Spending time building your Instagram followers may seem a worthwhile marketing investment, but is Instagram the right channel for you to be focusing on – or might there be other marketing channels that better deserve your attention?
If Instagram follower numbers are on your mind, check out this video for insight into why Instagram may – or may not – be the ideal marketing channel for connecting you to your target person.
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In today’s video, I talk about Instagram followers – how many you have, and how many you feel you need. Boosting your follower number requires valuable time and effort, so it’s worth checking whether Instagram is the right channel for you to focus on – might there be other areas of your marketing where your time may be better spent?
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Why Instagram Is So Appealing
Instagram is one of those marketing channels that business owners are starting to be drawn towards, thinking, “That’s where people will see me, that’s where people are buying things.” It can also operate as a storefront for your business: it has shop features and provides ways for people to buy, plus there are lots of influencers on Instagram who may be attracted to your product or help bring attention to what you do.
It also relies on less content – it’s not as filled with text as other social media platforms, which makes it quite appealing if you’re more comfortable being creative visually rather than through words. In short, Instagram is full of great features – and it can be a fun marketing channel for interacting with your customers.
When Instagram May Be the Perfect Channel for You
There are three key reasons why you might want to focus on boosting your Instagram follower number:
- People can check you out. Imagine you want to talk at a conference. You could reasonably assume that the conference organisers are looking at your Instagram following to establish whether your involvement may be valuable to the conference – if that’s the case, building your Instagram following makes good business sense.
- You need to be perceived as popular. You might also want to make sure that your Instagram following is high so that your customers perceive your business as popular – maybe that’s important to you, or maybe that’s important to the success of your business, but either way it’s a good idea to boost your follower numbers if popularity leads to sales success.
- Your audience is on Instagram! This is the ultimate reason to be focusing your marketing energy on Instagram. If the people that you’re serving are using Instagram – if they buy from Instagram and are influenced by Instagram, and they’re inspired by your Instagram posts enough to comment and correspond with you – then that is an excellent reason to focus on getting those follower numbers up, because the people who are following you – hopefully, if you’re doing your marketing ethically enough – will be a good match to your target person.
The Problem with Obsessing Over Follower Numbers
Instagram follower numbers recently came up in a conversation with one of my customers. They wanted to get their Instagram following up, but I didn’t think it was necessarily the right thing for their business. However, it did leave me thinking that there may be some unhealthy concerns out there when it comes to getting social media follower numbers up.
If you haven’t seen the documentary/docudrama The Social Dilemma, I highly recommend it. There’s a lot of discussion at the moment about mental health and social media use, which may lead to an unhealthy obsession with getting those follower numbers up.
If this sounds like you, perhaps take a moment to check in with yourself on this. Are you obsessing over your follower numbers? If so, is it for good reason? Is it really to serve your customers? Or is this satisfying some kind of inner need that you might want to review?
I’m no therapist, but if you feel as if you have an emotional attachment to those social media follower numbers, on Instagram or otherwise, I would tread very carefully and consider seeing a therapist. I don’t mean that in a condescending way at all – therapy is super helpful and it’s really good for making sure that you’re not taking yourself down a negative path.
Is Instagram Worth Your Time and Effort?
Is Instagram really good for your business – and are you using it effectively? It’s worth asking these questions. It might be that you’re wasting a whole lot of your valuable time and effort trying to grow your Instagram, and yet it’s not turning into business or boosting your reputation. You may be getting lots of likes and follows – but if this isn’t serving you or your business, it may not be a worthwhile use of your precious time.
How can you tell if Instagram is the right place for you? It’s time to go back to my five steps – those five foundational, strategic marketing concepts I talk about so often, in particular the first two steps:
- Step 1: Understand your target person. Identify your target person. Get to know their wants, their needs, their fears and their frustrations. Get into that target person’s headspace and understand them.
- Step 2: Define your (real) USP. What is your USP? What makes you different? What makes you unique?
Once you really know who you’re talking to and what you’re trying to say to them – that you are super unique and why they should buy from you – then you can figure out if Instagram is the place to talk to them. Are your target people on Instagram? And if they are, is that where they want to hear about your USP?
Remember: If your USP doesn’t fit on Instagram very well, then you might want to either reconsider whether that USP makes sense or not, or change the way you’re communicating on Instagram.
Focus Your Social Media Marketing Energy Wisely
Steps 1 and 2 of my five steps to creating a successful marketing strategy are important for any marketing channel, but they’re especially helpful if you’re obsessing over a channel and you feel like it’s not giving you the returns you need. Go back to both steps and take a look at whether you’re really in the right place, doing the right thing, and saying the right thing to the right people. Everyone’s business is different, so you need to find the right solution for your business – no one else’s.
Time is a finite resource. Use your marketing time wisely and your business will reap the rewards! If you’d like help with focusing your social media marketing priorities, please do get in touch.