What a Million-Follower Food Blogger Taught Me About Photography, Lighting, and Letting Go
Here at Simple Pin, I say all the time that Pinners don’t read. They connect with an image first, and that split second tells them whether to click or keep scrolling. That’s why I was so excited to sit down with Ashley McCrary of Healthy Little Peach, a former teacher who now has over a million followers and photographs her food beautifully. Ashley started with zero photography knowledge, so we talked about how she learned her craft, which courses were worth the money, and when it makes sense to hand the work off to someone else.
From Third Grade Teacher to Full-Time Creator
Ashley taught for ten years and held degrees that could have taken her all the way to superintendent, but education was more her family’s path than her own. Her blog began in 2016 after she struggled with PCOS and fertility issues and found that getting healthy through what she ate changed things for her. She wanted to share that story in case it helped someone else, so she started posting on Instagram every day. When she took over a Whole30 account and gained 30,000 followers overnight, everything took off. She left teaching in 2019, and her husband joined the business full time in 2020. I loved hearing how she walked through each open door and how hard she worked in those early years, juggling a master’s program, a cupcake business, a new baby, and a growing blog all at once.
Lighting Is the Skill That Changes Everything
Ashley told me she wasn’t a good photographer at first and that it took years of courses, notes, and practice before she felt confident. Photographing 100 recipes for her cookbook forced her to really learn ISO, shutter speed, and lighting, and she says lighting matters most of all. You can have the camera, the props, and the backdrops, but without good light the photo won’t work. Her go-to is soft light, and her tip for anyone shooting on a phone is to set up a table by a window and use a diffuser. A few of her other tips stuck with me:
- Choose matte silverware instead of shiny pieces that reflect light and distract from the food.
- Switch to the 2x lens on your iPhone for those close-up bite shots.
- Record a short video and screenshot the best frame, because it can give you a sharper image than a photo.
- Use the back camera instead of the front camera.
- Clean your lens every time.
Related: Mastering Click-Worthy Pin Design
Knowing When to Hire It Out
Ashley has lived with chronic back pain for the past ten years, and standing for seven or eight hours of shooting meant she couldn’t walk the next day. Her $5,000 camera has been sitting on a shelf since last October. As a perfectionist, she struggled to hand off her photos at first, but she found a photographer whose style matches hers so closely that their work feels cohesive. Her honest take is that hiring this out gave her time back for recipe development, reels, Pinterest, and her blog, and that she was almost embarrassed about it in the beginning. Bloggers contract out photography all the time, and growing a business means getting out of your comfort zone and asking for help. I couldn’t agree more.
Be Yourself, Test Your Recipes, and Stand Out
We also talked about where food content is heading. Creators on Substack are shooting simple, in-the-kitchen content, and Ashley is finding her own balance between polished and approachable. Photos still need to look appealing, but they don’t have to be perfect, and that lower barrier to entry is part of why natural photos have always resonated on Pinterest. She shared her frustration with AI-generated food photos, and she said the one thing AI can’t replace is a recipe that works. She tested her cornbread recipe ten times because she doesn’t want anyone wasting grocery money on a flop. Her advice for new food bloggers is to be yourself, be creative, and share your own story, which is why she recently started a series called Still Having Happy Hour, where she makes mocktails and talks about being alcohol-free for almost four years.
Related: Can Pinterest & Substack Work Together?
You can find this podcast episode by going to Apple or Spotify.
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Ashley’s Website: https://healthylittlepeach.com/
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Watch: Design pins in Canva that Actually Get Clicks
Transcript:
Hey there, and welcome back to another episode of the Simple Pin [00:01:00] Podcast, where Pinterest doesn’t have to be complicated; it just needs a system. I am Kate Ahl, and today I’m bringing in Ashley McCrary from Healthy Little Peach. She is so delightful. Here at Simple Pin Media, we talk about this all the time.
Photography makes one of the biggest differences when it comes to Pinterest because Pinners don’t read. They connect with the image right away, and that lets them know whether it’s relevant to them, whether they wanna click or whether they wanna just scroll on by. Ashley is amazing at taking great images that get people to click.
So let’s dive in as we talk about learning your craft, investing in photography courses, and knowing when to outsource. Also, if while you’re listening, you’re thinking about how to create Pinterest images with all your amazing photography, just know that we have Pinterest templates in our Simple Pin shop. You can click down below in the description to learn more.
All righty. Let’s dive into my interview with Ashley. Ashley, [00:02:00] welcome to The Simple Pin Podcast.
Ashley: Thank you so much for having me. I listen to it all the time and learn so much, so it’s a great thing to have me on. Thank you.
Kate: Yes, I love it. Thank you so much for listening. It’s always good when people understand how I interview and how I tell stories, and that just makes the connection even better. I wanna start with how you got started with Healthy Little Peach and the origin story.
Ashley: Okay, so I was a teacher for 10 years. I taught third grade, I taught first grade, and what’s really crazy is I was in school for a long time. I have my degree to be a principal. I have my specialist degree to be a superintendent. Education’s just what my family does. My mom was a principal. I was pushed to do it, not that I really wanted to do it, but I was a great teacher. It just wasn’t something that I saw myself doing long term.
It’s so strange how [00:03:00] all this happened. I struggled with PCOS, and we were having some fertility issues. Through getting healthy and really watching what I ate, I was able to get pregnant. I remember it so vividly. We were coming back from the beach one day, and I said, “Joel,” and Joel’s my husband, and I was against social media at first. Just, I’ll just ramble, so I’m sorry.
Kate: No, it’s fine.
Ashley: So I was against social media. I wouldn’t put my kids on it. I didn’t have a Facebook page. But I had this idea, I had a story, and I told my husband on the way back from the beach in July of 2016, “I really need to share this story. I need to get on, share what I’m eating, share what I’ve been through in case it could help somebody else.”
As soon as I got home, we came up with all the names. What are we gonna name it? Healthy Little Peach just came to me, and I said, “That’s it.” From that day on, I started Instagram, posted every day, got really into [00:04:00] Whole30, did some takeovers, and everything really took off in 2017.
From 2017 to 2019 was just growing. One day, when I took over for Whole30 recipes, I gained 30,000 followers overnight. That’s where I got started, and from there I just continued to share my story and my recipes. I’m Southern. My grandmama had good recipes, so I wanted to share my love for cooking and getting healthy.
That’s how it started. I left teaching in 2019, and I’ve been doing this full time ever since. Then my husband, who was in health administration and was over the neurology department at our local hospital, was able to leave his job in 2020, and now we do this together. It’s a full-time business. You work [00:05:00] 40 hours at an 8:00 to 5:00 job, and we work about 60 now. It’s so much more work, but it’s so rewarding. You can build your schedule, and the income you can make on a blog and being on social media is just mind-blowing. That’s one thing I wanna get across: it’s never too late to start.
I came from the education world. From 2017 to 2019, boy did I work hard. On top of that, I was going to school to get my master’s and specialist degrees while I was building Healthy Little Peach, and I also had a cupcake business called Sweet Little Things and Company. I was on Food Network Cupcake Wars, so I was able to do that.
Kate: Did you sleep in those two years at all?
Ashley: No, I have insomnia, so I have a really hard time sleeping. And then I had my baby.
Kate: Oh my gosh.
Ashley: Then I just worked hard. I was up at 5:00 [00:06:00] AM. I was up till midnight. I think that consistency and working hard really does pay off. I could ramble all day, but that’s how it started. And I have a million followers. How did that happen?
Kate: Well, I love how you mapped out the opportunities that really just happened along the way, whether it was Whole30 or whether it was this open door, and you just kept walking through. I think that is such a key to being an entrepreneur, and I love that you traded 40 hours for 60 hours.
Ashley: That’s just how it is sometimes. You know? What do you wanna do? Do you want that eight to five, or do you wanna build something yourself? Are you creative? Do you want more? That’s just how I viewed it. I just needed more.
Kate: Yeah. Well, I wanna talk about photography, because your photos are beautiful, and one of the things that resonates with any social media is this connection where a reader looks at a photo and they say, “I wanna [00:07:00] make that,” or “I can make that,” or maybe “I aspire to make it someday.” Talk to me about your process when it comes to developing your photography skill. Was that always there? Did you have to learn it?
Ashley: No. I came from zero. I had no idea about photography. I love learning, as you can tell, I got my degrees. I love learning new things. When I started, I knew I had to figure out how to do it.
Because I was new, I couldn’t really get help. I couldn’t afford that. So I went down a rabbit hole of buying courses, buying my cameras, getting all my props, and slowly learning. I wasn’t very good in the beginning at all. I started in 2017. In 2019, 2020, I got a big cookbook deal, and I photographed it. So I really had to dive [00:08:00] in. I photographed 100 recipes with my camera, not really knowing what I was doing, but I’ll tell you, that really changed the game. I had to learn ISO. I had to learn my shutter speed. I had to learn lighting.
Those are the three main things you have to learn, even if you don’t have an expensive camera. How can I light the food to where it looks edible, to where it looks like you could just reach into the picture and take a bite? You don’t have to have a camera. Right now, I do a lot of my stuff in the kitchen with my phone.
If you have an iPhone, there are so many possibilities now with photography. My camera was about five grand. You don’t have to have that. Does it take good pictures? It does. Building my prop collection was the big one. You’ve gotta have pretty backdrops. You’ve gotta have pretty plates.
One thing I really didn’t understand is your silverware. [00:09:00] You don’t want shiny silverware that’s reflecting. You want matte silverware. It just looks like a magazine, and you can enjoy the photo without distractions. Learning my lighting and learning my camera took years.
I really didn’t become a good photographer till about 2021. I had a photography mentor, and then Two Love Studios. I took a ton of her courses, and when Broma Bakery was really big into photography, I did some of her courses. When I say I spent a lot of money on courses and taking notes, that was a game changer.
Kate: With those courses, what do you feel like were some of the golden nuggets that you took out where you thought, “Oh my gosh, I would have never figured this out”?
Ashley: The lighting. I have so many lights, and you can have your camera, your props, and your backdrops. If you [00:10:00] don’t know lighting, you will not have a good photo.
It’s all about whether you want hard light or soft light. I’m not a hard light girly. I like soft light all day because it makes food more appealing. There’s a big trend now with hard lighting, and you can do it in a way where it looks appetizing, but a lot of the time it’s just so harsh, and the food just doesn’t look good. So really, soft lighting. Let’s say you have a window and you have an iPhone. Put a table by the window, get a diffuser, diffuse your light, because you don’t want it too harsh. Get you some pretty props, and take it with your phone.
You’ve got mobile Lightroom that you can go into. And let me tell you something, learning Lightroom and CapCut is a whole other beast. It took me years. You do need to edit some, but if you have your lighting right, you don’t have to edit as much. So those courses, lighting, that was number one.
If you don’t know your lights, [00:11:00] then you’re out.
Kate: Okay, so hard lighting, is this where we see it super bright?
Ashley: Super bright. You can have it from the front to the side. Usually with hard light you see it from the back or side, because you don’t want it directly in front. You want to see those shadows fall off. Soft lighting, you don’t have to worry about. You can soften it. It’s so cozy. It’s my style.
Kate: Yeah. Well, actually, that’s what I was gonna ask you. Do you have a signature angle or photo, something where you think, “I always love to do this”?
Ashley: Overheads. You just cannot beat that. And I have a macro lens. It’s 100 millimeter, and it gets really close up and gives you super crisp photos. Those bite shots, like if you’ve got soup and you’ve got that spoon in there and you’re seeing all the ingredients, those are money shots. But you can do that with [00:12:00] your iPhone by going to the 2X and changing your lenses. That’s my biggest thing now, that you don’t need an expensive camera. You can do all of this with a phone.
Kate: Which makes it feel very approachable to enter into this space that has felt so overwhelming, and that barrier to entry has always been photography. People might create great recipes, but they don’t have that artistic eye to take a photo of it. They think, “I know this is good, but I don’t know how to communicate that through a photo.” And that’s really what it is to be a food creator, is communication through a photo.
Ashley: That’s right. And I have seen a shift. You have Substack, and these creators who don’t have a camera and are shooting as they’re making their recipe. Honestly, it’s very inspiring because it makes you think, “Oh, I can do this in the kitchen. It’s not so perfect.” So for me right now, I’m trying to find that balance. I’m a perfectionist. I want everything to be [00:13:00] perfect. But sometimes it’s okay if it’s not. You still want it to look appealing. You wanna get your lighting right. But you don’t have to take it over the top where you have a full room of props. I had a full room of props, and when we moved, I had to tone that down because it was overwhelming.
Like I said, we talked about hiring out for help, and I know we’ll get there later. But it is attainable if you can do it in a way that looks classy and clean on your phone. And I don’t know if you know this, but in your iPhone, you can swipe up and adjust photos within the camera roll. You don’t even need a fancy editor. It’s learning your light, learning your ISO.
Let me give you another tip. There are some camera apps you can get on your phone. I use Blackmagic for video, because with video you’ve gotta get your lighting right too, and it will [00:14:00] set your ISO and your shutter speed so you can get really professional-looking images on your iPhone.
Kate: Well, I thank you for that tip. Those little itty-bitty pieces that we can find in our phone make it approachable. Honestly, when Pinterest was being built, a lot of the photos on there were what we’ll call amateur. They were very much everyday kitchen cooks. There was a joke for years that raw chicken breast always did well, and the reason was that everybody had that in their freezer or their fridge. So automatically, through that photo, people could say, “Well, I have that. I can make it.”
So you’re right, these very natural photos that people are taking on Substack or wherever resonate because it doesn’t feel like there’s a heavy barrier to entry. Say, with a Bon Appétit photo, which is 100 different ingredients, and it [00:15:00] feels very gourmet, people think, “I love that. It’s beautiful, but I can’t make it.”
Ashley: I think you’ve just gotta find that line. Do you know what else I do that’s really fun? I like videography, and I used to be really into it, and I had really classy videos. But it would take seven, eight hours to shoot and edit. I can’t do that. So I do everything on my phone now, super simple, and I’m starting to show up on social media as me, not just my recipes. That’s a big thing.
Let’s say you’re filming a reel, and you’re cooking in the kitchen and showing your food, and at the end you’ve got your bite shot. I do my video and I take screenshots, and they’re excellent.
Kate: Oh.
Ashley: Sometimes on your phone you get better quality with video than with photos, so screenshotting video actually gives you better quality. I know that might not sound right, but it is.
Kate: Yeah, but you tried it.
Ashley: I did. Even if I’m taking a selfie, [00:16:00] I like to use my back camera and let it video for a good 15 seconds, and then screenshot the best parts.
Kate: I’ve heard that recently. I didn’t know that part. I am terrible at photography. I like to think I would be good, but I’m not. But I heard that with the back camera, you’re gonna get a better shot than you will with the front camera.
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Ashley: Oh, yeah, the front camera. It’s not even comparable. But sometimes when I use my back camera, I’m like, “Whoa, do I really look like that?” Because the front camera will mirror, and I’m like, “Oh, my nose is crooked. I didn’t know I looked like that.”
Kate: That is so funny.
Ashley: It’s real. It will stun you at first, but it is so much better. And always clean your lenses, front and back. That’s my tip.
Photography used to be different. It’s a different world now. I feel like the kind of photography I was in is more cookbook now, because [00:17:00] I wanted to be a cookbook photographer, have my studio, and have bloggers hire me to shoot their food for their cookbooks.
Another backstory: for the past 10 years I’ve lived with chronic back pain. I have to get a rod in my back. It’s a whole thing, and when I would spend seven or eight hours on my feet, I couldn’t walk the next day because I was in so much pain. That’s why I’ve had to pull back a lot. I have all the knowledge. I have all the props. I have everything that I need, but my body just doesn’t cooperate now, and that’s why I wanna pivot to say it’s okay to hire that out. I have a photographer who supplements our photos now, and she’s my style. We’ve almost melted together to be the same photographer because her style matches mine so much, and it makes everything cohesive.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, if you have [00:18:00] too much on your plate, it is okay to hire that out. It is so okay to hire that out, because you’re gonna get so much more done in your recipe creation, in making your reels, in figuring out Pinterest, in your blog. The juggling of all of that is so much when you’re doing your own pictures, your step-by-steps, and your editing. It’s a whole other ballgame.
Kate: Yeah. Well, I would imagine, too, that as you’re growing and trying to keep up with this demand, there’s this element where we push ourselves to do more, be better, get better, and you hit this point where your body says, “I can’t do this anymore.” Was it difficult for you to take that leap to say, “I’m going to hire out,” or did it feel like, “This is the right time. If I can find the right person, then I’m good”?
Ashley: Again, I’m a perfectionist. I know what I want. I know how to do it. I know how to shoot it. In the beginning, if I gave it to [00:19:00] somebody else, it didn’t meet my expectations, if that makes sense. I wasn’t okay with it. But my body was at a point where I could not do it anymore, and then I found somebody who was just like me.
I think a lot of times you have to get to the point where you can financially do that, too. It’s not easy. But honestly, it’s very reasonable with what I have found, because of how much time it saves me and how much more money I can make doing other things besides focusing on pictures and running to Walmart and getting the ingredients every five minutes. My husband, bless his heart, if I’m doing a recipe, he would go to Walmart four or five times, and these people thought he was insane. You’re just wasting so much time. I got to the point where my body was failing me. I was in my garage shooting at 10:30, 11 at night.
I couldn’t physically do it anymore. So where I [00:20:00] do a lot with my iPhone now, we have supplemented that out, and oh, it’s just been the best.
Kate: Is your photographer local?
Ashley: No, she’s not local. She’s from Oregon. She’s amazing. If people wanna email me, I can get you in contact. She has a wait list, so she only takes so many, and she has a full kitchen staff that helps her.
Kate: Oh, wow.
Ashley: Here’s the trick that people don’t know. A lot of my photos are my photos, but other bloggers will look and say, “How is she doing all of this?” They don’t realize that bloggers are supplementing that out, and that it’s okay to do that. I was almost embarrassed in the beginning, like, “Oh, this isn’t my work. I shouldn’t be doing that.” But it’s business. You have to contract people. In order to grow, you have to get out of your comfort [00:21:00] zone, and you have to ask for help.
Kate: Yeah, it’s true.
Ashley: I just got to that point. You’ve got to.
Kate: And the great part is you’re supporting her business, and then she gets to hire all these other people, and they get to expand her business. That’s how it should work instead of you driving yourself into the ground.
Ashley: And she’s so comfortable, we’re so close, it’s like making a new friend. You would think it’s so hard, explaining how the recipe is and what I want. But when you’ve been with a photographer for six months to a year, they understand your style, they understand your recipes, and it makes it seamless. She can send me a picture and I say, “Oh, perfect. Go with it.”
Kate: Yes.
Ashley: I know a lot of food photographers out there that you sub out or contract out to are fabulous. I have not heard any bad stories. Depending on who you get, it can be expensive. But I [00:22:00] feel like the lady I use is very reasonable, very sweet, very kind, and I’m just kind of obsessed with her. She’s great.
Kate: I love that. Okay, so how do you see your photography evolving over the next couple of years?
Ashley: Well, my back has gotten really bad, so my $5,000 camera has been sitting on the shelf since last October. I’m so burnt out. I burned myself out because I shot my first cookbook, and then I spent so many hours doing all the courses. My photography is so beautiful, though, and I didn’t think that for so long until I stopped. Then I looked back and thought, “I really was a good photographer. It really was beautiful.” If I could have gone down the road of having a studio and shooting cookbooks, that would’ve been really great, but it wasn’t my path, and that’s okay. But I honestly don’t know. The editing and just the…
What am I trying to say? [00:23:00] It was just so tedious. Photography is a big deal with a blog, but it’s not what it used to be. Do you remember how it used to be that you had to have it perfect to grow?
Kate: Yes.
Ashley: Food bloggers did. But then we evolve, and you gotta go with what’s trending now. Really professional food just doesn’t hit as hard as more approachable photos. But you still have to get those approachable photos to look good. And you know what really gets me is when you get on Pinterest and see these AI photos.
Kate: Oh gosh, yes.
Ashley: I am livid.
Kate: Yes.
Ashley: And then there’ll be AI photos with my recipe attached. I just wish there was something.
Kate: Yeah. What can we do?
Ashley: I know.
Kate: I’ve been trying to advocate for that for a long time. I know they’ve tried the AI modified labels, they’ve tried filters and things like that. But just as we’ve seen with stolen content, they come up with [00:24:00] this system and it swipes so fast you can barely keep up with it.
Ashley: And you don’t know what is what when you get on there. AI’s gotten so good. Even with The Bot Shop, she’s one I took a course with. I took a course with all the food photographers out there. But there’s even AI in Lightroom now. Food photographers can take a picture of a bowl of soup, and now you can just go in and tell AI in Lightroom, “Can you add my spoon and my garnishes?” It’s taken the creativity out of it. It’s just different than when I was doing it.
Kate: And I think, to that point, the one place where the creativity can’t be taken is the taste of a recipe or how good a recipe is.
Ashley: Yes. Because…
Kate: It’s the photos getting people there…
Ashley: Exactly.
Kate: …to the recipe. But we heard, last Thanksgiving, I think it was The New York Times, did this huge article about how basically [00:25:00] Thanksgiving recipes were getting ruined because people got them from AI, and then they weren’t good. It was a bit of a dupe, like, “This is gonna be delicious,” and it wasn’t. So maybe that’s more of what I’m asking: what do your next couple of years look like when it comes to recipe development?
Ashley: I don’t know if any other bloggers have tried this, but I tried a bread recipe on ChatGPT just to see what it was. Awful. Then when I made my own with similar measurements, just tweaked, mine was great. It can be just little things. But the way I view recipe creation, I do not want people to go to the grocery store and spend a lot of money, because everything’s expensive right now, then go in their kitchen, expect an easy meal for their family, and have it be a complete flop. I have very good reviews on my blog because…
The other day I did a cornbread recipe. I tested that dadgum thing [00:26:00] 10 times because you just don’t want people to waste money. I think I spent $3.50 testing it, but that’s gonna save people money. I did it until my 12-year-old said it was good, and we got there. You’ve just gotta test, and that’s why it’s okay to supplement the photography out, so you can. Yes, photography’s gonna get them there, but recipe testing is the most important thing.
Kate: Yeah, I 100% agree. Okay. So to wrap this up, if you were to give a couple pieces of advice to any new food blogger who is just starting out, maybe looking at the landscape thinking, “There are so many food bloggers out there.
Where is the space for me?” What would you tell them?
Ashley: I think there’s always room at the table. But I’ll just say, I get so frustrated. I try to be really creative with my recipes. I came up with this [00:27:00] pepperoncini creamy chicken skillet, and what hurts my feelings is when these new 20-year-old food bloggers come in, go to that site, and copy that recipe word for word and give no credit. It is frustrating to me, but I think that’s just social media right now, and you have to accept it.
My one piece of advice is be you and be creative. Don’t try to be somebody else. I’ve even gotten in the habit of comparing myself, but nobody can be you. Nobody has the same recipes as you. So just be yourself and be authentic. And if you’re using recipes, try to make them your own.
Somebody once said, “What’s the big deal? I got it off Pinterest.” And I’m like, the reason Pinterest is there is because of food bloggers. We’re spending our time testing the recipe, shooting the recipe, building the blog post. Pinterest is there. Yes, you’re getting those recipes [00:28:00] from Pinterest, but it’s food bloggers who are putting that time and effort in. I don’t get mad when I see my recipes, because I know everybody gets inspiration from somewhere. I get that. I do think a lot of people are clueless about it. They don’t know the correct way to credit, or they just think, “Oh, this blog is giving me a great recipe.” And with Allrecipes and Delish, you don’t think about crediting because of what they are.
So figure out your pictures, really good lighting, be creative, be yourself. And a new thing I’m learning is you have to show up as yourself, face on camera. I’m almost four years alcohol-free, and I started a new series called Still Having Happy Hour, showing myself making a mocktail with a little appetizer and sharing my story of why I’m alcohol-free. This is the way [00:29:00] you can navigate that, through having mocktails and not cocktails. So just come up with something that is you. Nobody else can do it. That’s the main thing.
Kate: I love that piece of advice. It’s so much more than photography.
Ashley: Yeah, I agree.
Kate: You’ve gotta have your spin on it, your story, and even for you, as you’ve shared today, your PCOS journey and your back pain and all of these other things infuse into your content and into your website, because that’s a part of how you’re creating things.
Ashley: That’s right. You can’t separate the two. And the really great thing is that the alcohol came into play with the back pain. It was a way to numb, so it was this pattern that I had to break. It’s a good story. I wanna share more, and if you feel comfortable and you have a story to share, people really do resonate with it. I have so many followers who, when I posted in my stories what I was doing, [00:30:00] became alcohol-free. And I don’t judge people who drink cocktails and alcohol. We all have a story, and we have to do what’s best for us. If you can connect that with your community, it’s great.
Kate: Yeah, it is gold. I have loved chatting with you, Ashley. Will you tell people where they can connect with you?
Ashley: Thank you. I am @healthylilpeach. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube. Healthylilpeach.com has some great recipes. I already have one cookbook, the Clean Paleo Family Cookbook, from 2021, and maybe in the future I’m gonna be working on another one.
Kate: I’m so excited for you, and I hope the next couple of years are prolific with your business, and also that some of the pain can be under control for you, and that you can really infuse more of yourself into the story and into the recipes, and really [00:31:00] make it something that continues to be yours.
Ashley: Yes. Well, thank you, and thanks for having this podcast. There’s not a lot out there to help you navigate. And I do want viewers and listeners to understand that I’ve hired y’all. Y’all are my Pinterest people, and I have Daphne. I hope I can say her name.
Kate: Oh, you can. I love Daphne. She loves you, too.
Ashley: Oh, but you don’t have to worry about anything. It’s that supplemental help, taking that off your plate so you can continue to grow, and you guys have been great. I love your podcast, so thanks for everything you do for Pinterest.
Kate: Well, I appreciate you, and I love that you have a great connection with Daphne, too, and that we can serve you, because that really is important to us, to give you the ability to focus back on what you do best instead of spending your hours on Pinterest trying to figure it all out, because…
Ashley: And not having any idea what to do.
Kate: Yes. Of course. You wanna be focused on creating recipes and testing cornbread 170 times…
Ashley: Yes, yes.
Kate: …[00:32:00] so that you can get the right one.
Ashley: Have I been with y’all a year and a half?
Kate: I think so, yeah.
Ashley: And Pinterest is just booming.
Kate: Yeah, it’s doing great, and your videos are doing great, too, which has been a great addition recently as we looked at your numbers.
Ashley: I gotta upload more.
Kate: I’m glad you said that. Yes, you do, and I think that’s always a question, too, if we can add this a little bit here at the end for food creators: you never know what’s gonna work or not work when it comes to Pinterest. That is where we test things, we try things. We have other food creators whose videos don’t take off, and then we have video creators like you, where it does work. It is this throwing darts, and that’s what we love to do so that you don’t have to. Let us take your content. We’ll throw the darts, figure it out, bang our heads against a wall sometimes, and then figure out a way to make it work.
Ashley: It’s been awesome. I appreciate you having me on. It was a great, how long have we been doing it, an hour? It was a great hour.
Kate: Oh, yeah. No, 30 minutes has gone by fast.
Ashley: If you need me anymore or [00:33:00] wanna chat, you reach out. And again, if anybody does want my photographer’s information, just have them email me, or they can email you, because she’s the sweetest. If I can give her more business, I absolutely wanna do that.
Kate: I love that. Well, thanks so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it.
Ashley: Thank you.
Kate: We’ll see you later.
