60 Sec Introduction

No matter what social media platform you use, the highest visibility measure of success is the number of followers. But number of followers is something we call a vanity metric. This means, it is flashy and is used for bragging rights, but is an empty number in itself. The life blood of your account is the number of engaged followers. The ones that interact with you on a regular basis and come back to see what is next. Now, when someone has a high engagement percentage, that is when it is time to bring out the respect.

If you are only concerned with how big your account looks rather than how effective it is, then there are many businesses that you can pay to provide you followers, likes, and comments to make it look like you are big stuff.  The Reptile Entrepreneur show is all about building a strong foundation which means we are focusing on establishing good solid long term habits rather than the quick shot. Granted, we certainly want to grow and will employ every method and strategy possible to grow quickly, but it will be with real followers that can turn into customers. Or, at the very least, are genuinely interested in our content. So, today I am talking about followers and, more importantly, the right followers.

The Value of Followers

So let’s step back and consider the value of followers. No matter what social media platform you are on, your followers, subscribers, or whatever is the title of the people who are connected with your account, is the size of your audience. A large follower number is connected with success and is what we brag about. When we hit 1000, 5000, 10000 we have celebration posts. On YouTube you get a plaque at 100,000 subscribers. And that is all well and good. It is an easy way to tell how you are doing. For the general populace and for CEOs who don’t understand marketing, it is enough. And, yes, it is important for us to have the trappings of success to impress the general populace. As a marketing guy I am fully aware of the power of perception so, yes, we will pursue growth in the number of our followers, if, for nothing else, just to check the box on our digital resume. A high follower count lends a certain confidence and security to a visitor considering whether to follow your account or not. So it has value.

But, we need to look beyond the number. What are we going to do with followers? If the number of followers is the only thing that matters you can go out and pay money for a service that will give you hundreds or thousands of followers. This is against the terms and conditions of Instagram and any major social media platform, but these follower services are clever and will also give you likes and comments and the engagement that makes it seem like they are real followers. So maybe you can get away with it? I’ll talk about buying followers in a little while along with the risks associated with that, but the question remains, other than impressing your friends, what are you going to do with followers?

Well, let’s break this down. The reason why you have an account in the first place is to sell a product. And, by “product”, I’d like to go to a very general definition. Maybe it is not a physical product you will mail to them. It could be that you want attention for your business. You could be community building for your YouTube channel or other influencer activity. You could be promoting a certain brand with your influencer activity. What ever it is, you are looking for a reaction from your audience. If you are a breeder of bearded dragons you want followers that are interested in bearded dragons in some manner. Preferably in the market to buy one now or sometime soon! Even if they already have one or cannot buy one for whatever reason, a bearded dragon enthusiast is a good follower to have because they are likely to comment and like and interact with you on your posts. So, as the social media manager of this bearded dragon account, I am going to want to attract people that enjoy bearded dragons. Filling up the follower base with looki-lous who take up space without adding any value is like having a party at your sushi shop with people that don’t like fish. They’ll happily eat your free crackers, but they won’t be buying your food.

But isn’t it a good idea to build your audience as large as possible? Since only a certain percentage of followers will engage doesn’t the bigger the audience equal a larger engagement? There is truth to this. And since you don’t interview everyone who hits that follow button how can you know? The answer is that you only have control over what you entice your visitors with.  And here is where I want to say that you need to keep focus on your end goal and not get distracted by the number of followers. If you have a solid vision for what you want to produce, do not change it to match what you get the most likes and follows on. That is letting the tail wag the dog. Don’t follow the likes and follows. I know of people who got so wrapped up into the follow game that they ended up with a large account they hated because it was now driving them and they lost sight of what inspired them in the first place.

So, let’s bring this to the real world. How do you get real and true followers?

Determine Your Purpose

The first thing to do is to know who those real and true followers are. The only way to do that is to figure out what your purpose is. One way to do this is to figure out what you want to get out of your efforts. Is it selling a product? Is it providing an educational outreach? Once you figure out your purpose you can then figure out who is the right audience for that purpose. For example, both accounts I am actively growing right now are educationally based. The Chameleon Academy focuses on spreading the latest thoughts in chameleon husbandry. The Reptile Entrepreneur is targeting individuals who are trying to start up a business. But I narrow it down even further. For the chameleon Academy I lean towards beginners. My mission there is to beginner and intermediate keepers. So you will see a constant focus on the basics and taking complex concepts and simplifying them. My perfect audience is the first time chameleon keeper and the intermediate keeper looking to understand what they have implemented. So you will see me focusing on hashtags like “petchameleon” more than “triocerosjacksoniixantholophus”. Because my target audience will probably not be completely comfortable with the Latin names. And if I create content consistent with my purpose, advanced keepers who are wondering what locale of trioceros jacksonii jacksonii I am talking about probably aren’t going to be as interested. And this isn’t just a hypothesis! My content is geared towards beginners. When I throw in advanced concepts every now and then I don’t get a lot of engagement. And that is because the content was not targeting the audience of my purpose. It doesn’t mean there is any disaster, of course. But I can see the difference. And, actually, that is a good thing. It means I am doing a good job filtering my audience.

The Reptile Entrepreneur account was actually a huge challenge because I am creating a demographic from scratch. Reptile breeders aren’t looking for start-up advice on Instagram and start-up people are rarely into reptiles. So I am literally creating a demographic here. And, especially in this case, you need to have a clear idea who you are talking to or else you are all over the place. And let’s do a little exercise here. Who should I target my Instagram account towards? It would be easy to select start-ups or entrepreneurs. There is a huge community for that. If I wanted to do a reptile account there is a huge community for that. And the advantage of a huge community is that there are already firmly established hashtags and people searching for them. The disadvantage, of course, is there is a lot of noise and competition for viewers’ attention! But I did not select my audience based on the one most likely to allow me to create a large account easily. I selected my audience out of a passion for my reptile community and a deep desire to help my community be successful in their start-up businesses. So I am fully aware that I am building something from ground zero. But, I know my audience. I know the reptile community and this show is specifically for the single person start-up having to do everything themselves to get their business off the ground. This is for the ones that need help establishing a digital footprint, understanding effective marketing techniques, setting up a website, figuring out the basics of generating revenue from their skill. So, growth will be slow for me until I am able to generate enough gravity for Instagram to understand what I am and what kind of people want to see what I am offering. But I am okay with that. I have my purpose and that is the most important thing for my success. Now, you may be concerned that you aren’t 100% sure what your purpose is. That is okay. You are still in the process of figuring it out. That is part of what we are doing so don’t beat yourself up over it. Just keep working with it and your purpose will eventually become clear. It is true that your growth will be disjointed until you figure out your focus, but that is expected. Be patient going through the stages of development. Not only is it okay to try things out and decide they weren’t right for you, it is encouraged that you try different things out before you decide on a final purpose. That is the way to be sure.

And once you have your purpose the importance of the number of followers fades a little. Your driving motivation is how well you are serving your followers with your purpose. Quality of content and experience is your top goal. In fact, when I planned 2022 for this podcast, I had individuals in mind and used them as avatars to represent everyone. And, as I am creating the content, I am, in my mind, helping them with their goals. It is effective to ask, “what is my purpose”. But I have found a deeper mission when I change the wording slightly and ask, how can I serve my followers best and make them successful. And, that is what drives me.  

Establish a Habit of Best Practices

So, there are a number of best practices that have arisen that will get you started with good habits. If you are just getting your feet under you with Instagram or are wanting to reset and go forward in a way that makes sense then here are the solid habits for long term success

Best Practices

• Post Consistently. A common question is how often should one post. The real answer is as often as you can post quality content. The more you post the more you will be shown to people and the more chances you will get to be noticed and followed. But posting four times a day does not help you if the content is weak. It is better to post quality content three times a week rather than let yourself get spread too thin and posting content that is struggling to be relevant multiple times a day just to get a certain number out. The best balance between quality and quantity is once per day. So, if you can produce good stuff every day then you have an effective schedule. You can always create the content ahead of time in a process called batching and then schedule it to go out. That saves on sanity. Now, can you post too much? The answer is no with the caveat that it must be high quality content. If every picture makes me yearn for adventure or feel like I have been given a gem to better my life you are welcome to be there every time I bring up Instagram. If your content gets stretched thin to allow you to post often then it will soon get annoying. You should post how ever often you can create content that effectively serves your purpose and is sustainable. You need to live life and it is not effective to post twice a day for one week and then burn out and take a week off. You need to be consistent. So the final answer to how often you should post is how often can you create valuable content and maintain a consistent posting schedule. And, remember, this includes batching content. If you can make 31 pieces of content over one weekend then you have your daily posting taken care of. Just release one per day.
• Use Hashtags and Keywords appropriately. Instagram is growing in sophistication as the time. Just look at the number of times a month the app is updated. Who knows what combination of keywords and hashtags are going to be used but the algorithm somehow still needs to know what your content is about. And here is where crafting your captions so that they are easily readable by humans, but contain the keywords the algorithm needs to see to know what the content is comes in to play. Select your hashtags so they either describe what is in your content or call out the type of person that would enjoy the content. Remember, the algorithm really likes and rewards a post where it uses your keywords and hashtags to put it in front of someone and that someone interacts and shares your post. So, make it easy for the algorithm to know who to put this in front of to get you interaction. And don’t try and fool the algorithm. You will be successful the first round, but the audience reaction will kill your chances of a second round of viewers. Don’t make the algorithm feel like it is doing a bad job. It gets its feelings hurt easily and we don’t want to see it cry. So, make it looks good and it will make you look good.
• Instagram has a bit of a feel like you are on stage performing. You post and watch for reaction. But this is social media. Get out there and interact with accounts. Respond to content you enjoy. Compliment those who was doing a good job. Add your insight on things you have an educated opinion on. And, I would like to impress on you to be genuine. If you listen to any Instagram gurus out there they always say to comment and post on other people’s accounts. They do this so much it is comical to see all the IG gurus posting on each other’s accounts as a check box item and trying to make it sound natural and not that they are trying to generate traffic from their post. Instagram doesn’t differentiate between forced and real comments so it will work to generate engagement, but it is miserable to keep up forced conversation and it is annoying to read. Try and find people in your community you genuinely appreciate and admire and be active on their account. And I am going to rant a little here. The most annoying thing is to read a self serving comment. You know those when you read them. It is where someone is posting to show off how much they know. It is offering you advice (to show they know more than you) or pointing something out you didn’t (to imply they are highly knowledgeable and they are just helping you out). Because community is a major theme here on this podcast I am going to challenge you to see what you can post that will uplift the account and make them look better. Be the expert that offers your clout to help them look good. Don’t correct them or add to their information. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what to say without correcting or making yourself look good. Just ask yourself what someone could say on your post that would give your followers more confidence in you or make you feel encouraged? Go onto someone else’s account with humility and good will. Leave the self-ego fluffing in the gutter outside.
• Learn the tools. You have to know how to work Instagram and what tools are used for what purpose. Some are for growth and some are for building community between your followers. It is wise to know both sides! This is a huge subject and not necessarily easy. Instagram is in a race against Tik Tok and is spew out new features every week or so it seems. There is no documentation that can give you the entire overview. And any Google search you better check the date and only read things around a month ago. So this is worth its own episode! But, in a nutshell, you have tools which are presented to non-followers and ones that are for followers. Your feed covers both. Your outreach tools are your main feed and reels. Your community development for followers are your main feed, stories, and guides. Guides are a lesser known feature, but I actually saw one posted to my feed as a suggested post so that indicates it may be growing in influence. And, I have to say, get used to things changing. We Instagram watchers are getting whiplash trying to keep track of the rapid fire of new features and developments. Included in your tools is a nice set of analytics which can tell you when to post and how effective your hashtag outreach is. It will tell you how many people like, comment, share, or save your posts and give you the information you need to know what your audience values.
• Get comfortable with video. I hate to say this. But you are going to have to get comfortable with video. Yes, you can have a successful Instagram account without doing a video, but you would be one of the species slated for extinction. Like it or not, the future is video. Even Instagram, the home of still image social media, is becoming a video sharing app. The head of Instagram has been quite clear on this and the analytics from my accounts confirm he was telling the truth. A video will be pushed much further than a still image.

Avoid Shortcuts

            But now we get to the caution area. Because Instagram accounts have been able to provide income, growing the account has become serious business. If you are an influencer, your income is directly tied to the number of followers and the engagement on your account. And so bumping up those numbers has generated some tactics that are not focused on creating quality content.

Buying Followers

The easiest way to bump up your followers is to simply buy them. There are companies that will sell you hundreds or thousands of followers. These accounts not only follow you, but they also interact with your account to make it look like these are true followers. This is because Instagram does not look kindly to falsifying the follower number and removes fake accounts when it finds them So the fake account factory is now offering full profiles and engagement as part of their service to fool Instagram into thinking this is a real follow. So, if you pay for premium followers which act like true followers to the point where neither your true followers or the Instagram algorithm can tell they are fake, then what is the downside. Sounds like these are too complex to be differentiated from real followers and so you’ll probably get away with it.

Well, at least in the short term. And it isn’t actually hard to tell who in the community is using these services. Some are getting away with it and some get their account taken down. So, will you get away with it? Maybe. But, keep in mind your purpose. What is that artificially inflated number doing for you? It is true that it makes you account look better and I fully admit there is benefit to looking successful. There always has. It makes more people want to join you. So, I get it. And I also understand how painfully slow your growth can be – especially in the beginning. And, yes, I know it doesn’t seem fair when someone posting less than you is shooting up in followers. And Instagram may or may not do anything about it. Yes, they do purges every now and then where everyone loses a certain percentage of followers that were determined to be bots or purchased followers. And, yes, some people lose their accounts over multiple shenanigans. But, it is hard to hold on to that when the follow buyers seem to be having no problem.

So, I’ll say this. Keep your eye on the purpose. Does having the dead weight and façade of a high follow count benefit you in any way? I know it feels good and you don’t like seeing accounts in your community do multiple levels better than you. But keep this in mind. First, although we human beings are highly competitive beings who turn everything in a mini war game, the fact is that you really aren’t competing for followers. Everyone can follow both of you. In fact, your competitor gathering them may make it more likely that the Instagram algorithm may show their new followers your content. So, I know it sounds like I am telling you to be good while the kid stealing extra donuts during lunch is happily stuffing his face. But if someone is buying a Ferrari with counterfeit money what would you do in answer to him driving around town showing off? Get your own counterfeit money and buy a Ferrari? I won’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. But this is a case where you decide what is important to you and serves your purpose. And then go in that direction without considering what anyone else is doing. If you have good content and are using the tools appropriately, then your community will gather around you.

Engagement Pods

You may or may not hear of something called an engagement pod or some name. It is where people get together and agree that they will follow, like, and comment on each other’s posts to create engagement signals. Unfortunately, the Instagram algorithm will read these signals and then send your content to others and expect the same level of engagement. If it doesn’t get it you will be training the algorithm that the members of your pod are the only ones that really like your content. While it may work if your posts catch on outside the pod, you are still investing time and energy into building up a façade and false signals. That is not a sustainable strategy. I’ll be spending my time on this podcast training you in the skills of organic reach so I am, obviously, going to leave this tactic alone.

Follow/unfollow

And finally, the follow/unfollow game. This is where you follow 1000 accounts one day and then unfollow then the next Statistically speaking, a certain percentage of those accounts will reflexively follow you. And they won’t know you unfollowed them. This was all the rage a while ago and continues on today. You will notice in your analytics there is a high level of unfollowing going on no matter what you do. There are even apps that will do this for you so a lot of people still do this. Once again, followers that are not there because they are aligned with your purpose are a façade. I know they are a very nice façade and it is fun having those numbers. But we are here for a purpose. Add to that that Instagram hate the follow/unfollow game and you can have your account removed if you engage in too many shenanigans. This is one of those shenanigans.

You will find that I am not going to predict doom and destruction if you take any of these shortcuts to growth. But they are shortcuts that have get-rich-quick elements to them. These will work for some people and they are designed to work short term. People using them will look like they are benefiting – at least in the short term. But I am not teaching overnight success. I am not promising quick results. I am promising solid skills, firm foundation, and long term consistent results. That is my niche and I know this will deliver what is good for the community!

Finally, Play and Have Fun

Having a well defined purpose should free you up a bit from worrying about how you are going to grow and when you will hit the big times. It should give you the perspective that you just have to take care of the audience you have already.

So how do I do that? I have my purpose…I understand best practices….I have learned the tools of Instagram…now, what is left is to have fun. That’s right. It is time to enjoy yourself and create. If you are constantly selling something people’s eyes will glaze over when they see your content coming. Have fun. Create content that makes people laugh, feel good, or learn something. Play and have some fun. Do you want to go to the party at the high end of town where everything there is designed to impress you or the group of friends around the corner for a night of laughing and talking?

Conclusion

I’ll start to wrap up this episode. Instagram is an incredibly complex beast. Luckily, it is easy to get started with. But once started, strategy can be confusing. So, we will work on it. I have dedicated the first quarter of 2022 to getting you a firm foundation on Instagram so just stick around and through podcast, YouTube, website, and yes, Instagram you will get a multi-facetted understanding of the rich social media platform.

And then in the second quarter we will add ecommerce. You can sell on Instagram and you can set up shop on other ecommerce platforms. And don’t worry if you don’t have a product, we are going to create a product too as part of the activities here.

And just to let you in on my overall direction. I wanted to methodically go through a structure that someone new could follow and piece together a complete business. Obviously, we all come to the table with different strengths, but by going through each step from start to finish anyone could look back on season two and reference the sections where they were weak and be able to put together a full business structure.

I have a friend who I haven’t talked to in a while, but he wanted to put together an apparel type business where he would sell specialty clothing. I am not sure whether he still wants to do that or even if he listens to this podcast. But I used him as my avatar. I designed 2022 as if I was helping him create that business that would be his own. That is why I care so much about each and every episode of this podcast. It is what drives my decision as to whether a message is best done as a podcast, on Instagram or as a Youtube video. Because this isn’t a job for me, it is personal. It is giving back in a way that others can find whatever combination of freedom and satisfaction they are missing. Each one of you out there has a dream which overlaps what we are doing here in some manner or form. Is 2022 the year you build that side business? Or is it the year where you get the idea that you could have a side business. Is it the year that your side business becomes your primary business? We will all have a story to tell by the end of 2022. And I would like to hear it. Join me every week across the various platforms. And build along side me where it fits in with your plan. It took me a little experimentation to work out how I wanted to do this outreach. But I think I have it now. And we are going to do great things over the next 12 months. I’d love to hear from each  of you as to what your plans are. But definitely plan on letting me know next December. I would love to have a listener achievement episode. 

In this last week of the year look around you at your family and appreciate what you have. I hope this brings you comfort, though I know that for some, this is not a pleasant thought. Whatever you situation is, I can only say I hope there is some comfort in knowing there are other people out there working on finding their way to building a life that makes sense and is meaningful. So, we have that in common. And, it should surprise no one that I have yet to accomplish my personal goals so I fully intend to report the substantial progress towards my goals at that end of 2022 episode! So, what are your goals. And what steps will you take to achieve those goals while making sure you keep hold of the relationships most important to you? Yeah, it is time to start making a list. And use me as a structure. If you are struggling  to figure out how to start, then how about this. Pretend it is December 2022. I have just announced that I would like all of you to send me your 2022 achievements so I can share with the listenership what we all accomplish. What would you like to be able to write to me? Literally write that email. Don’t send it. But write it. What would you like to be able to say you have accomplished? And then write down 10 things that need to be done to bridge where you are today and the situation that is in that email.  And then assign each month to those ten things, obviously, it doesn’t have to be a strict 30 days. But you see what I am getting at. You have a year. A lot can happen in a year if we hit the ground running with a plan and we take it one month at a time. If you are struggling with this exercise, but really want to make something happen then email me at bill@reptileentrepreneur.com and I can help. I won’t do it for you, but I can help break roadblocks and give you ideas from an objective stand point. I am pleasantly surprised at how quickly this podcast has grown, but it is still small enough that I can make that offer and have a reasonable chance of being able to give personal attention to anyone that actually emails!

So, is it time to sign off for 2021? I guess it is time to say goodbye to an enormously eventful year. My heart goes out to any of you that lost loved ones. And, if I can offer something from my personal life. You know how a constant theme on this podcast has been to cherish your families and, through all this entrepreneurial building to never lose sight of the ones we love and love us. We want them there to celebrate when we achieve our goals. We want the victory to be a group victory and that can only be done if we don’t forget to treat each relationship as special each and every day. I lost my father this last year. Although it wasn’t totally a surprise, it was unexpected for it to happen when it did. He was one of my greatest supporters and I feel a loss that he will not be able to see what I am building now. But because I made it a point to listen to that podcast guy who said to take care of loved ones and make sure they knew how important they were there was nothing left unsaid. He knew how much I loved him and I knew how much he loved me. I have a huge loss, but I am able to say I have no regrets. Make those calls. Say those I love yous. Keep those cups overflowing. We don’t know how much time we have, but we can decide to do something with that time. So write those December emails now and figure out what 2022 will mean for you. And make it happen so you can send me that email 12 months from now. And, if I can help, just let me know. I don’t think I am tired of my sign off yet. Maybe I’ll get another outro this year. We are going to go over podcasts in Q3. Maybe I can revamp the intro and outro then. But until then I want to thank you for being along this journey with me. I am loving doing this with all of you. Please, take care of yourself, take care of our reptile community, and I am excited to see what we can all build for ourselves and together.