My 30-day Instagram Challenge: day 15

Day 15 — aka hump day (lol keep your mind out of the gutter please).

It’s no secret that I and many others out there struggle with Instagram. It’s like flinging mud at a wall and seeing what sticks (I’m sure many Instagram masters would gasp in horror at that, but honestly that’s what it feels like!).

I am on a 30-day Instagram challenge to grow my audience and promote my food photography and writing business. So far, the experience has been brutal! Why? Let me tell you!

New to my challenge? My previous updates are here:

Find out what the challenge involves

The first 5 days

10 days in

A post of a berry choux pastry I uploaded on Instagram (credit: author’s own)

Now I’m at the half-way point, what have I learned so far?

Here are my top 10 lessons from this challenge:

1. Well, the challenge works, as in my followers have grown in number, hurrah! — however, I’ve reached and engaged with 16.15% less accounts. Make it make sense…
2. As a naturally introverted person, there have been SO MANY TIMES I wanted to give up, but this challenge has really helped with my determination to just… keep… going.
3. Instagram appears to be in Pacific Daylight Time, so when I posted at 11:30am in France, it was 2:30am according to my Instagram insights. This post received low reach and engagement. Could that be why?
4. We love to lose ourselves in other people’s lives — tell a story, no matter how boring, and you have an engaged audience (here is the perfect example).
5. A trick to gain traction for a post that worked beautifully: put a poll in your stories with ‘do you like X?’ In the next slide, link to the post about X with a caption ‘if you voted yes, you need to read this’ — it’s cheeky, in a way I’m annoyed how cheeky it is.
6. Sunday mornings and Monday evenings are prime times for Instagram stories.
7. Going off my topic — my niche is food — doesn’t work for me. When I’ve posted about books in my stories, there’s been no engagement. However, when I show photos/videos of my life in France and funny things about the French, I receive a lot more DMs.
8. Like for like, comment for comment is redundant to growth — however, a supportive community is essential for a healthy positive attitude.
9. You have to invest HOURS each day to see results.
10. My goal is to encourage people to visit my website for recipes, food writing and photography. To be completely candid: so far, there has been no increase in visitors! I need to keep my target market in mind with every post. Links on my profile and in stories evidently work but the thing to actually ENTICE people to click still ain’t there.

A photo I posted on Instagram (credit: author’s own)

Goals for the next 15 days:

• Tag people in my community more — support is important
• Keep watching tutorials for tips
• Respond to comments within the first hour
• Keep it sexy — what can I show that will keep people on my profile?

Join me on this Instagram journey and learn how to promote yourself and your business in 30 days!