Consistency is Key to Growth!

I told myself this year I wanted to grow on my social media platforms as a Blogger and Influencer. I know everyone thinks the word Influencer is such an eye roll but let's be clear, if you have ever had someone purchase something or change a habit because of what you said on your social media platform, you my friend are an influencer! 

I have been following lifestyle influencer Mattie James on IG for a while and love the content she puts out as well as the many gems she drops on how to get your influencer life together! When she announced the Consistency Challenge in April I said to myself  “Aight Bet...I am gonna rock this!”   The challenge was to post every day in the month of May for 31 days! I am proud to say I only missed one day. It was not easy but I was prepared for it and focused on these 3 things.   

Scheduling is everything!

We have all heard the saying if you fail to plan then you are planning to fail. I mapped out at the beginning of each week what photos I was going to post. That did not just mean pick a random photo. It meant taking the time to make sure it matched the esthetic of my page and edit it as well! I do know people that when mapping out their content for the week or month ahead will also write out all of their captions.  I tried and it did not feel genuine to me.  There was no way I could write “I am feeling like a million bucks today” while thousands of people were protesting for George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery.   I had to write what I felt and let people know my feelings.  

Having a loose schedule each week worked for me.  Being sure I had created enough content and taken enough photos really paid off.  Luckily I knew I was going to announce my pregnancy on Mother's Day so I had a library of photos from the past few months to create enough content for the month.  

Know your audience!

My IG page is pretty much me Pole Dancing or in a thong bikini on a beach somewhere. I was super nervous to shift on my audience and start posting myself pregnant. I have heard several pole dancers say they lost hundreds, even thousands of followers when they became pregnant. <Which is so messed up btw.>  I had a small freak out that this would happen to me but It didn't. I always do my best to keep it real with my post and never feed you guys fluff, because you would see right through me!  I also learned 90% of my audience are NOT pole dancers! Most of you are millennial women figuring out life just like me! You are moms, entrepreneurs, bosses, essential workers, fitness lovers, bloggers and everything else in between! Getting a sense of your audience helps with your growth and knowing what to post. If a post of you cooking gets high engagement and tons of likes versus a post of you on the beach...its a sign your audience wants to see you in the kitchen more!  83% of my audience is women and I love it! Most men don’t care when I talk about deep conditioning, plants and breastfeeding but my 83% Gang of Gals do! To the 17% of men following me, Love y’all too!

Consistency,  Engagement & Hashtags

From May 1st  to May 31st I gained over 600 followers! Consistency really does work.  The Instagram algorithm pays attention when you are consistent and will honor you for it.  If you are trying to grow your following and posting once a month, my dear friend, you will not grow.  Be consistent with what you can manage.  I probably will not continue posting every day because it isn't realistic for me but I will be posting 4-5 days a week moving forward.  If you can manage posting twice a week, then that is your consistency pace!  It is where you feel comfortable.  

Yes, it is amazing that I gained followers but what helped my growth was my engagement with my audience. Whenever someone took the time to comment on my photos or DM me, I replied! Don’t be a jerk and not reply when someone says something on your page. Like..for real. The more engagement on your page, the more people will see your post, the more likes, the more followers and so on! 

Hashtags really work! I took time to make different hashtag groups in my notes on my phone so they were ready to go whenever I posted.  I didn’t go overboard and use 30 hashtags because I wanted to see which ones were actually driving traffic to my page. I kept it to 10-15 for each post.  If you have less followers (Under 50k) using a hashtag like #love that has been used millions of times will not be useful for your engagement because chances are your post will get lost in the abyss of the millions of people using that same hashtag.  Search hashtags that have been used under 100k or even under 50K times when typing them in because your post is more likely to be seen.  

I am so glad I participated in the challenge. I learned a lot this month and am now better equip to drive traffic to my page. If you are looking to grow, challenge yourself to start posting more consistently. Hope this helps! Thanks for reading fam!