When za’atar brand Hayati launched in April 2025, founder Yasmine Borno knew she had to quickly build a strong social media following to gain credibility.
Borno, who is Palestinian-American, felt the easiest way to create awareness was to become the face of the brand’s accounts, through sharing educational content and cooking tips and tricks. “I wanted to write a different Palestinian story beyond the one you usually hear in the news,” she said. Hayati currently sells on its direct-to-consumer website, on Amazon, on TikTok Shop and at select independent retailers throughout the U.S.
With a virtually nonexistent ad budget, Borno said she decided to leverage her own content-making skills to create videos on the cheap; prior to founding the brand, Borno worked in food, including a five-year stint at Thrive Market. Last summer, Borno began experimenting with posting her recipes on Instagram reels to grow the brand’s follower count. And in January, “I began by running an Instagram series called ‘Day X of using za’atar the wrong way to hit 10,000 [followers],’” she said.
The series first started, she said, “with a silly test of me wanting [something] clickbait-y, so I put it [za’atar] on my nails.”
“But then I thought, ‘Wait, this schtick would work so well with ‘wrong’ food recipes.’ Borno said. Some of the videos included putting za’atar on popcorn and preparing parmesan potatoes with za’atar.
The series helped her grow from 5,000 followers to 15,000 in less than three weeks. Today, the account has reached 21,000 followers.
At the height of the series’ viral streak, Borno said the Hayati Instagram account had about 4 million impressions on the platform’s professional dashboard. “Bella Hadid reposted a video, which was huge for me,” she said.
Borno said she didn’t want this series to be just a one-hit wonder. So after hitting her initial goal of surpassing 10,000 followers, she settled on a repeatable script and video hooks that she is still using today. “[The series] turned entertainment into education and drove product trials for a spice many Americans don’t know,” she said.
Borno credits the series’s success to having the clear and concise hook of: “Day X of using za’atar the wrong way.” Nearly every post features the recurring description of za’atar as “a classic Arabic spice blend at the heart of every Palestinian’s table.” While there are other za’atar brands out there, Borno said, she often talks about why Hayati’s premium recipe is the best blend on the market.
“Another thing I emphasize in the videos is that the word ‘Hayati’ means ‘my life’ in Arabic, as in I’m sharing the food of my life,” she said. Finally, every Hayati video ends with a call to action for followers: “Tell me what I should make next.”
Borno said this type of repetition strategy is being promoted by marketing experts. “I saw it in Rachel Carton’s ‘Link in Bio’ newsletter, where she spoke about how repeatable formats are what’s working on Instagram right now,” Borno said.
With months of trial and error under her belt, she said she now has a sense of what will go viral in advance. “The best performing videos have something to do with cheese or some new way of cooking something, like I put popcorn in foil,” Borno said. She said there are no plans to spin the viral posts into paid ads, a tactic many food brands implement to capitalize on traffic. However, she has begun repurposing some of the successful “Day X of using za’atar the wrong way” videis into new Instagram reels using different text overlay.
Jay Amburkar, senior vp and market director for retail and consumer goods at tech consultancy Thoughtworks, said that today’s consumer packaged goods brands face challenges on platforms like social media, as competition for eyeballs gets fiercer.
“CPG brands aren’t struggling because of the algorithm,” Amburkar said. “They are struggling because they’re still trying to market to fixed segments in a world where consumer intent is fluid.” For instance, Amburkar said, the same follower can be a quick-meal seeker at 6 p.m. and a health optimizer at 9 p.m.
“Platforms like Instagram and TikTok don’t fragment the journey; they expose how non-linear it really is,” Amburkar said. “Chasing ‘hacks’ might drive spikes, but it doesn’t build long-term relevance.” Eventually, Amburkar said, brands will have to shift towards building a modernized social media infrastructure that allows them to execute content in real time and with precision, rather than reacting after something goes viral.
Borno said she is going to keep doing the series, as there is ongoing demand from followers to share more content. “It’s wild how differently people act when they see Hayati’s follower count now,” she said. “As silly as it sounds, follower count really does hold weight. It legitimizes the brand.”
