A lot of businesses just lost ‘tens of thousands’ of followers on Instagram. Why, do you ask? Instagram just deleted them.
Your follower counts are now correct. If you saw a change today, check out our news from last week to learn more: http://t.co/b9V6qUgdFF
— Instagram (@instagram) December 18, 2014
Instagram has been actively trying to destroy the cottage industry of buying likes (as have Twitter and Facebook). They care for a few reasons: 1) The more fake profiles, the more servers they need and the higher their costs 2) If they’re going to roll out ads for small to medium sized businesses, they need to have good analytics and you can’t do that with spam profiles gumming up the works and 3) It just looks bad.
At The Found Gen, we’ve always been advocates of quality over quantity. Build a group of passionate fans around a brand and they will spread the word. The optics of having 50,000 followers looks nice, but people don’t decide to buy something because a brand has a bunch of followers. They buy it because they want the product, that they need it.
Building a Better Social Media Presence
On Instagram, as on every other social media platform, you need to think of every account as a person. Treat them the same way that you would if they were walking into your office or store. You wouldn’t hire a bunch of actors to walk in and out of your door to make you look busy, would you?
So instead of focusing on metrics that don’t deliver any ROI, let’s focus your campaign on what really matters. Engagements from real people interested in you. Growing your follower base with people that can either continually refer you business or are looking to work with you.
If you want to learn how to build a real, passionate following for your brand online, we’re happy to sit down and chat. Contact us today.