Instagram: Why I quit & gave up my followers

INSTAGRAM: Why I quit and gave up my thousands of followers

It’s been a minute since I last published a post on my blog. I’ve been engaged in other projects like, my Instagram account and Tik Tok. I have a brand new Instagram account (follow me here), and I’ve been working on it like it’s a nine to five. I previously had an IG account which had 12,000 followers at its peak. However, on 10/7/2019, I posted my final picture on IG, then I abruptly quit it and gave up my thousands of followers.

NO CLEAR CONTENT STRATEGY FOR INSTAGRAM

On 1/24/2017, I posted my first IG picture, but I started the journey with no clear content strategy. I knew I wanted a colorful and curated feed, but that’s about it. At this point, Chic-N-Pink.com didn’t even exist.

When I was thirteen years old my dad sent me to Europe. For three months I traveled with thirty of my classmates, we visited the best art museums in the world, we were exposed to operas, and cultural immersion. We wrote papers, kept journals that were graded, and we had exams. Ever since this experience I’ve been attracted to the arts, aesthetics, photography, colors, form, etc.

That’s what fascinates me about IG, it’s an outlet for me to express myself colorfully, artistically, and felicitously.

I wanted to express myself, unfortunately I made a lot of errors with my first IG account.

5 INSTAGRAM STRATEGY MISTAKES I MADE:

• No strategy at all
• Had no Idea who I wanted my audience to be
• No clear subject matter
• I was not consistently posting
• My feed had no content theme

*Tip – If you are contemplating starting an IG account, don’t make the mistakes I’ve listed above

MY IG WASN’T COHESIVE WITH MY BLOG

I felt like I was doing double duty. I wasn’t organized at all when it came to posting on IG or publishing posts on my blog. My old IG feed was way more of a random lifestyle feed, but Chic-N-Pink.com is primarily and foremost a beauty blog.

I would go out of my way to stage photo shoots for IG content, but I couldn’t really use that material for an effective blog post. I had instaworthy pics, but nothing useful for an informative article. And this was exhausting.

With my old IG account I had a lot of male followers, they were nice and supportive. They liked and commented on a lot of my neutral pictures (food, travel, nature, pet, etc.), obviously when I posted beauty content I got less engagement, and that was the catalyst for me to quit my successful IG account.

I want a beauty, self-care, lifestyle IG account that can help me engage with other like-minded women, but I wasn’t getting that with my old account.

Also, with my new IG account, I want to take my blog post content and directly use that as material for my IG feed. I want my IG followers to feel like they are on my blog, vice versa, I want my blog readers to feel like they are on my IG feed.

I’m no longer going to go out of my way to chase that instaworthy photo shoot. Whatever material I’ve created for my blog posts that’s going to go on my IG feed, no more double duty.

DISILLUSIONED WITH INSTAGRAM

(Competition Not Community) I created my new IG account to find my community, my tribe. I want to connect with other like-minded women. I grew up in a house filled with guys (all brothers, no sisters), my mom didn’t live with us when I was growing up, so I never had a constant female mentor and that’s why I like to be girly with other girls. I’m not trying to compete with anyone. Sadly, I have personally experienced that it’s more about competition than community on IG.

We all know that Instagram is flooded with ‘Mean Girl’ influencers that have a large following, yet feel entitled to copy content from smaller accounts. These IG ‘Mean Girls’ never support, follow or champion micro influencers.

When I quit IG eight months ago to focus on my blog, it was refreshing. It was nice to block out the noise: likes, follows, and unoriginal copycat ‘Mean Girl’ influencers.

Now I’m back with thicker skin, my numbers with my new IG are going up, and I’m just getting started.

(Opposite sex) Those pervert messages in our DM’s, that type of unwanted attention I can totally block out. What troubled me with my old IG account is that I had a lot of nice, well behaved male followers that engaged with me on all of my IG stories consistently. I constantly received polite and encouraging compliments from other men on my IG stories and feed, and I felt rude for ignoring them, so I thanked them and wished them well. My hospitality fueled them even more.

This bothered me because I don’t dress provocative or bounce around in a bikini or pose in sexy lingerie that’s disguised as a “body positive” post for likes. I’ve always clearly stated in my bio that I’m married, but the male attention still kept coming.

Going forward, I want an IG account that clearly signifies that I only want to engage with other like-minded women, not the opposite sex.

(Algorithm) About six months after I started my old IG account the dreaded algorithm kicked into high gear. That drastically cut my engagement levels down. Prior to this event I didn’t have to do too much for likes, but after, it was like pulling teeth to get a descent amount of likes. I received numerous comments about how my pictures weren’t popping up in my followers feed. A lot of my followers thought I cancelled my account because they never saw my pictures anymore. I eventually made it past that hurdle, but still it left a bad taste in mouth 🙁 (Shown in image below, my engagement levels were never really too bad)

INSTAGRAM FATIGUE

Yes, constantly having to be ‘on’ all the time for followers is draining. Thinking about strategy, content, and engagement takes the fun out of social media/blogging.

Last year when we went to Maui I was completely ready to document our whole trip. I was going to write blog posts about our fabulous Airbnb, the heavenly Maui beaches, our gorgeous red rented jeep, delicious restaurants, and the road to Hana. But I didn’t, rather I focused on my husband and our trip. I lived in the moment, fully experienced everything, and ignored all social media. That’s when I realized I was suffering from IG fatigue, and subconsciously I knew I was going to quit my successful IG account (about 4 months I quit). I didn’t Instagram our vacation and I don’t regret it at all.

Also, I put myself in a position where I was accepting too many campaigns and collaborations. I was getting a lot of free stuff, and at first it was cool, but then it lost its appeal.

Thankfully I have a very comfortable life, not super ballin’ but we’re pretty comfortable. Anything I really want I can afford to buy on my own. I don’t need free products that come from collaborations. I have my own career, and I don’t need to worry about money from social media. At one point, my inbox was filled with so many deadlines from numerous collaborations and campaigns, I hated it. With my new IG account, I have no desire to flood my feed with collaborations and campaigns.

COMMON-SENSE APPROACH

I’ve re-entered Instagram with a new common-sense approach:

• I’m no longer going to put pressure on myself to accept campaigns and collaborations. I want to avoid flooding my feed with advertising.
• I will not engage with the opposite sex, unless obviously, they care about skincare/beauty/makeup.
• The numbers game will not be my primary objective. I won’t pressure myself to get a big following. I want to gather my tribe slowly and organically and focus on engagement.
• The majority of my blog content is going to end up on my new IG feed. I’m not going to go out of my way to chase those perfect IG photo shoots. My new IG account is going to be cohesive with the Chic-N-Pink blog.
• I’m blocking out the negative noise and focusing on connecting with other positive like-minded women.

I quit Instagram and gave up my thousands of followers, because I needed to take a step back and restrategise. I figured out what I was doing wrong and learned from my mistakes. As a result, my new IG account is a concoction of a more disciplined approach. Sure, I’m bummed I no longer have thousands of followers, but a real winner knows how to bounce back.

My old account was unorganized, it consisted mostly of colorful snapshots of my life. My new IG feed is curated for the Chic-N-Pink reader: a place where they have chic access to unbiased beauty reviews, luxury giveaways, lifestyle content, and so much more!

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Thanks so much

Have a beautiful day 🙂