The Instagram Saga, Part 2 – BTS: My Approach To Content in 2024 After Losing My IG Account in 2023
Welcome to Part 2 of “The Instagram Saga” – a 2-part series on the Feminine Fire Podcast where I’m sharing my experience of losing my Instagram account last year (the night before a launch no less!).
If you haven’t already – go and give Part 1 a listen here.
And today I’m taking you behind the scenes of – what happens now? You’ll hear my plan for Instagram and my content strategy moving on from this.
So let’s get into it!
The decision of what to do next…
Last week I shared the full story with you of what happened that fateful night when I lost my account, right through all my attempts to get my account restored.
I left you at the point in the story where I felt I’d exhausted all avenues. I’d gotten to a place about 4 weeks in where I went – okay well, it looks like I may never get this account back, so what’s my plan from here?
And the first decision I had to make was whether I start fresh on an entirely new account OR continue to use my personal one as my business account moving forward.
One of the reasons I ummed and ahhed about this decision is because there is no clear STRATEGIC right or wrong move here.
On the one hand: some instagram gurus will tell you that the best strategy would be to start a new account because even though you’re starting from scratch, it’s easier for the algorithm to get to know who you are and therefore it will push your content out to the right people from the get-go and you’ll grow faster.
Compare that to using a personal account or another account where you’ve been posting all sorts of different unrelated content, the algorithm already has a sense of who you are, if you were to then start posting about your business, it supposedly confuses the algorithm and therefore won’t prioritise your content or push it out to the right people.
On the other hand: some might argue that the most strategic move is to use an account that’s already established because you’re not starting from scratch and building your audience from 0. Leverage what you’ve already got.
In the end, I made the decision to keep using my personal account and transition it over to be my business one moving forward.
There were a few reasons for this: I already had over 2000 followers on that account, my engagement had been quite good since I’d started using it for business in the interim and people had already started finding me there. So for me, it felt like the most strategic decision to make at this point in time.
So that’s how I landed on my new (but old but new) instagram account. If we’re not connected there yet, come and find me at @bec_cuzzillo.
Now on the other side of that decision – its feeling SO aligned and I’m feeling so excited about creating content, more than perhaps I’ve felt in a very long time.
What I’m doing to safeguard my content in the future…
So what, if anything, can you do to try and make sure this doesn’t happen to you?
Realistically – and I wish I could say something different here – I just don’t think there’s any guarantee that it won’t happen to you, no matter what you do.
I won’t sugarcoat it for you – there’s just simply no guarantee. Instagram holds the power here. This is why you don’t want to put all your eggs in the instagram basket. Diversify your marketing.
Now in saying that – there are some things that I’m doing that will hopefully (fingers crossed) reduce the risk and also safeguard my content moving forward.
Making it a regular habit to download my instagram data. One of the worst things about losing my instagram account was losing all that history of my business. Over 7 years of content that documented the development and evolution of my business journey. All gone. If I could get one thing back, it would be that. So I’m creating a process around downloading my data regularly.
Paying for meta verification. If you look at my Instagram account you’ll now see the little blue tick next to my name. In Australia it costs around $25 a month and in my opinion, it’s worth it. For me, I see the most valuable features being the account protection against impersonation and access to support from a REAL PERSON.
So those are the two things I’m doing to safeguard my account and my content. It’s not perfect and I know nothing for sure because the inner workings of Instagram remain a mystery.
But my hope is that this gives you some insight into what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, so you can reflect on what that might look like for you.
How I’m approaching content in 2024 as a result of losing my Instagram account
The silver lining in this whole experience is how it’s shaped my approach to content in 2024.
I’ve had a real desire for a little while now to freshen things up, inject some more oomph into my content and get a bit more personal, vulnerable and authentic. Coupled with having a new Instagram account, it has felt like there’s been a real uplevel in my content strategy this year.
The 2024 vibe: getting more personal, more authentic, more real, raw and vulnerable.
My word of 2024 is POWER so I’ve really been leaning into how I can be more brave with what I’m sharing in my content this year.
And I’ve really seen the whole “Instagram Saga” as a opportunity to rethink some of my content more broadly.
This looks like:
Giving my weekly email a bit of a revamp.
On Instagram – sharing more personal lifestyle content in addition to business content and injecting more of my personality into my content across the board
Reopening my Facebook Group to host my upcoming free 2-day challenge, Content for Scale – which I’m just so excited about.
Sign up for Content for Scale
If you know you need to LEVEL UP your content so that you can call in a bigger audience and sell out your group programs in 2024 – this challenge is for YOU.
Over 2 days I’ll teach you the practical content strategies that are delivering real results right now so that you can stand out and scale your spiritual business through group programs this year.
It’s all going down inside my Facebook group on the 20th and 21st of February. It’s completely free. So if you want to level up your content game this year – save your seat here
