Turning A Food Blog Into Her Business

Entrepreneurship should be fun! Can you imagine what would happen if we all took ourselves less seriously? What content would you put out into the world that you actually have fun creating? Would this lead you to turning your “hobby” or your blog into your actual business?

That's what happened for today's podcast guest who put a video onto her Facebook Page just for fun... It was only when she uploaded another recipe video that went viral with 50K views in just three days, that Vanya Insull, of VJ Cooks, knew she could monetise her recipes through a food blog.

“I kind of did the food blogging backwards because I had my Facebook Page first, then I had so much demand for the recipes that I had to create a website to store them on.”

This insane demand could be your reality, too, if you just had a little fun, put something out there, and saw if it stuck!

I have the pleasure of mentoring Vanya within my private academy The Social Method Society. She is a recipe queen who is always keen to explore new ways to market her business online. Vanya is a Kiwi mum of two young boys, living in NZ. She is an amazing food blogger who loves to share family friendly recipes with her social media following.

During this episode, Vanya is sharing with us how she has been able to grow such a loyal and engaged following on her blog, Facebook and Instagram. Plus, Vanya is a content goddess who is repurposing her blog content to save time and work efficiently!

Key Takeaways:

>> [3:02] Vanya is a food blogger who comes from the glam world of magazine design. She used to be an Art Director on Cleo and Good Health plus Taste magazine, which is where her passion for food comes from. Vanya's business VJ Cooks started from her making a little video on her phone making a recipe with veggies from her garden with her young son helping.

>> [5:41] As one of the go to food and recipe bloggers in NZ with a fun and engaged community, Vanya put up a recipe for Mango Pavlova just before Christmas 2016 and it got 50K views in 3 days. She had another video go viral with over 2 million views.

>> [7:26] Vanya didn't make any money from her business within the first year even though her videos went viral. However, Vanya invested time in creating such great content for her community that it became so much easier to monetise her food blog.

>> [09:06] It's amazing that Vanya did not delay getting a brand. You should always start where you're at!

>> [10:29] Vanya can actually tell if a video is going to convert well based on the reaction it receives within the first hour of posting it. She then knows which recipes she should immediately post on her blog.

>> [10:58] What differences do Vanya find in her audience between Facebook and Instagram?

>> [12:06] When Vanya began marketing on Instagram, she had to change her way of thinking as she used the platform.

HOW VANYA USES IG

Vanya is posting frequently.

She's including HERSELF in her IG marketing strategy.

On her Instagram account, Vanya is dedicated to keeping it authentic - especially in her IG Stories.

>> [14:30] Vanya knows exactly what core content converts - recipes! She's excited to share how she repurposes her content to re-use later.

HOW VANYA REPURPOSES HER BLOG CONTENT

Sometimes Vanya cooks a recipe on her IG Stories.

Then she will type up the recipe and share it as a post on her IG Feed with a call-to-action for her followers to Save it.

Next, Vanya will put the recipe on her website and then share it again.

Vanya also saves her whole IG Stories roll from the entire day, which she then trims to use to create evergreen IGTV content.