A guest post by Cheryl Sternman Rule
In our social media ocean, most of us swim, flail, float, glide, and sputter, sometimes all in a single day. We do our best not to drown as we navigate crowded platforms, with varying degrees of success, enthusiasm, and begrudging obligation.
We also play favorites.
I, for one, love Instagram. Instagram has grown my network in ways I both couldn’t have imagined and didn’t know I needed.
Yes, I use other platforms, too, but my heart belongs to Instagram’s tidy squares, its colorful filters, its friendly tags. Here’s how I use it and what I’ve found:
1. I can approach editors in a casual, light-handed way.
I’ve been a writer for 11 years and still hesitate to cold-pitch editors. Now I follow them on Instagram first. Not to stalk them, by any means, but to get a sense for the public face they show the world.
You can learn a lot from someone on Instagram… Cat person or dog person? City slicker or country mouse? Coffee or tea? Does he knit? Does she play soccer? With luck, some of these folks will follow you back, and then slowly, slowly, you build rapport.
2. Instagram is an easy way to feel out a new connection.
You’re not prying; you’re just bearing witness, engaging bit by bit, square by square. And it’s a true two-way street. While I’m learning about them, they’re learning about me: my visual and culinary style, what foods I favor, how I write. While Instagram’s primarily a photo site, I take enormous care in choosing my words. Editors see this. They notice.
I emailed an editor after we’d been following each other for a while. The first thing I wrote was: “Hi. I’m @sternmanrule on Instagram. You and I have gotten to know each other over there, and I thought it was time to say hello more directly.” After a bit of back and forth, she referred me to an assigning editor, who went on to offer me a major feature in a food magazine I admire.
3. Instagram fosters global relationships.
Yes, Twitter is global, too, but because Instagram’s primary viewpoint is visual, the world actually looks and feels closer. I can see folks dance in Italy, feed livestock in India, swim in the Aegean.
As a food writer, this inspiration is enormously powerful. I sip my morning tea and observe meals across the globe, with new flavors, textures, and ingredients right there on my screen. If something moves me, I can tell the person: “Hey, that market/dragon fruit/salad you made looks beautiful. You’re inspiring.” And then I follow them and, sometimes, they follow me back. Relationships form.
4. Instagram has helped me find – and build – a new community.
As a way to build up my newest venture, called Team Yogurt, I’ve used Instagram to create an authentic community of yogurt lovers from Europe to Malaysia, from the Middle East to South America. Hashtags are powerful tools to identify those with common interests, and with Instagram, no matter where in the world someone lives, there are no borders to cross – everything’s right there. (My community uses the #teamyogurt hashtag, and new yogurt lovers find us daily.)
Above all, Instagram provides one more way we writers can experience the food world – but without a passport or a wad of cash. It allows us to show our work to others, identify potential professional partners and collaborators, and explore new avenues for work.
It’s a pretty great sea to explore.
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Cheryl Sternman Rule is the author of Yogurt Culture: How to Make, Bake, Sip, and Chill the World’s Creamiest, Healthiest Food, founder of Team Yogurt, and blogger at 5 Second Rule. Find her on Instagram @sternmanrule and @teamyogurt.
This has inspired me to try again. I began tentatively on Instagram and never got the hang of it. Your strategic points are encouraging me to overcome my tech phobia. Thanks
Like any platform, it does take a while to find a rhythm that works for you. I encourage you to be patient but yes, do give it another shot! I’ll be cheering you on.
Hi Cheryl & Dianne.
I love Instagram for a lot of the reasons you mention – it’s a great reminder & refresher to read this article (thank you).
I want to add another direct benefit I feel Instagram offers – I am finding it a great tool to try to identify whether the food blog (& hopeful cookbook concept) I’ve been working on actually has enough appeal to be a worthwhile long term project, well before I ever approach agents or publishers. Because I’m testing the waters with quite a niche subject it’s fascinating to see who likes my photos, where they come from & why they might be interested in the topic. This ‘quick snapshot’ nature of Instagram is helping build a general profile of, & interaction with, future book buyers in a way my blog or Facebook page never could.
I totally and completely relate, Emily. Since I run both a more general food account (@sternmanrule) and a niche, topic-related account (@teamyogurt), it’s fascinating to compare engagement between the two. The general account has WAY more total followers, but as a percentage of the total, the engagement on the niche site is much more robust. It’s also just much easier (and quicker) to gauge interest in a micro-topic on Instagram than on a blog.
Sounds like you’re making a good call to me.
I too love instagram! My author friend showed me how to use it because I wanted to keep track of where and what I was eating in my travels. People always ask me for restaurant recommendations and I often can’t remember the names of the places. I got hooked on it’s ease of use and fun way to follow people and then people started following me too. Thanks Cheryl and Dianne for the ideas on ways to continue to grow with it!
I’m so glad you found the post valuable. I love using Instagram as a travelogue, too. In fact, I’m in Seattle right now and it’s the easiest way for me to keep track of what I ate where. (I’m trying to make sure I don’t overdo it, though. People *really* don’t want to see every single restaurant you eat in!)
Always a feast here at Dianne J’s. Thankful for this post. It being from CSRule, it informs, moves me and inspires me. I love Instagram the most as a reader/viewer, because it helped me get over “I’m Not A Photographer” and just take pictures and put them out there and learn by doing. Last year at AFJ conference I learned about the filters and loved them. But hashtags and using it beyond Spur of the Moment: those are new to me and this helps me want to get moving on being strategic. Learned a lot.
I love following your feed, Nancie. It’s full of joy, real life, and vibrant food — a perfect extension of your personality.
I really appreciate your lack of shmooze. It is true, social platforms can be respectful, relational, humane. Indeed, at their best they are. Thanks Cheryl.
Lack of schmooze? Tell me more about what you mean…
THANKS Dianne and CSR for this piece. I just started realizing the utility of the hashtag on Instagram. And until I read this piece I didn’t realize I should use it also indirectly (but not primarily) to attract and find editors/clients/employers. Hmmmm…now ya got me thinkin’, as usual Cheryl!
Shef, I replied to you below. (Sorry… I hit the wrong “reply” button so it’s showing up as a separate comment.)
I just think of it as one more way of networking. It’s just another “space” where you can meet people, talk about areas of common interest, and explore potential creative partnerships. It’s nowhere near as direct and efficient as a face-to-face meeting, of course, but the barrier to entry is so low and the community so welcoming that there’s no reason not to dive in.
Hashtags are great. I think of them like labels or file folders, allowing you to find other people sorting the same stuff as you are 🙂
Thank you for your advice on how to make a better use of Instagram. I love it too. I usually just post my photos but was wondering how could I promote better my website and my writing.
Maria, I will occasionally use a photo on Instagram as a “driver” of content to my blog by updating the link in the profile part of instagram to point directly to my newest blog post. This has advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages: It creates some cross-pollination between platforms, which is nice if people only know you for one thing and you want to surface the rest of your work . {How to do it? Bloggers use the hashtag #linkinprofile at the end of their photo caption as an indicator that if folks click on their profile page they’ll go directly to the new blog post.}
Disadvantages: It’s easier to forget that your Instagram profile link now points to one particular blog post, and if you don’t update it once you’ve moved on to a new blog post, it’s going to point to the wrong place. It’s easy to forget to update it. Finally, I don’t actually know if tons of people follow those links. People don’t generally use instagram because they want to read blog posts, so the click-through rate may not be as high as you imagine. {This will depend on your audience, their loyalty, etc., of course.}
Thank you so much Cheryl.You really gave me food for thought. I guess it is a question of trying different options and see what in the end will be the better choice for me. Thank you for taking the time to answer me.
Thanks for the food for thought Cheryl. I too love Instagram, if for no other reason other than as a why that I can control how I’m presented to the world, at least in that sphere. Do you have any tips for standing out amongst the millions of posters each day? I sometimes feel lost amid thousands of other people trying to do the same thing and posting similar photos. I’d also like to hear your views on Instagram vs sites like Pinterest, which include a direct link to sites.
Hi Hannah:
I think there may be a better way to frame your first question: Instead of wondering how you can stand out in a sea of beautiful, often similar imagery, I encourage you to reflect on how you can find the *truest* community of followers who will appreciate what it is you share on the platform. Hashtags may help, as will following those people whose images genuinely move you as opposed to just as many accounts as you can. that will keep your experience manageable both as a follower and as a user/curator.
As for Pinterest, I use is half-heartedly. I’m aware that it’s a very powerful tool for a lot of food bloggers, but I can’t seem to latch onto it in as meaningful a way. I think like any tool you really need to focus on those that work best for you.
Good luck! Hope that’s a bit helpful. ~~c.
I think you had great advice on how to cultivate new relationships using Instagram. Your non-stalking plan of attack for building a new community and developing relationships with like minded foodies world-wide is spot on. Thanks for the tips on how to really use Instagram.