the degree that people, people aren't going to sign up if they don't want the thing that you're, that you're offering. And so that's just a thing that I think about is feeling confident in the value that we're offering, including looping people into our email world because what we have there is going to be helpful to them and valuable to them.

It's, it's seems like an obvious point, but I think it's really important because what can happen sometimes with something like this type of interaction on the Internet is the process can work and it can work really well. You create a, you create a reel, it goes viral. And I saw somebody commenting on this, not in the world of food, but in the world. It was like an AI, believe it or not. It was like an AI resource around this person who built like 30 AI agents. Is it like an AI agent org chart or something like that? And I'll give you this org chart, like to help you build your own. Okay, I'll give you the playbook or something. Like that. And this person's comment on it was. It was essentially like. It wasn't the actual processes and how to do it. It was just like a picture of the org chart or something like that. And I think what happened was there was a promise and that person in this case signed up for it. They got delivered the thing, but in getting the thing delivered, it actually didn't fulfill what they. What their hopes or expectations were. And I think when you just look at the numbers, that campaign probably worked pretty well. That person probably built their email list up, but probably what didn't happen was on the back end, it didn't create a relationship where somebody was like, oh, my goodness, this is awesome. I'm going to continue to come back to this person. And so I think a lot of times we talk about everything from the start. Hey, what does it look like to create a reel that goes viral? And then a lot of people dm, and then you get your email list and your email list grows. But the point that you just made, I think is just as important because that's only half of the story. The other half, and maybe the most important half is then actually establishing trust, delivering value on the back end and making sure that that person, then what's happening is their view of you as a resource, as a creator, you know, as a website is this is really helpful. And this is somebody I want to go back to and visit the site again, have. And that's where you see direct traffic or increase in followers. So I think it's a really important point because what will happen if you lose trust is the, the, like engagement that you'll get on those moving forward will be lower because people will start to see a pattern and they'll start to recognize that pattern. So, really important point. You're smart. And it's one of the reasons why I did feel so honored and grateful to be able to work with you. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Linds, and having a more formal conversation around work stuff.

Yes. Do I have time to say something else?

You do.

Okay, sometimes. Because sometimes I think it's helpful to have some very practical logistical look at what this looks like for someone else in order to get it started for yourself. And maybe if someone's listening to this and they're listening this far, maybe you're in the camp of like, you want to try this, but you haven't before. So this is what's been working for me. I came up with a list of five ideas that were more collections or like, like curated value so an example could be like 10 budget dinners or my most popular summer desserts or the high protein family recipes that my kids will actually eat or some stuff like that. So come up with your idea of a couple different things is what I did. And I did this based on like other, you know, videos I had seen, things I knew that are popular on our website. What people ask me about and then put just, just build a little list for yourself. So just like you would do a content calendar for the blog or for social. I have been doing one per month and I found like the freezer meal one took me a long time to like make that video, prep that video, get that stuff ready. So that one was like a one month project. But some of them are quick and easy. We, if we're, if we're talking about our most popular recipes, we already have those videos done. We can just pull a clip from each or we could even just take the pictures from the website and create a carousel. Like literally something that simple. You have those recipes already. You know that they're popular and they target this group of people. Just grab each of the images, put it in a carousel, and try using, you know, a DM automation to get people what they're looking for with the option of giving, you know, getting it to them via email. And so that's, that's what has been helpful for me is kind of slotting those in one per month. Having the idea of one per month helps it for me not feel so overwhelming. Like, it just helps me feel like I have a plan. I don't have to be doing this every week, but like, I generally am working on this thing. The goal is email signups. What value can I deliver to people that's different from what I'm doing? Maybe with a standard recipe blog post that can be delivered to them via email and it will make their lives better.

Love it. Hey, we'll have to have you back on the podcast sometimes. Really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. Follow along, pinch of yam, everything that you have going on there. Anything else that you want to say as we close out?

No, I could talk about this for too long. No, let's just, let's. Yeah, I'll see you at kindergarten graduation.

In a little bit today right around the corner. All right, thanks for coming on. Love you. Talk to you later.

I love you too. Bye Bye.

Hey there. This is Emily from the Food Blogger Pro team. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. As always, if you enjoyed that episode, we would really appreciate it if you could share it with your community or leave a review. It really helps get the word out about our podcast. As most of you may know, in addition to the podcast, we also have a Food Blogger Pro membership. As part of the membership we have hundreds of course lessons, live Q&As, coaching calls, a members only forum, and lots of tools and deals that are available exclusively for our Food Blogger Pro members. Since we are in a new month, I wanted to share a little bit about what will be going on inside the membership this month. We have already released a brand new coaching call that went live on June 5th with Joey from the blog Joey Cooks Foods. You can watch the video replay@foodbloggerpo.com in the membership or listen to the audio replay in our members only podcast. Next up this Thursday we have a live Q and A. This Q and A will be all about growing on Instagram and and is with our social media expert Andrea. If you are a Food Blogger Pro member, don't miss this Q and A. It will be a great companion to this week's podcast episode. Next up, While we usually have a new course or a course update that goes live at the end of the month, we are working behind the scenes on a course organization system that will help organize all of our incredible courses into tiers for beginners, intermediate and advanced Food Bloggers so it's easier for everyone to navigate within the membership. That's it for this month. We're looking forward to seeing you within the membership and if you aren't yet a Food Blogger Pro member, head to food bloggerpro.com membership to learn more and join us.