Business is a numbers game: the more followers you have, the more eyes get to see your content & the higher your chances of booking a new client. It's that simple. But why is growing your following so hard then?
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When it comes to the question: "Is your follower count important?", there are two schools of thought on Instagram:
1) We have the "How I grew my followers to 10k in a week"- type of people, also known as the Instagram gurus.
2) The opposite school of thought preaches that followers aren't everything and that there are other metrics to focus on. They also suggest that it is really not that important to have a large following and that you can sell out your services even if you only have 100 followers.
I'm somewhere in the middle because I believe that your follower count does matter.
Let's paint a picture:
Have you ever seen a post that you liked on the explore page and you checked out the person's profile and you decided not to follow them because they had like 50 followers? I know I have. Would you have followed them if they had had 50,000 followers? Probably yes.
And here's why:
Having a higher following indicates to prospective followers that you do provide good content and that you are a trustworthy source of information. Why would so many people follow you otherwise, right? It's simple human herd psychology.
That being said, more followers obviously doesn't automatically mean an increase in sales!
BUT: the more eyes you get onto your content, the higher your chance to book more clients because business, in its essence, is a number game.
If you have ever launched something, you know exactly what I mean. If you have 10 people on your waitlist, in the end, you won't make 10 sales. If you have 100 people on your email list, you won't have 100 people open your email. That's just how it is.
It's exactly the same with Instagram: if you have 100 followers and you have a booking rate of 10% for your discovery calls, then you'll have 10 discovery calls. But now, if you have 1000 followers and a 10% booking rate, then you're gonna have 100 discovery calls.
We now know why it is so important to grow your following. Let's talk about what's keeping you from doing that:
1) You don't have a clear idea of your ideal client:
A lot of people think that they know their target audience really well. I'm sorry to break it to you but knowing that your target audience are females in their 30s who live in Australia and have two kids is not knowing your target audience.
Those are just the basic demographics - you really have to go deeper than that!
Think of:
Their struggles & problems
Their goals
Why they aren't achieving these goals
What they need to hear from you to make a decision
2) You don't have an optimised profile:
If you don't have a clear idea of who your ideal client is, you won't be able to optimise your profile for them. Even if you are really good at attracting people to your page, they won't follow if they don't clearly see what you are about. If it's really clear who you want to attract and who you are for, it's much easier for people to follow than if it's all over the place.
3) You have no idea what to post:
Every single week, you're sitting there in front of your computer or your phone and you're thinking: "OK, what should I post this time? Should I talk about my blog post? Should I talk about the latest offer that I have? Or maybe I should talk about my kids doing homework?"
You don't know what kind of content converts people from viewers into followers (and eventually into clients) and that is keeping you from gaining more followers.
4) You don't reach out yourself:
Collaborations:
Anything like going live together on Instagram or on Facebook, doing a podcast episode together, making a post together, or maybe even a webinar or a series of posts on IGTV.
I'm a big fan of "community over competition" because I think it's so much better to work together as a community than to compete with each other. We can learn so much from each other and, in the end, there are enough clients for everyone.
Collaborating with others is a great way to share both of your audience with each other and have people discover you and also the other person via your content. It doesn't have to be huge accounts - it can be your Instagram bestie or maybe someone that you're in contact with often or someone that has a similar audience. Have a look, send them a message & see if they're open to collaborating!
Engagement:
Engagement is not my most favorite task either but I do it anyways because, first of all, I like to discover new people on the app and secondly, I really love to see what my community is up to! It's also a great way to discover new trends to find out about the needs of your audience and to get a better feeling of what's out.
In my new coaching program that is launching soon, we will focus on defining your ideal client beyond the basic demographics. Sounds like something for you? Register for the waitlist here.
Talk soon,
Hanna