What I learned after a two month Instagram break
It’s all over Instagram… Posts, captions, and messages pressuring how important it is to publish content consistently.
If you are anything like me, you are running your business all on your own, and when you don’t have time to post on IG, it just doesn’t get done. The truth is, we all need to take a break every once and a while, and that could mean letting your IG schedule go for a while.
Recently, my health forced me to take an unscheduled extended break from posting on Instagram. At first, not posting caused me a lot of stress. I felt shame and guilt for letting my audience down and losing all the progress I worked so hard to build… or so I thought.
Once I settled into the break I took time to assess my IG strategy and decide what was serving me, my business, and my audience. The best part?!?! I was doing so many tasks that just weren’t helping my business grow and move forward.
My goal, as a solopreneur, without a team of content creators behind me, is to give you realistic recommendations and information. Small biz owners operate, most often, solo or with a very small team and budget. I’m in the same boat as you! So when I talk about the lessons I learned from taking a posting break, I’m truly coming from a position of solopreneurship.
5 {realistic} lessons I learned from taking two months off of Instagram
Simplify your business
If you have too many offers both your business and your marketing runs the risk of being too complicated for your audience to understand. What happens to a confused audience? Ultimately they won’t enjoy their experience and will leave without buying anything… never to return.
Review your products and services and choose 3 that you are in love with. The happier you feel with your products and services, the easier it is to sell them to others. Choose one headline product or service to focus your IG marketing efforts on that ONE offer.
Pick two media types and create one every week
Let’s be honest, over the past two years Instagram has become confusing. Between Reels, IG Lives, short and long form video, Stories, Photos, and Carousels, there are almost too many post types to keep them straight.
With, frankly, too many media formats to keep track, it has been even more difficult to know how to promote your business on IG. It’s up to you to keep your IG strategy simple. Pick two media formats and publish at least one post using each format per week. Choose two media types based on your goals.
Check out my blog, Not all Instagram posts are created equal, to learn more about IG media formats. Be sure to vary the goals. For example, Carousels and IG Lives both work well to build your authority. Instead I recommend choosing Carousels (authority) and Reels (audience building). This happens to be my current media strategy, which you can feel free to steal.
Post content that YOU love; forget about the numbers
In my opinion, there is TOO much pressure to post what your audience engages with, even when you HATE creating that content. Let’s just agree to let go of the target market guessing game, and focus on creating the content that you enjoy. After all, if you enjoy creating content you will experience more creativity, motivation, and inspiration. At the end of the day, content creation begets content creation. If you focus on what fills your cup, before you know it, you will have more content than you know what to do with and the right audience for you will follow!
DO NOT qualify, explain, or defend your absence, EVER!
I see this one all the time. An entrepreneur decides to take a long weekend off of IG and they create a static post or IG Story notifying of their absence. Worst yet {if you ask me} they take a much needed mental break from the ‘gram and when they come back start off with a post saying, ‘I haven’t posted in a while because XYZ.’
Please STOP! You do not owe anyone an explanation as to why you need to step away. Moreover, between the IG Ranking system and general busyness of people’s lives, most of your audience will not have noticed that they haven’t seen you post in a while. When you come back, followers will see your new content, will be excited to hear from you, and pick up where they left off.
When you take a break, whether planned or not, just leave the platform silently, and pick back up when you come back.
STOP beating yourself up
This is much easier said than done. The level of entrepreneur and marketing guilt we feel when we stop posting is HUGE! (I’m pretty sure this is the main reason why people feel the need to excuse their absence, see previous lesson.)
Instead of stewing on how bad you feel about not posting, lean into your guilt and notice why you have the feeling. Assess if there is any content you look forward to creating again. Once you head back to your desk to create content, start with what inspires you.
Do your best to resist the urge to create a quick piece of content just to fill a space; this will only check a box and isn’t likely to offer the value your audience is used to. You are better off taking the time away to re-energize and come back when you are motivated and inspired to connect with your audience.
Taking a break from Instagram is not the crisis in audience building that some may have you believe. If creating content is like pulling teeth, I promise, the content you create will not be valuable for your audience, and could do more harm than simply taking a break.
If you have recently taken a break and are struggling to get back into it, a little dose of inspiration may be just what you need. Check out the Freebie Library on my website. I have created an entire month of content ideas, for both service and product businesses. Get your juices flowing again with resources that are completely free, forever!
