Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Belle. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Belle thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

I was postpartum with my son–a new mom in the midst of covid quarantine, and was spamming my sisters with my healthy food creations per usual. One day, I shared my homemade oat milk recipe with an artsy photo to a FB group and it started blowing up. I realized…hey, maybe people would like what I have to share. I talked to my husband about it, and decided to start my page. I’ve always enjoyed cooking and pretty much all of the arts. So a union of writing, cooking, photography, videography, etc., was kind of a dream creative outlet. At first, I tried to make a secret IG account, hoping that no one I knew would catch on that it was me. I wanted to see if I could succeed without people following me just because they knew me. That lasted about 3 seconds. My sister and sister-in-law both discovered me and were my first follows. I”ve since discovered that success in pretty much anything is built on relationships. You can’t really grow without them.

I started growing at a pretty rapid pace, and as I was doing so, I was just madly consuming any content I could on how to grow an instagram account. I adjusted, learned, changed, and adjusted again. Looking back at some of my early posts, I’m amazed that I thought it was that good, haha. But such is growth.

Two-and-a-half years later, I have an audience of 9300+ followers, who are very engaged, kind, and really just a wonderful, uplifting, and encouraging community…for the most part ; ).

Belle, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

So like I said, I got into it sort of on a whim and as an experience to see if I could be any good at it. I changed the name so many times my sister-in-law started wondering if I had multiple personalities, haha. My husband finally came up with the name “Belle’s Dirty Dishes”, since Belle is my game username, and most of my meals are “clean food”. The irony, you know? It stuck, and here we are. I wanted to see if I could actually do this thing. If I could grow a following from nothing, and eventually make money doing it.

I have done both, although I’m constantly aiming for more. The main genre of my page is food. I’m really passionate about food. Good, nourishing, tasty food. It’s not all salads, and it’s not all cookies. It’s mostly whole, real foods, but there’s a healthy serving of iced coffee + yummy dessert content thrown in there. I began on a sourdough journey at the beginning of the year, and I’ve been sharing and documenting that as well.
My goal with the food is to share my best recipes of course, because who doesn’t need inspiration or good food, right? And also, I want to encourage busy moms especially that healthy good food doesn’t have to be complicated or take hours in the kitchen.

Along with the recipes, I share tips and tricks in the kitchen and out, gardening in season, cleaning & homemaking tips, and encouragement and inspiration for moms. Several people have commented on my page being a light and a bright place on the internet, which can be every antonym in the book but “light” + “bright”. That is what I aim to do. Be a light, and always point people back to THE light, Jesus, my savior.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

So I made this reel, talking about motherhood, and early mornings and how I (NOT a morning person) found a way to find joy in them in this new season of mornings as a mom of littles. It included a devotional that I’ve been really enjoying, and I tagged the author, and also invited her to be a collaborator on the reel, never expecting her to accept. SHE DID! She not only accepted, but when her assistant accidentally removed it, thinking it was an accident, the author reached out to me and asked me to repost the reel so that she could repost it on her feed. She was so kind and encouraging, and went above and beyond to compliment my work and help me with my following by exposing me to her much larger following. It really encouraged me to take the chance, reach out to the “big” accounts. We’re all just people behind the accounts, and some of those people are really kind and will be really quick to accept and help you out if you’ll just ask. By the way, the author is Sally Clarkson, and her devotional is amazing. You should really check out her page and her work!

Have you ever had to pivot?

So when reels really started to become the growth strategy to beat, and photos–the content I had been almost solely producing until then–were being stifled, it was kind of a punch to the gut as I thought that producing the reels was really going to be too much of a time commitment. Instagram always does and always will play second fiddle to my family, and it gets the extra moments. So the thought of having to spend hours filming, editing, etc., was daunting. However, I started experimenting, and dug in to give it a try and before long, I found that it really wasn’t that bad. And actually, there was so much more flexibility with the reels, a funny one here, a tips and tricks one there…so many options that I could actually create in a lot less time than some of my photo posts. I also have experienced a lot more reach and growth from them, which has been fun to experience!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: instagram.com/bellesdirtydishes
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCoOS6PGvU_nvj8DHllcHjFA
• Other: foodtalkdaily.com/bellesdirtydishes

Image Credits
Belle’s Dirty Dishes