On Wednesday 24th of April 2019, something happened. Instagram deleted 604 of the 706 photos I had up on my grid, leaving just 102. I felt like years of hard work, waking up a 7am at the weekend to go take photos, efforts to curate the perfect feed had gone down the drain. So I panicked. Almost cried. Felt powerless. And took a step back.
I breathe and started thinking.
Maybe this was not so bad after all. Maybe, this misadventure could be an opportunity to change my approach to Instagram, how I use the platform, start fresh but also come clean.
I started using Instagram back in July 2015. In one year, I got up to 10k followers. How, you may ask? By engaging, non-stop, with as many people as I could. Back then, it might have looked like a good way to get followers fast. Now, I can tell it was not. As a matter of fact, I was not discriminating in whom I was engaging with, regardless of their age, gender or niche. Thus, people started to follow me just because I had engaged with them and not because they necessarily liked my content.
As a result, my engagement has always been very bad. And as a consequence of this latter fact, reach has been awful too and my growth was always pretty slow.
Now, time for the confidence I guess. A few years ago, I was in a blogger group on Whatsapp. One of the bloggers promoted follow/un follow method as a legitimate way to get new followers fast. She used it and it seemed to work. Back then, it was not as controversial as today although still not looked in a good way. So I tried it. There I said it, I did fall into the follow/unfollow game for a while.
But first of all, I was following so many accounts that the number looked absolutely insane. Second of all, my news feed was full of dodgy accounts with bad or irrelevant content. As a result, I could never see the photos of the people I liked, and thus unable to engage with them, which lead to a drop in my own engagement. I’d be lying if I’d say I stopped to never go back to it. I did give the follow/unfollow more than one go, to the same result always.
I guess some lessons take longer to learn. And I am not very proud.
The thing is, when you stop, you will want to unfollow everyone and those who had followed you back will unfollow. You will lose a consequent amount of followers in the process. Not super productive in the end. Also, following and unfollowing hundreds of accounts per day takes a lot of time so I highly doubt anyone doing it will do it manually. It is most likely that they’ll use an automated software, also known as bot, which costs money (and often not a small amount) and becomes quickly unsustainable. First because you might not always be able to pay, second because the second you stop, you are back to square one.
Another thing I did, is taking part in threads. And before you ask, no, I do not think threads are either cheating, being like a bot or a bad thing. I think, depending on the usage you do of them, and who is in those, they can really help. The thing with those threads is that reciprocation is mandatory, which only makes sense! It would not be fair otherwise! BUT, if you take part into a follow thread for example, you will have to follow everyone in the thread regardless of whether you like their content or not. And when said content will appear on your feed, you will not want to engage with it, since you don’t necessarily like it. Likewise on other participants’ side. So you will have more followers but not necessarily higher engagement.
However, if the thread or pod is just made of people who already followed you and just don’t see your content when you post, then the thread will just help them see your content. Likewise if you’d have commented naturally on their photos anyway.
BUT, the dark side of threads and pod, when they are “like” or “comment” threads, is that when you start, you need to do it all the time. If you stop, your engagement will drop since most of it came from thread. Because most people participating are probably not your followers. Threads are time consuming. They will take you a lot of time to complete, time that you could have used for some other things.
Which is why, I decided to stop doing threads altogether and will solely engage with people I already follow and from hashtags I follow, whether on my main Instagram account or any other Instagram account I may have.
Reach, engagement and growth were never really good on my main Instagram account. People never see my photos when I post them, but only hours later. As a result, the algorithm never pushes the content to more people, meaning that it is less and less visible. And I would lie if I’d say it did not affect me. On the contrary, I had (and still have) a complex about it. Because, no matter what we say, numbers do matter, and that will never change. That’s just how business works.
So I took a step back. And decided to change my approach to Instagram, beyond what I just said.
I have decided to merge my main Instagram account and my baking account together. Thus, I am making What Corinne Did a lifestyle Instagram again. It was when I started until a year ago and will go back to that from now on. As a result, I will have more creative freedom to create content. I also post things that are not solely fashion focused. Now that I am moving to NYC, that I don’t know anyone nor have a photographer, I won’t have so many opportunities to take outfit photos anyway.
Thus, expect to see a bit of everything on my main account: from baking to buildings, to flowers, outfits or travel snaps. Or even my cat. Why not after all! It will mostly be in the moment, much less curated, more spontaneous and probably also photos taken with my phone!
HOWEVER, because I still love fashion a lot. I think that’s what I am best at (at the moment), I have created a brand new Instagram account that will solely be dedicated to fashion. It is called What Corinne Wears (original, I know). I will post there all my outfit photos and videos (I want to give a go to those).
If you were already following my on What Corinne Did, or not, feel free to follow me on What Corinne Wears to. It would mean the world to me! I am posting there twice a day and trying new things as well, including editing, collages and small videos!
Shop the look
Jacket – Zara (similar)
Dress – Select Fashion*
Wedges – 3 Suisses (old collection)
Bag – Boohoo (similar)
Watch – ADEXE Watch London
Have you ever felt the Instagram fatigue? Or that your content was not good enough because of bad reach or low engagement? How did you grow your Instagram? Did you ever regret using certain tactics?
Don’t forget to follow my new Instagram!
Thanks for stopping by. Hope you liked this post.
See you soon,
Love,
Corinne.
*The dress is a gift from Select Fashion.
Ah no! That’s very strange that Instagram would delete some of your photos.
Candice x
natalyaamour.com
This was a great read. I don’t have as many followers as you but trying to gain followers is so difficult. People play the follow follow game way too much. One day I am so close to 800 followers the next I’m back down to 750
Instagram can be frustrating at times … the number of my followers keeps increasing then it keeps decreasing … and I’m not really able to make a great progress in this matter. I think the first thing I should do is to calm down and follow your tips! 🙂
The follow game on Instagram is not something that I want to do. It does not bring me any money so I focus on other things that do.
I only use Instagram to post photos from my trips, for my friends. I don’t try to grow it as it doesn’t bring any money in. I have been “stuck” at the same amount of followers for years probably, and this is all because of the follow/unfollow game which I am not willing to play.
Idem. I must say that in recent times, after the beating and changes in Instagram, I decided to approach them in a different way, simpler, but above all more relaxed and true.
Instagram is probably one of my hardest social media accounts to grow. I try, and I get followers, but then I lose a ton. I don’t stress over it anymore though. I used to, but now I’m like, “What happens, happens!” I like your approach.
Oh man, I would be so sad if IG deleted my pics, I have so many of my life that I wouldn’t be able to get back! I’m glad to hear you took a positive approach to it.
Instagram can be so challenging! There is a constant “need” to get followers, comments, and stay relevant. I think when I stopped really caring about having a “beautiful” feed, and started being more “me” things really fell into place.
I never knew that Instagram has the right to delete your photos just like that, I find it baffling. I’m so sorry to hear that they did such a thing and you are right you can create a big deal, be crossed for day and even lose sleep over it but your attitude is the right way to go from now on.
Instagram has been quite terrible even following the best of advice. I don’t blame you for wanting to switch up your approach.
Almost everyone seems to be complaining about Instagram and honestly, I got fed up with trying to hack it and concentrate more on my blog. Although honestly, I love how stories are bringing back the vibe on Instagram.
I had a friend with 30k but she barley get any likes or engagement. The way Instagram had their algorithms, no one would see her posts. So she’s started over and I think that’s quite brave in this influencer world we live in. I notice that if I don’t consistently engage, I can lose up to 50 followers in a week. I really admire you for your honesty with your journey. Instagram is tricky. I’d love to connect with you there : I’m @LaurenLovesYou2 and @TheZenNutritionist
I have been trying to wean myself off with engagement groups as I want to spend more time with my followers on social media as you said, that is where the true engagements happen,
I feel like I have a love/hate relationship with all my social media pages. It’s so hard to get a following without doing threads and then who actually cares about what you’re trying to do? Finding the authentic followers is really what you want and I think you’re on the right path for that.
Instagram is changing their Algorithm day by day. I never faced such issues like they deleted your pictures. And yes spending time on pods are totally waste. I just love your new approach
It must have been a glitch that happened for your photos to be deleted. But I think it was a blessing in disguise too, right?
Instagram is so hard these days. I agree with the threads, it isn’t a way of cheating. But whoever is in charge of the algorithms at Instagram really don’t know what they are doing
Vanessa x
therealnessonline.com
What a fantastic read. Really genuine as well! You have explained yourself and your take on instagram so well.
I think instagram is so damn time consuming, chasing followers just takes all the fun of it. I mean, if I was to post everyday and comment every day, my followers would increase – definitely. Sadly, I just don’t have the time for it.
Laura / https://www.laustworld.com/