6 Things to stop doing on instagram
If you're currently growing your fitness brand, then it's super important to keep it looking sharp on your social media! 🔪
With that in mind, there are some things that you must STOP doing on your Instagram, as they may be preventing your growth (and the growth of your brand).
Here are my top 6 things to stop doing 🚫
1. trying to have a “perfect feed”
In the words of Gary V: “Stop treating your IG Grid like a f…… art gallery”!
Yes, an aesthetic-looking feed is important, but it shouldn’t be your main focus! Perfectionism is a killer and an illusion, which will slow you down and hinder your overall progress.
So instead of trying to have a perfect Instagram feed, concentrate your efforts on ensuring each post you produce from now on is of the highest quality possible. Focus on one post at a time, and worry less about ensuring that it matches with the other posts sitting alongside it!
Trying to ensure your feed remains perfect can lead to stress and procrastination, and it will be a roadblock to your growth and achievement in the long run.
2. Rushing your content creation
Don’t rush creating your posts; it’s better to skip a day and not post instead of rushing and posting something mediocre just for the sake of it. You need to be in this for the long game - you simply can’t rush good content!
The best content (regardless of the type) should go through a creative process of organising your ideas and finding the right things to include. Any time you sit down to produce a new piece of content, you can use the steps below.
You won’t always work through them in order, and sometimes you’ll jump back and forth between steps. But the best content has usually gone through all six:
Select your topic/idea
Research
Organise
Write
Cool Off
Edit
If you want to develop your brand and get recognition in the fitness industry, you must ensure each post ‘serves’ your audience and adds value to them. So take your time with each post you create, and don’t rush the process.👊🏻
3. Buying followers, joining engagement groups or using bots
You can’t buy your way into forming a genuine connection with your audience. This will only bring in the wrong type of followers (which you don’t want) because they will simply not engage with your content!
Buying followers will also make your engagement rate drop, resulting in Instagram showing your stuff to less people. So of your following and likes are powered by bots, you are preventing real people from seeing your posts!
Growing a real following (that converts to customers) requires actual work that will pay off. It’s much more important to have a good-quality following of real people who are true fans of your content, as they will be more likely to become your customers later down the line.
4. Targeting too many things at once
As you grow your brand, you’ll want your audience to see you as a leader in your field. You want to make the best impression!
This is why it’s better to focus on one thing when spreading your message on social media. You're diluting your message if you are targeting and speaking about too many things.
5. Selling / promoting your services too early
The key to selling on social media is developing a relationship with your audience first. They need to know that you are committed to them in showing up daily and providing value. They need to know, like, and trust you before they share their credit card information!
Promoting yourself and your services too early will not work well, as your audience will pick up on this and will ‘tune out’.
Remember that people are on social media for them. And promoting and selling your stuff is about you. So make your content about them! Help your audience and answer their biggest questions, and help them for free before you sell to them
This way, they will get to know you better, like you more, and trust you more. And forming the ‘like & trust’ factor is key before you start selling anything to your audience.
Always remember that (a) the content you want to post and (b) the content that your audience want to see are quite different:
a) The content that you want to post is:
👉🏻 Sharing informational / educational content
👉🏻 Things about you & your journey
👉🏻 Promoting your services, features, showcasing testimonials & results
b) The content that your audience want to see is:
✅ Free stuff / resources
✅ Fun and trending topics that entertain
✅ Tips & hacks that help them
✅ Easy ‘how to’ posts
So the best thing to do is to find a balance between the two (a & b), and focus on helping your audience above anything else first.
6. Having the imposter syndrome
The ‘imposter syndrome’ and self-limiting beliefs are normal to have, especially when you put yourself and your content out there on a regular basis.
However, you need to overcome your fears and thoughts that you’re not good enough or worthy of spreading your message. You can’t let other people’s judgement stop you from sharing your wisdom and story.
Don’t let negative thoughts and self-talk hold you back, you’ve got something worth sharing and your audience will love to see this (even if they don’t always engage).
So learn to ‘unlearn’ whatever holds you back, and switch any self-limiting beliefs for new empowering beliefs instead. You owe it to yourself and your audience. Believe in yourself!
I hope you found this helpful! 🙌🏻