I QUIT INSTAGRAM & HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BUSINESS
Instagram, and social media in general, are helpful tools for small business owners. They can provide a free marketing opportunity that gets your services or products in front of an otherwise untapped audience.
But what would happen if you STOPPED marketing your biz on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter? That's the question I wondered when I decided to quit Instagram. And what I found out about my business was a total surprise (spoiler alert: it's all OK).
My decision to take a break from Instagram came after a few things all came to a head at once:
01. I had been working hard to create new + interesting content for Instagram specifically and was beginning to feel uninspired and burnt out.
02. I had been feeling (and still do) a little bored of all the posts I was seeing. And isn't part of the point of being on Instagram to get inspired? I felt like I had seen every post on:
Cute animals ✓
Styled desk shots ✓
Anything pink ✓
Pumpkin Spice everything ✓✓✓
03. Instagram decided to shadowban some of my posts, and more maddeningly, I had no idea why! I scoured the web to see what I had done "wrong" since I wasn't buying followers or posting robot comments. I'm still not 100% sure what happened (which should be reason #4!), but it may have something to do with using hashtags that had been banned. #tgif and #dogsofinstagram are now in the group of hashtags that have been exiled. How the heck would I know that!? There are probably others that seem normal that I may have been using without knowing they were banned.
So I decided that since no one was seeing my posts due to the shadowban anyway, I would just stop posting altogether. And not only that, but I DELETED the Instagram and Facebook apps from my devices.
So what happened during the 6 week hiatus?
Nothing.
Inquiries still came in. My business kept running. And the world kept turning.
But what's more, I actually gained followers. I gained followers at a slightly higher rate than I had been before I stopped posting. I also had more free time to write blog posts, build killer websites, and watch Modern Family.
What does that mean for you and your business?
Two things:
01. It's simply worth knowing that your biz will not suddenly explode if you stop posting to social media, especially with all the other important shit you actually have to do to run a business (hello expense reports...).
02. You can let the social media part slide a little and focus on other forms of content sharing like blogging. Your website is a tool no one can take from you, so take advantage!
