Who’s Following Your Instagram?
Research shows a massive 83% of your followers are… your competitors – OR people wanting to sell you their stuff!
If you’ve ever felt that smug, warm glow at your subscriber number – then you might be interested to know exactly who’s following your Instagram?
More to the point – why the hell aren’t they buying from you?
In an ideal world filled with unicorns gambolling under glittery rainbowed skies – all 80,000 of your Instagram followers are all flavours of your ideal client poised to tap in their creditcard details at any moment… you just gotta post one more thingummy to the ‘gram and you’ll have made it.
Unfortunately back in the real world that’s not happening despite being ‘sold’ to us as a low-entry, low-barrier method of marketing an online business.
In a world of low cost templates, easy to use graphics editing software and template captions, easy to follow people with a simple click – it’s all to easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’re creating content which is being absorbed… when it’s not.
If your follower numbers are going up and are ‘good’ (your mileage may vary), it’s easy to foll yourself into thinking that any day now, your luck is gonna change and you are going to be the hottest new online business on the block.
Sadly that’s not the case. There’s a reason your follower numbers are going up but they’re not translating into sales – so let’s dive in and figure out why that’s not happening.
A client came to one of my Coffee Karma sessions because she was fed up with spending days and days creating and scheduling content for her Instagram, having a following of over 8k, having services ready to sell – but making zero sales.
A quick scan of her feed showed nothing particularly unusual or ‘stand-out’ (nobody’s IG stands out*…). Her message was pretty focused as she’d been in business for well over a year (coming up 2) and so she’d nailed her niche and knew what she was selling – even had the packages all set up and ready to go.
So the first point of call for me to investigate was to have a look at her followers. We already knew that a large number – in this case over 1500 were ‘fake accounts’ and this wasn’t a big surprise at all. It’s the nature of the game and for every one you delete from following you, another 2 slip on by… like I say – not a huge problem.
Sampling the Instagram Followers
We took 12 of her ‘genuine’ followers at random (fast scroll and a click! 😉) and took a good look at their profiles.
Of those 12:
4 were selling Social Media Management Services.
6 were in direct competition with her and selling similar services.
2 were business coaches.
Not ONE genuine potential client willing to pay her!
6 wanted her to pay THEM!
And 6 just kind of wanted to keep an eye on what she was doing and maybe even copy her style if she was doing something cool or clever.
Let me tell you she was pretty upset to realise that that she’d put in all that time and effort creating content to either inspire her competitors… or to welcome through the door people who just wanted her in their funnels.
Ever been engrossed in a book?
I’m a single mom – this means I permanently oscillate between ‘trying to carve out time for myself‘ and ‘being present‘. Oh mamas everywhere – the struggle is real!
If I’m scrolling – which honestly, I try not to waste my time doing – I’m not really paying attention to what I’m seeing. It’s like watching the commercials on TV – I might get some sort of vague subliminal message – but I’m not getting anything deeper than that.
On the other hand, when I’m engrossed in a book it’s actually kinda embarrassing because I’ll suddenly become aware one of the kids has been in the room a few minutes already and is halfway through repeating something I’ve completely not heard because I’m enjoying what I’m reading so much and I’m totally immersed.
THAT right there is the difference between idly scrolling and really taking in something you’re enjoying consuming.
And it’s the buyers who are deeply consuming your content that you want – and if you make a real effort to create written content that people lose themselves in – that’s when you’re going to turn off your competitors – and those who are trying to sell to you (!) – and draw in the people who are genuinely consuming your content and not just on the peripherals ready to come at you like a pack of hungry sharks!
As always, it begins with writing. Yours.
Photos can be filtered.
AI can manipulate.
But your imagination, wisdom and experience will forever be a true representation of you and your values.
