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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 217 - Video Marketing for Local Small Bakeries, Corrie wanted to talk about the wild world of Reels. Well, Reels, TikToks, YouTube Shorts - you know, vertical video. A topic made all the more important by Meta's announcement last week that all videos uploaded to the Facebook platform would now be categorized as Reels, thus shutting the door on horizontal videos (* Lives are still Lives, though).

It's what's in right now, and as small businesses who want to increase reach, we gotta bite the proverbial bullet and say cheese (trust me, I hate it too).

🎞️ 1. Start with the setup

The setup will make or break your quality, but pro-tip: it won't be perfect when you're just getting started. Don't let that stop you! The old adage was right when it stated, "Practice makes perfect." So yes, you may be tripping out of the gate, but the long-term benefits of Nike's "Just Do It" will make the juice worth the squeeze.

Products Recs from this Podcast:

• 🔗 Tripod - Canvas Lamp
• 🔗 Dummy Phone - iPhone 13
• 🔗 Editing App - InShot
• 🔗 Backdrop - The Backers Co in White Matte Finish
• 🔗 Teleprompter - Search Amazon for one that fits your setup

You'll want to find a natural indirect light source - this means the sun, but in a bright room where the sun isn't creating harsh shadows. If you can't get out of the sun because of the positioning of your house, using a silk curtain can diffuse the light enough to make it work.

📐 Most bakers struggle with the positioning of the tripod in relation to the cookie. Don't be afraid to position the camera at an angle - if you pay attention, you'll find most decorating videos are not directly overhead, although Corrie tells ya how to make it work with the Canvas Lamp (heads up - she does not use the lamp's light ring, just the phone mount).

🎞️ 2. Types of videos to record

Once you get your setup dialed in, you may be tempted to become a one-dimensional "cookie decorating video ASMR" content machine, but ya gotta mix it up. 🔑 This is the key point to the podcast - small, local businesses need to feature local content.

Consider who is watching your videos. ASMR-type decorating videos appeal to a wide audience - 🌎 like, "the whole world" wide. Not the goal if we want to increase our local customer base, but good for impressions (the number of eyes that watch your videos). When we feature hyper-local businesses, farmers markets, and event coverage, we appeal really just to our local demographic. That's the goal.

🪣 Here are some content buckets you could pull from to make a diverse content strategy that covers both broad and narrow targeting:

• 🎬 Read customer testimonials and give order details
• 🎬 Local event coverage - farmer's markets, new restaurant opening, town events
• 🎬 Tell a story or series - "I'm on my journey to open a brick and mortar - I'm taking you with me!"
• 🎬 Behind the scenes - "I have an order for 30 dz. Let's do it together."
• 🎬 Presale QVC-style video - "Here's what you'll find at my pop-up next week."
• 🎬 Baking Tips - "Here's how to make Royal Icing at home!"
• 🎬 ASMR-type decorating vids

🎞️ 3. Things to include for extra reach

Finally, try to include these when recording - it'll help your audience better relate and discover your content. And the more people who see your content, the more likely the algos are to show your content to more people = the endless cog in the marketing wheel.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 216 - Taking a Stab at a Cookie Collab, and Sugar Cookie Marketing Cookie Collabs are BACK IN BUSINESS. You can check out the details in the event listing for the SCM Cookie Collab: Meet the Baker 2025! here.

But allow us to spend this week's podcast and newsletter walking you through the Collab 101 basics so you can get the most from the easy-to-join Instagram cookie collab.

Long story... podcast?... short, collabs are an easy breezy marketing collaboration with a handful of other bakers to increase engagement as well as e-network with your coll-e-agues (get it, because we're all online?). 🌊 Let's dive in. 👙 But if you're already "in there like swimwear," go ahead and register here:

🔪 1. What's a cookie collab?

A cookie collab is a single-day, single-hour online event where a group of bakers design a cookie (or a picture) based on a specified theme. Each "collaber" will post on a designated social media platform (Instagram in this case) using a specific hashtag (#SCMCollabBaker). Then all the participants will engage with other participants' posts by liking and commenting (but not following). It lasts for 1 hour, and it's a great way to meet new bakers, put faces to names, and increase engagement by hijacking the algo to show your post to more of your followers. A win-win-win. Some collabs are invite-only, but this is an open invite collab. All we ask is that you register to get reminders (not required, but appreciated).

🔪 2. Why did we stop doing collabs?

With Zuck trying to keep up with the Joneses (ahem, TikTok), the platform depreciated hashtags - the main way we connect bakers through collabs. Previously, collabers could search for the most recent posts using a common hashtag (example, our old collab hashtag - #SCMCookiecCollab) during the collab hour and engage away as one big happy baking family. Now, with the removal of the ability to follow hashtags and the ability to filter by most recent, posts from prior collabs would have shown up, they'd have been outta order, and it would have been a giant mess.

So we stopped because we needed to rethink the approach (it didn't require a ton of brain power, which you'll see in a second, but hey - we got busy too).

🔪 3. Details on this collab

This collab is our simplest concept of the three collabs we'll attempt this year. The "Meet the Baker" collab just requires a picture of you! Personal branding through face photos builds trust and relatability with customers - and bonus, you don't have to bake for this one. Always remember the quote, “people like faces. When in doubt, selfie it out.”

• ➡️ Time: Friday, 10:00 AM EST
• ➡️ Date: June 27th, 2025
• ➡️ Use Hashtag #SCMCollabBaker
• ➡️ Register here: https://form.jotform.com/SugarCookieMarketing/scmcollabbaker

And it will work - humans love humans, and this collab capitalizes on that. And even better, you get to see the faces of other bakers who are also participating. It's a fun way to kill an hour and do a lil' marketing at the same time.

🔪 4. Tips to get the most from a collab

While it's pretty hard to mess up "post a selfie," there are ways to squeeze the most juice from this berry.

• ✅ Try to have your post up by 10:00 AM EST for maximum exposure.
• ✅ Use the Hashtag #SCMCollabBaker on Instagram.

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🤖 AI-AI-Oh Yes - Ways bakers are incorporating AI.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 215 - AI-AI-Oh Yes, we read a thread asking bakers how they're using AI in their bakery business. The answers should inspire you - from streamlining workflow to helping write compelling copy on social media, AI has entered stage left, and it won't be leaving anytime soon.

If you're a late adopter to this new tech, you're not totally alone, but we predict (hot take) that the bakers who do incorporate AI into their workflow will outperform the bakers who resist the "winds of change."

For this newsletter, I'll just list out how bakers are incorporating AI as they incorporate their icing. It's how others use AI that can inspire you to learn ways you can add it yourself. In the podcast, we also listed out how the Harvard Business Review found out how the majority of folks are using AI in their lives.

Full disclosure - we recorded this podcast last week, and I'm currently sitting beachside (hopefully not in the rain) right now. So, hello from the past. Also, hello from a huge fan of letting technology help you in business.

• 🔧 1. Rewriting copy and captions - Ericka - "When I’m brain dead, I’ll have it rewrite my copy to sound like I’m a lively awake human 😂."
• 🔧 2. Create outline drawings for cookies - Renea - "To make one-line drawings for cookies."
• 🔧 3. Edit backgrounds on images - Viviana - "Once in a while, I use it to change the background and content. I am involved in networking, and on a few occasions, I have had to give a 10-minute presentation about what I do. I let AI help me put things into words."
• 🔧 4. Color mixing theory - Kelly - "Copy ideas, and when I’m having trouble with mixing a color, although I haven’t found it as helpful with colors as I had hoped. I’m liking a lot of these other ideas mentioned here, especially when you are stuck on that last design and making the one-line drawings!"
• 🔧 5. Design ideas - Amie - "Sometimes I need just one more design idea, and I’ll have it make me some ideas."
• 🔧 6. Website copy - Tina - "Writing first draft of copy for social media, website. Putting in my responses to difficult customer queries and asking it to make it more friendly and sincere. 😁"
• 🔧 7. Recipe scaling - Daphanee - "Recipe scaling and troubleshooting, writing copy, doing mockups for sets when I have a hard time conceptualizing them."

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or watch it on YouTube) by searching for Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 215 - AI-AI-Oh Yes.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 214 - Pivot Pivot Pivot, 😖 we talk about what to do when you're doin' it all and all of it doesn't seem to be working.

🛞💨 Nothing is more frustrating than spinning your wheels and making no traction. So what do you do when it's just not working? Here are some things to attempt before you start screaming into the void.

See - sometimes we might be doing "all the things," but we're not doing them all right. So touching base with the basics may help you reveal some ways you can pivot and get some fruit from all that labor. 🍎🍊🍋🍌🍉🍑🍓🍒 So - to summarize, yes - you can do everything on the list and still miss the marketing mark. So let's reassess.

🔄 1. Try shifting posting times

An easy one, but it may make a difference. If you use Facebook Planner defaults (10:00 AM), you'll find that your content goes up at the same time every time you post. While I love me consistency, sometimes it may be the very thing throwing off your marketing. Corrie has me helping her run her local community group, where the 'most active times' metric is still available. And guess what - the most active time in her area? 8:00 PM on a weekend - definitely not 10:00 AM on a weekday.

🕒🕓🕔 So, try switching it up - see if posting on a weekend late gets more engagement. You'll also need to recognize other players here - content type, copy, time of year, etc. But playing around with posting times can give a lil' boost when nothing else is hittin' home.

🔄 2. Test different copy formulas

If you're posting the same caption over and over and over and over - it may be worthwhile to incorporate another format and see if that small adjustment makes a big difference when it comes to your audience. 🧪 We like formulas because they act as guides for your copy - P-A-S, A-I-D-A, before-after-bridge, 4 C's - all examples of formulas designed to help you make copy work for you, not against you.

Remember - truncation reigns supreme. 🪝 It may be worth plantin' a hook in your first few words to get people to click... See more.

🔄 3. Switch out photos for Reels

It's a Reel's world and we're just livin' in it. Most folks hate the idea of recording video, 🎥 especially when it took us so long to master photos. But if there's one consistent thing about social media = it's that it never stays consistent. To take on the addictive TikTok, 📲 Meta has moved to favor the vertical video both on Instagram and kinda on Facebook? Either way, if your photos aren't resonating, clear them pipes and get to talkin' or, uh, voice-over-in'? Vertical video is in whether or not we like it.

🤮 *opens mouth and takes a big spoonful of phone mount shadows*

🔄 4. Mix in some new content buckets

🪣 Sometimes our consistent content is also stale content, and our audience will let us know by checkin' out. It may be time to mix in some more exciting content buckets. You know the drill = feature local restaurants or markets, share a recommendation for a local business, talk about a charity your clients are involved in, add in some person posts so people can connect. The age-old strategy of just posting 🖼️ baked set after 🖼️ baked set can bore even the most die-hard supporters (thanks, mom), so add in some interest that they can re-engage with.

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or watch it on YouTube) by searching for Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 214 - Pivot Pivot Pivot.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 213 - Hit the Breaks, we cover the fact of life that just sometimes, along your business journey, you need to take a big break.

If you've listened to past podcasts, you know we're anti-"big break" when it comes to marketing because it's really hard to stop and start marketing when funnels are long and competition is well, competitive.

However, the beauty of being your own boss is that when life requires significant breaks, you're able to take them - with the correctly set expectations that it will impact your marketing and lead generation. With the right setup, that negative effect can be mitigated. And that's what today's podcast is on - the strategy behind big breaks.

Note - if you're taking a small break, like something under 2 weeks, disregard this strategy. You likely don't even need to alter your current marketing much, if at all, for a small break. We are talking big breaks, as in 2 months.

⛔ 1. Make an announcement

When it comes to big breaks, we need to c-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-e effectively because nothing is more frustrating than to go place an order with your favorite baker for an event that just happens to fall during that baker's big break. So we need our audience to fully comprehend our break and what it entails.

• ⛔ Add a defined start and stop date for your big break. I'm talking "July 1, 2025 - August 15, 2025" type specificity. This can help your audience plan around your break without being ambiguous.
• ⛔ Unpin ALL pinned posts and JUST leave this announcement post pinned. We want to make sure all the attention is brought to a singular point - our break announcement.
• ⛔ Do NOT put the dates you're out of town. Thieves can use this information to figure out that your house is homeowner-free and rob ya. Again, this podcast is for "taking a break from my bakery" breaks, not "at the beach for the week" breaks.

⛔ 2. Schedule out posting and newsletters

Contrary to "taking a break," we don't want to fully ghost our socials and newsletters. We live in an algorithmic world, so fully ghosting can make it really hard to reach our audience when we return. So we make maintenance posts just so Zuck doesn't think we've fully abandoned our baking ship.

• ⛔ Schedule fewer posts during this absence. While we're not working, we don't want to post at the same frequency as when we were working - it's confusing. Bring your scheduled posts down to once a week - if you're taking off 2 months, that's only 8 posts.
• ⛔ In each of these posts, you're going to reiterate your break start and end dates. This way, your posts are sending a confusing message of "Wait, I thought she was on break? But she just posted about baking a fun set??"
• ⛔ The copy should not drive sales. We don't want to have any CTAs in our maintenance posts, because we don't want people to take an action at all. We're on break. So don't ask people to click to your website, place an order, or contact you.

With your newsletter - constantly drive folks who caught ya "on your big break," to sign up for your newsletter so they can get the inbox exclusive on your 'big break return." It's a decent way to grow your email list while still staying in touch about your break schedule. You may want to send an email giving folks a heads up about the break (1 month out), the official break announcement, 1 newsletter during your break with a reminder about the return, then a return-day announcement.

⛔ 3. Update all auto-responses

Your business has a lot of auto-responders designs for big

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 212 - Admin Hour, we break down four different "admin hour" frameworks you could spend each week pluggin' away at to be a better baking business.

"Admin Hours" are groupings of tasks that take up an hour spent on one specific aspect of your business - social media, bake prep, customer management, and inbox management - the four frameworks we cover this week.

By spending a dedicated few hours a week on these "admin hour" tasks, you'll save yourself a future headache, streamline your workflow, and become a competitive baker in your space (as well as stress less as you forget fewer orders and run out of fewer cookie tags ya already sold).

🕰️ 1. Social Hour

Staying consistent on social media will be a great foundational strategy. But to be consistent, we must make time to create content. Here's a social media "admin hour" framework you can build from:

• ⏰ 20 Mins - Schedule this week's posts (3x/wk minimum)
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Reply to comments
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Comment on posts in a few local groups
• ⏰ 30 Mins - Make a Reel (film / edit / voiceover / post)

You can add multiple "social hours" to your week depending on how aggressive your social media marketing focus is. And these hours can ebb and flow throughout your cookier calendar year as needed (for example, when you're fully booked, drop down to 1 hour, when the upcoming month looks light for orders, add in a few more social hours).

🕰️ 2. Inbox Hour

If you've not tasted of the sweet nectar that is inbox zero, you're missing out. Walking up to an inbox only full of actionable emails you got in the last few days is a breath of email-fresh air. Once you reach the coveted "Inbox Zero," your inbox-power-hour will look something like this:

• ⏰ 20 Mins - Reply to all emails / Ping follow-up emails
• ⏰ 10 Mins - File emails away to reach Inbox Zero again
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Transpose orders / tasks to Google Calendar
• ⏰ 10 Mins - CRM - Follow up with orders placed this time last year

Getting an inbox hour on your weekly task list puts you in control of your calendar (rather than the stress of being a slave to a calendar missing your dentist appointments and that one order you forgot to write down).

🕰️ 3. Admin tasks

Likely the one you don't wanna do but are forced to do, running a business requires admin tasks. Here's how we'd break up that hour spent "behind the scenes" of your bakery biz:

• ⏰ 10 Mins - QuickBooks Bookkeeping Update
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Adding new leads to CRM
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Inbox Zero
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Inventory Check
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Weekly Meeting (Asana)
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Plan Out Week

So again - your admin tasks may take longer than this - and that's absolutely fine. The goal is to consistently show up for at least an hour for these recurring tasks, turning you into a consistent working powerhouse.

🕰️ 4. Baking Prep

Baking preparations for the week can streamline your baking workflow because you're not stuck running to the cutter corner for every order. I prefer to do this stuff on Mondays and capitalize on the time saving all week. Whichever days you choose for your admin hours is up to you, but sprinkling in a baking power hour is a must for a ballin' baker.

• ⏰ 10 Mins - Wash Baking Mat and other supplies
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Wipe down Surfaces / Disinfect
• ⏰ 20 Mins - Collect Cutters for the Week
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Dough Ready / Dough Day Planned
• ⏰ 10

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 210 - Selling in Community Groups, we are talking about the same topic we presented this past Tuesday at What's Popping Con (a convention for Cake Poppers). This content is all available on our website by clicking this button - it's a lot of info and free templates, so click here to snag that stuff while it's still posted.

If you're already thinking, "There are no community groups in my area," consider starting your own. In this course, we'll cover some of the group mechanics that can help you form the foundation of your own community groups. Community groups that are valuable resources can be massive lead gen opportunities for the group admins.

🧠 A group is only as good as its management team. High-quality groups require a lot of effort, but they pay out in dividends.

• https://www.sugarcookiemarketing.com/popping

💸 Snag a Free Tracking Template!

We live and die by our spreadsheets - and using one to track community groups allows you to stay on top of specific group rules, posting times, post types, group size - you get the point. This free Google sheet is built out for community group management. Use the dropdown to categorize each aspect of your local community groups.

Way too often, users get banned from community groups for breaking the sales rules specifically. It's important to keep track of each group's sales policies so we're not permanently banned from selling there.

We're going to look for about 10 local community groups if possible, but we'll take what we can get. The more options you have, the more potential audience you can reach.

It's important as a seller to understand how groups can be run within Meta's group options and features as these can affect your posting abilities within groups.

⚠️ An important aspect of selling in a community group: following their rules. Take a minute to join the Example Facebook Group we're using for the rest of this lesson - you can join it by clicking here > answering the membership questions > agree to the group rules. Let's run through some common community group Q&As to help you better understand how to approach groups when making your sales posts.

🔗 Rules can be found for any group by adding /rules to the end of the community group's URL (example: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sugarcookiemarketing/rules).

💸 Group Profiles - How to Optimize

When you join a community group, you automatically create a group profile separate from your Facebook profile (although still connected). Think of your group profile as a version of you specifically made for that group. Optimizing these group profiles can help increase lead generation in your community groups. Each community group you join creates a unique group profile for that specific group.

You can customize:

• ✍️ Your profile intro (150 character limit)
• ✍️ The profile cover photo (1640x600 pixel sizing)

When other users click on your profile within that group, they are taken to your group profile. Admins can also use your group profile to see admin actions taken against you, your group activity, as well as your profile information. From there, they can also click to your personal Facebook profile.

Your group profile is only a part of your overall Facebook persona. Optimize your personal profile as well. You can tag a business page or insert a URL in your personal profile. You can update your cover photo to feature your latest bakes, and you can share content from your baking page to