Lucky you

As promised, I just tried to deactivate my Instagram account.

But they won’t let me leave.

Apparently you have to stick around for a week after reactivation.

It makes sense. While I’m sure it’s a profit-oriented policy, I can see how people might abuse the deactivation/reactivation cycle if there weren’t any preventative measures in place.

I’m ok with it.

So, you got me four more days.

Lucky you.

What should we do?

Oooh, I have an idea.

I’m going to experiment with different types of content to see if I can increase the abysmal distribution rate of my last couple of posts.

My first post upon return was great. It killed. 

The next few, however, did not perform so well.

If we’re to trust IG’s analytics, only 4-6% of my Followers even saw them come across their feed, let alone watched the videos.

Little annoying, but I can’t complain too much. What should I expect for free?

I did add quite a few subscribers over the last few days, but I had higher expectations.

It didn’t make sense.

That is, until I saw how few people actually saw my damn posts.

I could whine about it. I could claim that “IG iS SuPpReSsiNg mY TRuTh!!!”

But I’m sure it’s simply a math problem.

Meta/FB/IG is an advertising company. They’re not a “social media” company.

They sell advertising. A LOT of advertising.

With a lot of ad inventory to serve and not enough screen real estate to do it, it makes sense that our free content isn’t their priority — no matter how “valuable” we think it is.

That said, I don’t like not being in control of the relationship with the people who made their own decision to follow me.

It’s why I’ve always been so staunch about building an email list.

Followers are not an asset.

You don’t own the pipeline to access your followers. You’re borrowing it.

There’s a pesky “algorithm” that decides who sees what and when.

Your email list is an asset. You own your list. You can take it with you from one platform to another.

If you wanted, you can send the damn emails from your own machine.

While you can’t make people open them, at least you can be sure they’re getting delivered.*

Build your email list — not your “audience.”

* Assuming you have a solid reputation as an email sender. If you send a bunch of bullshit and too many people mark you as “spam,” you might find yourself relegated to the Junk folder.