Tag: influencer culture

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Online Marketing

The 4 Parts To Social Media Marketing

Welcome to the we are slam show where we share marketing agency, insights, best practices and ideas to help your business grow. My name is tyler kelly, i’m the co-founder and chief strategist right here at slam agency we’re a small but mighty full-service marketing agency that helps marketing directors, like you execute on your vision, execute on your strategy, just think of us, as the outsourced marketing department, with a Specialty really in digital marketing, and today I want to talk to you about social media now a lot of times when we think about social media.

We just think about the Big Five Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, but here’s the thing social media is so much bigger than that and as a marketing director, you really have to understand how big it is so that you can take full advantage of every aspect Of social media, okay, so social media is composed of four equally important parts. These are social, listening, social influencing social networking and social selling, and in this article I’m going to go through each one.

Social media allows us to social, listen, ok, social listening is tuning in to the needs and to the wants of our customers and social media gives us the platforms, the tools that we need in order to do this more effectively in the olden days we used to Do focus groups we used to do polling and all these types of things, but, as we know, these things aren’t really as effective as they used to be polls used to be the gold standard for determining elections.

Well, now polls aren’t written worth their paper that they’re written on right and focus groups used to be. You know the thing it used to be like: let’s go in, let’s talk with some people, that’s asking questions, but the dirty little secret. Is this people? Don’t tell you what is truly on their mind in a focus group situation. They tell you what they think you want to hear. We’ve known this as marketers for many years, there’s been a lot of studies, a lot of research that say for focus groups, just don’t give you the real information.

So how can you get the wrong information? Well, social listening is the way to do that. So how do you do it? Well, you figure out where your customers were your prospects, where your potential customers are okay online, whether it be Facebook groups, LinkedIn figure out where these conversations are happening, whether it be a forum or you know, on a blog comments. These types of things, wherever it is figure it out and then begin to listen, hashtag following on Instagram on Twitter.

This might give you some insight into what types of things your customers are talking about, and this is where, if you’re doing you’re listening right, you can really begin to tap into what their pain points are. What they’re psyched, what the psychographics are like, what their attitudes interests and opinions are, and this will give you insight as a marketing director into how to approach them through advertising and marketing real quick, a few of my favorite tools for listening in social media, an oldie But goodie HootSuite really great way to set up what you want to pay attention to and then go back to that daily and kind of see.

What’s new, what’s happening, HootSuite is an oldie but goodie a few others that I, like I like mention. I, like Agora, pulse and I like brand, read now the second part of social media that you need to be aware of and know how to tap into is social influencing. Now, when you think of social influencing, I want you to think really about influencer marketing. Okay, influencer marketing is something that has come on the scene.

You know in a big way the last couple years and there’s some really good uses of influencer marketing. There’s some really horrible examples of influencer marketing as well. Now, here’s the thing: if you go: google, influencer marketing or social influencing what you’re going to find is you’re, going to find lots of blogs lots of lots of articles that are all about how wonderful influencer marketing is, but for the majority of people reading this article, It’s probably not going to work for you.

Here’s the thing there’s been a lot of research recently that has that has shown that influencer marketing does not provide the ROI that it has promised that it would provide there’s a really great episode on Noah Kagan presents, which, by the way, is one of my favorite Podcast, if I tuned in to a podcast, I’m tuning into Noah, Kagan’s podcast, and this podcast was all about influencer marketing, the ins, the outs, what works, what doesn’t it was with a guy named Josh snow, who has really approached influencer marketing in some unique ways, and He shares his experiences and his data in influencer marketing to tell you what works and what doesn’t and for the majority of you reading right now, I guarantee that it’s probably not going to give you the results that you expect that it should all right.

The number three part of social media – it’s the big one, social networking now, when you think about social networking, there’s there’s some really big ideas, and I want you to. I want you to grasp the first is this likes? Don’t matter likes, do not matter. Okay, there’s an article, it’s called a thousand true fans, and it’s just it’s all about how just in life in business in the creative world that you can accomplish so much more with a small group of devoted followers raving fans, then you can, with a large group, Perfect example: Priceline, if you go to their Facebook page you’ll, see that they have millions of followers and their interaction rate.

Their engagement rate is so low, less than 1 %, and it just blows my mind that they can invest so much in this likes game. In this likes number and so little in engaging content, the secret here is social media. Networking is all about that devoted group of fans of followers who will buy everything that you put out that will engage with every post that you put out. This is what social networking is truly about, and if you lose sight of that objective, then you’re going to just be in this rat race that continues and continues and there’s no winning the better way is to mobilize the audience that you do have and not to Focus on all the numbers not to focus on all those people that aren’t going to become customer now, there’s a couple other things I want you to be aware of when it comes to social networking and the first is seeker versus engagement.

Remember this seeker versus engagement when it comes to social networking. There are two types of social networks. The first is seeker networks. Okay, a seeker network is it’s it’s kind of based on this idea of search; okay, it’s where you as a user, will go to that network and you will type in a search and you’re looking for something you’re seeking out information. Okay, a perfect example of this is YouTube.

People go there to seek out the majority of people, go there to seek out information. It’s the second largest search engine in the world, just behind Google, and so, if your goal with YouTube is to build like this massive network with these fans that are engaging, then there’s a super high bar to make that happen and more than likely you’re going to Have to invest a lot of money into making that happen, and the reason why is because you’re going against the flow you’re going against the current the current when it comes to YouTube, is as a seeker Network.

So what you should do on a secret network? Is you should build content optimize it for search optimize it for SEO so that when people go and they type in the search, your content is going to pop up on that first page of results? Okay, so on a seeker network, it’s all about! How can I optimize SEO optimize my content to be found to be discovered later on down the line? It’s not about building this massive blog, where you have a ton of followers and there’s just massive amount of engagement.

That does happen on YouTube, but that is those are the outliers. Those are the success stories. Those are the unicorns okay, the majority of YouTube and the majority of the people using YouTube, use it as a search engine. Now the flipside is engagement. Engagement is where you do have networks where people are engaging where there’s conversations where there is community being built. Perfect example: Facebook Instagram.

These are perfect examples of engagement networks. Now, what I want you to realize with an engagement network like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin Instagram, is that these are the networks where you can do social listening, because these are the network. We’re conversations are actually happening where there’s groups where people are, you know breaking off into groups of similar interest. Okay, this is engagement networks, and this is where social listening happens.

This is also where you can social influence behavior by way of becoming part of the conversation by becoming a thought leader on the network and by generating and creating content, that’s captivating motivating inspiring that that drives action. Now. The second big idea that I want you to get today is this idea of opened versus closed networks. Okay, YouTube is a perfect example of an open network.

What does YouTube do when you search it, takes you to other people’s content and that most likely links out to the web very similar to Google right, Google, which is not necessarily a social network? Although many SEO s would argue that it is when you type a search into Google, what happens? Is you get a list of results on your search engine results page and when you click the link, it takes you to another site off of Google right same way with YouTube.

It takes you off of YouTube and then there’s no penalty there. Okay, this is actually encouraged. It’s the way that the open network is built. It’s built to lead you to content that doesn’t exist on their site. However, when it comes to closed networks, this is not always the case. A closed Network really penalizes you when you post content, that is not part of its network that is not hosted on its network.

Okay, Facebook is a great example. It’s a closed network. How can you identify a closed Network? Well, the first thing is in order to access most of the content. You need to be logged in okay. It’s a closed network YouTube. You don’t need to be logged in access to content, Facebook LinkedIn! You need to be logged in to access the content, so these are closed networks anytime. You have to log in to access to content.

Then what I want you to think of as a marketing director is, I don’t want to post third party links now. The first question I always get when talking with a marketing director is well Mike, my site’s, not really a third party link, because it’s my site, it’s my page and it’s my site, but you guys think about like this. It’s your brand on Facebook’s, page! Okay! It’s it’s on facebook.Com and because it’s on facebook.

Com, if you put a link to your site in the post to your site, that’s a third-party site, meaning Facebook doesn’t own your site and because of that, and because Facebook is a closed Network, then what’s going to happen. Is Facebook is going to penalize you? I know they say that they don’t, but they do. Experience shows that they, just they don’t show content when it’s when it’s a youtube link, they’re not going to show it to very many people.

You can test this on your own pages when you post a link to your website, they’re, not going to show it to very many people and because Facebook is really built on this snowball algorithm, which is like the more people that like and engage with your content. The more they’re going to see your content and the more they’re going to introduce your content to new people and then on the flip side, if you post a link, no one sees it.

No one engages with it, then what you’re doing is you’re digging a ditch for yourself anytime, you post a third-party link on your site, so be very wary of any time. That might be the case when you want to do that when your boss is like. I want to post a link to you, know our products page here on the site. The reason why Facebook introduced shops is because they don’t want you to go to your website to shop.

They don’t want your customers to go to your website to shop. They want them to shop on Facebook, because Facebook is a closed network and they want everything that happens with their traffic to happen on facebook.Com. If it’s not happening on facebook.Com, then guess what very few people are going to see it they’re going to push it to the side and they’re not going to show it to anyone. So as a marketing director anytime, you have a third-party link on a closed network.

Realize that it’s not going to get very far, the fourth part of social media is social selling and I’ll. Let you in on a little secret. It’s not selling at all, rather social selling is all about building a brand. It’s all about becoming a thought leader. Building familiarity, we’ve talked several times over many episodes that people buy from those that they know like and trust, and the quickest way to drive an increase.

Likeability is by building familiarity it’s by being present by being out there. By having your face out there, the more people see you the more they like and the more that they trust you. I know this is crazy, but it’s it’s a fact. The more they see you the more they like and trust you. As a matter of fact, it’s called the familiarity bias so build it. Put your face out. There put your brand out there be out there be out there as often as you possibly can, and do so.

The step up here. The level up here is, if you’re out there with valuable content. If you’re out there as a thought leader, then people will begin to see you that way. Why do we do that? We are slam shell, so that we can share our experience. We can share our insights, our knowledge with marketing directors like you, so that when the time comes for you to hire an agency, if, when the time comes to, when you just can’t execute – and you just don’t – have the bandwidth to do everything that you need to Do you know in-house, then it’s like okay, we’re going to think about slam to be that that digital partner to be that outsourced marketing department that we can hire that that I can use as a marketing director to do everything that I need to do in terms Of like graphic design, article copywriting social media, digital advertising, I need a team like that, and rather than hiring that team one by one and figuring out, you know who’s who’s good in this position in this position and managing all those people.

Rather than doing all of that, I’m going to hire slam because by hiring slam, I get all those specialties. I get all those people, but I get a team that works well together and that I can provide vision to and strategy for and that they’ll execute on that and it’ll be amazing for my bottom line. Okay, that that’s the value there and that’s why we share content like this, to make you aware of our abilities to make you aware of our knowledge and our capabilities so that when the time comes, you already know who to call that’s what social selling is social Selling is not me hitting you up on LinkedIn and being a nuisance.

Okay, that is social spam. It’s not social selling, so you know why do i? Why am I never on LinkedIn? Why do I just despise LinkedIn? Why do I think that, like everyone in the business world, putting their time into LinkedIn is a waste of time, because it’s a spam network? You can quote me on that. It’s a spam Network and everyone, that’s on LinkedIn for the most part, is usually LinkedIn in the wrong way and just you know, rabbit trail.

If I want to engage and connect with the rail people, then I’m not going to do it on a network like LinkedIn. I’r going to do it on a network like Facebook or Instagram, and the reason why I do that is because that’s when people put their barriers down and that they’re there there they are their real selves at that point on LinkedIn, everyone just has like a mask On it’s the business, you know it’s business, business, business and everyone’s in that business mindset and it’s hard to break through that and really like what most people do to break through that.

It’s just spam, the heck out of you – and I don’t like that. I don’t like LinkedIn, you can quote me on that. Social selling is not social spam, so, rather than hitting somebody’s email, inbox or you’re, deeming them and like just bugging the heck out of them. How do you prospect well inbound prospecting is the key, and that is by putting out articles, putting out post that that provide information and value to the reader and putting that out there, knowing that when the right person comes along and sees that content that they’re going To reach out the final thing that I want you to think about, when you think about social selling is what I call trigger events this could be on.

You know one of the ways that you could use LinkedIn, it’s like okay, I just got a new job. It’s posted, like so-and-so, just got hired here. That is a trigger event. That’s an event that you should be aware of, because it marks a change in that person’s status in that person’s career, and so you know rather than you just saying, hey Congrats, take a note. Knowing that you know if your marketing director you just got hired on as a marking director, your onboarding you’re learning about your new company, there’s a lot of stuff going on, and if I were going to contact you, it’s not going to be on day one right.

If I were going to reach out to you, if my goal was to do an outbound prospecting, then I would I would look at that trigger event, and I would know that within a month and a half two months, that’s probably the time when you’ve got your Bearings and your ready to begin seeking out help, and at that point I want to make sure that you know about who we are and what we do. And so, if I paid attention, if you’re you know one of my targets, if you will, if you’re somebody that I want to work with, and I’ve paid attention to the fact that that you know you started about a month and a half ago, then now I Know that it’s probably a good time to get on your radar.

Okay, this is trigger event awareness. The other thing is just buying cycle awareness, and this is where social listening comes in in regards to social selling. You have to be in tune with those accounts that you want to work with, so be aware of that buying cycle be aware of where they are in that consumer journey, and you can do this with social selling, okay, so the four parts of social media, social Listening social influencing social networking and social selling be sure to listen to this a couple times because there’s a lot of good info in this podcast next week, we’re going to talk specifically about social media networking and how you can get the best bang for your buck.

With the big five all right, if you’ve enjoyed this podcast if you’ve been joined, this show do me a favor, and let me know anywhere where you listen or read. Leave me a comment. Send me an email, Tyler and slam. Agency.Com I’d be happy to connect with you now, if you’re looking for an outsourced marketing department, if you need help right now, give us a call shoot us an email or go to our site. Slam.

Agency.Com click on the free consultation button and we’ll be happy to chat with you. Thank you for tuning in I’ll, see you next week, thanks for reading, if you like what you just readed subscribe, then hit that Bell you’ll be the first to be notified when new content goes live. After that you can read more articles from slamming agency. We’ll pick something we think: you’ll love,

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I went from 0 to 19.5K Instagram followers in one year (and lost 2K the next year)

I reached nineteen point, five thousand followers. How I did that is. I will show you in this article and I will show you as well how I lost 1,500 to 2,000 followers in the next year. So a bit of a big story on why I started posting interior content on Instagram.

I was just moved into a new city. I was hating my job I was born. I was creatively unfulfilled. I decided to pick a more creative hobby, something to more tickle my creative brain, and so, if I outlet outside of work, I wouldn’t buy the username talking spaces don’t go, it was also the URL to my blog and I posted my first picture. It was the last picture I snapped off my previous home engaged it. I will put it on the screen somewhere over here or here.

I kind of discovered this whole community of Interior related content on Instagram, and I started interacting with people that were inside that community. As well little by little, I started getting a few followers. I think it took me about a month to get 200 followers like good, a person with low self-esteem inside this eco sphere of likes and hearts and positive reinforcement. And so obviously I got addicted to it.

And I started to spend more and more time on it and I started to be more analyze: posts of butters and hashtags day used and which compositions they used, which colors they used, how they edited their photos. And here there I started to take tips and tricks from them, and this is where my first really great tip comes in because you can use, for example, hashtag interior design for pictures like I posted or home decor.

But it’s way more effective to go with more specific hashtags. So for me that was a small spaces squad. A studio apartment eclectic decor. This is why I have to try every day this one has grown. It loves right now so surely, but steadily. I started to create a few sets of hashtags for different kind of pictures that I would use with a lot of retailers and specific hashtags. Another thing that really accelerated my growth was using stories and there are a few ways to use stories and I think here consistency is key.

So, basically never should you have an empty stories that it’s not clickable and what you are going to share. It’s basically up to you, because it’s a more rough of the curve, something you just want to share something you just want to show and what really helped me back then was to share other people’s pictures tagging them in it and also not just throwing it out There also not saying it’s a shot-for-shot, because that can really feel canoing if someone comes to you like, please show me out, but really putting something in it like, for example, someone shares my picture and they say something really specific about it.

There’s more chance. I will share it in my stories again or I will check out your accounts to see what you’re sharing and what your aesthetic is like. What I also did was create my own hashtag, so my username was talking, spaces don’t go, and I created the hashtag talking spaces because every Friday I would use stories to shout out people that use that hashtag share the best of what they had to show.

So what that does it creates kind of a community community around you you’re, not only part of the community, if you’re doing it like that, because you’re also in the middle of it, so people started to use the hashtag and also make sure to follow me because, If they don’t follow me, they will think maybe he’s not going to share it. If I don’t follow him, another great tip – and I did this really early on and it really paid off – was interacting and following with Meghan and blogs and compilation accounts like comes.

Let’s share pictures from different accounts because that’s a really great way to get access to and greater audience every time it got shared there. It meant a great influx of new followers because they discovered me, so you really have to see what’s your niche and you have to interact with magazines in that area. It’s really good to see similar accounts to you and who they follow and who they are getting followed by and that’s a way to see what kind of niche you fit into and that’s a great way to see what kind of hashtags would work for you.

It’s great to see what kind of people will be interesting in following you as well, and it’s really a great idea to interact with those kind of accounts. Not only because it’s interesting to you this because clearly they have similar interest to you, but because the company they share and the huge person is shared, it has a kind of Overland. My memory was full and we’re cutting up and the framing is worse.

But, let’s get back so slowly but steady, I was reaching 500 followers and I was noticing there. It’s people that were just starting out with Instagram accounts we’re starting to follow me because they saw me as a bit more of an established name in the community and what’s really important here, is that those people they they want to be understood. They want to communicate. They want to be friendly to people, and what I saw a lot was account said were the were a bit more established.

There was not coming back on smaller accounts; they would not like back on smaller accounts and I think, that’s really stupid to do because we’re all human beings. Why would you not answer someone if they’re saying something nice to you on your picture, so I would suggest comments back everyone, that’s coming from your picture and if it’s something that you’re not really sure what to comment back just heart, the comments or just reply with An emoji something nice.

If you notice someone that’s commenting like on every picture. You post it’s nice to just check out Derek comments, and maybe it’s something you want to follow as well. So if coming back get to know the people behind defeats answer your PMS only the nice ones, not the dirty ones and the flirty ones and the kind of weird ones you get and be open and real with what you post, because I noticed we’re more diff.

The pictures that were, hopefully Photoshop kind of turned me off and also people deaf in their captions, were like really high and mighty and know-it-all about what they shared like. They knew everything about interior design. If someone was acting like that, it started to turn me off, and I really didn’t like this, so I should just be open and real, but just stay humble just you’re, just another Instagram account you’re, not some big shot because she reached a lot of followers.

Stay. Humble so I think this is where my account started to stand up, because I was sharing pictures in a really mundane way. I shared pictures where you saw the messiyah my home. I shared pictures with a trash bag on the background or a really messy bed, or something like that, and because the other side of, like the big community of Instagram, was basically, I saw people that took pictures and they photoshopped away plug outlets and they photoshopped away.

The line of the ceilings make it look bigger and because my pictures were more relatable and real. I think that did a lot of good for my former bassist well in the moment that I was shared by a lot of magazines and blogs and compilation accounts. It took me quickly into I think 6,000 followers, but quickly after that, I started to really get close to like the magical and amazing 10k like this might be a real tip or something you say, like obviously yeah, but be a nice person, because I saw a Lot of people just being assholes on the Instagram, and I saw a lot of people also feeling self-important that they, for example, commented on a few blogs or magazine accounts and that they were commenting.

When am I going to get shared or why are you not noticing me? Instagram is a big place. It’s not easy to get noticed, so it’s not that they personally have something against you. If they don’t notice you, but it’s just not happening yet, and people ask. Will get dismissed? Ok, let’s zoom out a second for all the tips. I’ve given so far, it’s a precursor to death. It’s important that your content is interesting.

It’s visually pleasing your captions are relatable or funny, or they give something to the people. A lot of people share like really complaining stuff like today, I had to go to the grocery store and someone cut me up and I felt so angry I’m not looking for negativity on my feet. So why would I follow it an account that dust is like on the regulator? Also, a good thing is that your content has to be recognizable.

People have to see a picture. You post, and you have to instantly know that. Oh this is this. In this person’s picture, but on the flip side of death, if you’re posting really the same picture on and on and on again like it doesn’t matter if you’ve taken a different picture. But if the content of the picture is basically the same, people will get bored and I see a lot of accounts right now. That kind of got big because they had like a really pretty dining room and they kind of latch on together.

And they hang on to death right now, they’re still sharing the same picture or the same setup and they’re not getting the likes anymore, because people have seen it like all the people that want to see it have discovered it by now, and it’s not news anymore. Above all, the other tips like interacting with people sharing interesting content being open, honest and relatable and don’t or captions using stories.

I think the main thing that plays into your growth on Instagram is consistency and it’s consistency in posting and it’s consistency in how much you interact with the app if you’re, finding a sustainable amount of time. You can do, for example, you post every day and you spend an X amount of time every day on the app interacting with content. That’s the main way to really get growth, because Instagram will see that you are pumping out interesting content on a consistent basis and it will take you seriously and besides that people will know if they see a picture of you and they see exactly one day later.

Another picture of you and exactly a day later another picture of you. They will know that they’re getting their fix on a daily basis and it will go check for you. So, even if the algorithm isn’t in your favor, they will know today there will be a new picture or a new article or something only is instagram page and i’m going to check it out. Another great tip is to know your niche and you have to play into it and that’s both in how you share your content and how you use your hashtags, but also to me as an interior Instagrammer.

It meant. I changed that my interior, more not only for my followers, also because I like to, but it kind of showed me what my people liked, and that was a reflection of what I like and all like minded people. I saw their trends coming on and I changed my interior to reflect that. So I was noticing my accountant was mainly interesting to people who are looking for tiny living things, drifting and vintage interior and our big-city living.

And I was noticing that a bit of an overlap to that where it was the urban jungle trend or how you would call, and that’s why I started to play more into dance. I had a lot of plants in my home already. I was just not using the hashtag — jungle and house pens make me happy and all the more specific hashtags for that niche. So I started to branch out from one age to another, not letting the first one guy out but just building upon it and that’s also really important.

You don’t go from one thing to one thing completely different: you have to stay in your own lane. Basically, but you are allowed to branch out a bit so back, then I don’t know if it’s still a trend, but back then it was really popular to participate in common spots, and this is basically a group chat with people on Instagram, where, as soon as you’re Posting you will notify the group chat and they will all go to your picture and they will like and comment on it, and this is basically to kind of fully augur if M that you’re getting a lot of interaction on your picture from the get-go, I was Offered to participate loads of times – and I never get this which later on, I think, is a good thing, because Instagram has really statements about comment balls and how they are cracking down on it.

But to me it just felt like it felt inauthentic, and it’s really also. I didn’t have the time to every time. Someone commented in a group chat to directly go to the photo and directly comment something. So I didn’t do that and I think it’s for the better, because there are some accounts. I know that have participated in comment. Boats. That’s right now are falling off big time. They still have great interaction in comments, but there are apps to see what your authentic engagement and it’s really awful for those people, because it’s really easy to see what comes from a common boss or you have those apps that you can copy-paste the same reaction to Different photos and it’s really obvious to see the same comments from the same people on every photo in the same kind of community community.

So I was doing amazing. It was November of 2018 and I think I was around 18 and a half thousand followers. And in November I started to really step up my game and I was posting a blog post every day I called it La Femme, but this also was great for my growth because more content, it was interesting content. If I say so myself, it meant more followers and at the end of November, are somewhere in mid December.

I think I reached 19 thousand followers and that’s when stuff started to go down, because I picked something that was not sustainable because consistency is key on Instagram and I was posting so much which I couldn’t keep up, because I literally I was working a full-time job. I was posting every day on Instagram I was posting a blog post. Every day I tried to have a social life sighs that it was way too much to do so after November.

I stopped it obviously, and I started to post list on Instagram, because basically it was just burned out. This instantly led to a decrease in new followers. I was not losing yet, but my growth was fluttering quickly. Another thing that greatly influenced my drop in followers. I think is that my interior changed and it changed quite drastically. All of a sudden, because in December I painted my wall black and until then my niche was the more lies wide with vintage accents plain bluffing, vintage laughing home in an old house.

And if you see that you throw in a black wall, it doesn’t mesh well and also later on. I was moving and I was moving to a new bill tome and that’s the opposite of what people like about my account. Because people start following me, because I had like a really nice old home, with beautiful ceilings and beautiful large windows and high ceilings. And I moved to a place that was way more healthy for me to live in and I loved it so much more, but visually it’s less interesting.

It’s really a basic flat that I’m living in right now. Also, I changed up my interior style, then again, because I started to have more modern furniture that wasn’t up pretty thrifted or something I don’t know why? Because right now, I’m back back to basics again with only thrifted furniture, but I changed it up and two followers that follow you, because of one reason that means that they are not interested in your content anymore, so this ring had started dropping quite rapidly.

I think, basically, I put myself so deep into my niche that, as my interests were changing and my style was changing and I myself was changing. It felt inauthentic to the people following me because they never saw me sharing something about it, because I was just only sharing what I thought people wanted see. People were uninterested in the things I shared, and so they smash to death and full of button.

No hard feelings, I do exactly the same if I follow someone and they are changing up their content big-time and it’s not interesting to me. Why would I follow along? Another thing I suspect, influenced my drop in followers were poorly designed unrelated sir posts, and on top of that I was disclosing that stuff was gifted or paid promotion or PR product or it was a PR offence, but other people in the mainly Dutch interior community they’re, Not disclosing anything about sponsorship and if they do, they really hide it deep into their hashtag.

So people will not see it so it looked like I was doing all of these sponsored posts and they were doing nothing and I really stood out because of it, and I was also taking and that’s really stupid, because I didn’t really get money for it or I didn’t really get something I wanted, but it’s just if people reach out to me and they wanted to work with me, I was really excited to most of them in the beginning.

I said yes – and I said yes without really looking into the brands that wanted to work with me and I think that’s really bad, because a sponsorship is not a two-way street you’re, not working with only the company and the influencer. Followers are really a big part of it, and I didn’t look into this and that’s really bad. I think I think that really influenced my dropping followers, the most in the end, so I was kind of lost with what I wanted to share on Instagram and I made the conscious decision to just stop caring about followers and just start posting.

Whatever I felt like – and I think that really did a lot to me in a positive way, because I started to see what I like to post and also by trying out stuff, I noticed that it wasn’t for me. So, on top of that, I changed my username from talking spaces co2, just my first name with a lot more art in it to make it more personal and to really share that image of the content creator. I was at first and through really sharing whatever I felt like, and I think it was mainly the period between February and basically tail two months ago, like November of 2019, I just shared whatever I like, and I still most followers logically, but it really showed me What I like to share so flashback to now I’m right now, as I think seventeen point, four thousand followers which is growth again, I think at my lowest point.

I was at seventeen points, one that wasn’t forest and I really want to share how gets happening because it’s a three full explanation. First of all, I started to get more interested again in what I share it. Second of all, I refrain my consistency because right now I’m posting at twice a week instead of every day, and I think Instagram is getting the hang of it now. Obviously, my growth is less than when I posted every day, but it’s better than when I posted every day, while hating my content and while not interacting with anyone, and I also reframed my expectations, because in the heyday of my like Instagram journey, if a picture didn’t Get to thousands likes, it was a field picture.

It was not doing great and right now, if my picture has above 200 likes that’s great to me. That means 200 people looked at it and they were interested enough to like it, and I think it’s as well. If everyone on the platform gets less interaction right now, and I’m not sure how that happens, but it’s great to know because that reframes your expectation from it and it reframes what success means. Instagram is basically mirroring what you do.

So if you put a lot of time and effort into it and your content is obvious – obviously interesting fish easing if you’ve put a lot of effort into it, you get more out of it. So that’s how you reach 19,000 followers in one year and then losing 2,000 followers in the next year. I hope this was interesting to you and I hope you got something out of it if you’re looking to grow an Instagram audience or if you struggle with an existing Instagram accounts that doesn’t really like go as good as it did.

It’s not that much that it’s! I think really life hacks to grow on Instagram. It’s just really insight on how to my knowledge into my experience, the Instagram platform works. Also. I want to add that in no way, I’m claiming to really know a lot about the algorithm or that I’m really knowledgeable about social media marketing or SEO, or something like that, because if people say that it annoys me a lot and that’s also why I kind Of debate it’s about filming this article, I don’t want to sound like an oil or something like this.

I just wanted to share my story because people that say they know a lot about the algorithm or give tips and tricks about it. Not even to people at Instagram headquarters know how the algorithm works. It’s a self learning machine, it’s way more complex than if you do X, then you get Y. So I think it’s really insane that a lot of people do. I have this business about how to trick the algorithm or something it doesn’t work like that.

So I hope this doesn’t come up as know-it-all or preachy or patronizing. I just hope my story, maybe was fun to listen to or give some insights into how your Instagram experience is. Also, something I want to add is that, above all the tips that I shared or all the things that I did, that I shared there’s a lot of luck into it, a lot of times, it’s being at the right place at the right time. I had no influence is over whether or not an accountant was checking me out or whether or not one of those magazines was going to share my home.

It was all up to luck, but you can kind of play into luck by being there and by trying to go after things you want to have so basically, it’s mostly about luck and all the earth tips are just supporting it’s too dead. So thank you for reading and thank you for following along also here on YouTube. I had a lot of fun working on this article and now I have a lot of fun getting into the editing and the filming site of making YouTube articles.

So if you have tips and tricks on that, let me know down below and also if you have tips and tricks about growing your Instagram audience, leave them also down below for me and for others to read. Also, my Instagram is linked down below. If you want to check out that I’m not just talking out of my ass about all of this, it’s real! I really did that. It’s not that interesting! Basically, but you can check it out down below.

I swear is a good time over there. So I’ll see you next week and till then stay cool. I don’t have a sign-off, so it’s basically see you next week. Bye