Nothing says “weekend” like a good meme-induced panic attack across the internet! Changes are scary, especially for business owners, but changes also keep you on your toes and make you better at what you do!

Last week Instagram announced that they would be making changes to the feed in the next few months (note: nothing has changed yet despite the internet’s best effort to make you think otherwise). The recent panic urging users to “turn on notifications” is basically a meme gone viral, even though Instagram has not actually made any changes. Its more or less a rumor, and urging your followers to turn on notifications is likely to do more harm than good! Instagram has said that they will change the algorithm so that the posts you want to see will appear at the top of your feed…rather than the reverse chronological order it currently has. If you are a genuine, authentic business owner who has busted their butt to create an amazing community on Instagram, you can breathe easy and trust that Instagram’s changes shouldn’t negatively impact you, your following or your interaction!

If someone is already liking and commenting on your photos regularly, they should continue to see your posts in their feed. Perhaps even easier than before, when they might have had to dig for them or visit your profile directly to see what you’ve been up to. If you have 20,000 followers, your average post might get around 500 likes. Those 500 users who are engaged with your content are going to continue to be engaged, maybe even more than before!

Will there be people who are negatively impacted and hate the changes? Probably. But that person probably isn’t you. People who have “follower farmed” (mass followed to increase their numbers) or people who’s following is not organic or very engaged will likely have a hard time keeping their content in the “lime light” without putting in some extra effort.

We are keepin’ our cool and are advising our clients not to share anything about “turning on notifications.” This is important, because when a follower turns on notifications for your account, they will then receive a pop-up notification/alert on their phone every time you post. There’s a good chance that this is more likely to result in them unfollowing you down the road, when those notifications get annoying! So, avoid the urge to panic and share that “turn on notifications” post! Instead, here are a few things you can do now to keep your Instagram game strong:

1. Share content that is original and beautiful (or hire someone to create it for you, *hahem* we offer content creation services)!
2. Take the time to write a captivating caption and ask your audience questions. Their comments on your post will help increase interaction. (oh, we do that too)
3. Take the  time to respond to each comment on your post individually, rather than doing a reply all (i.e. “@PersonOne @PersonTwo @PersonThree Thank you all so much!”). (no time to moderate your feed? We, um, do that as well)
4. When responding to comments on your post, ask them an additional question to keep the interaction going (i.e. “@PersonOne We’re so happy to hear you love our balm! What’s your favorite way to use it in the summer?”)
5. Return the favor! Make time to like and comment on posts from your followers. It’s easy for business owners to just post content and forget about the other side of Instagram—which is to be a consumer of the content. Block out 30-minutes at least once per week and spend time commenting, liking, and interacting on posts from your followers, your community, and posts under your favorite hashtags. (yeah you guessed it, we can do community management for you, too!), This is not only a great way to increase interaction, but is also an authentic way to gain new followers.
6. Analyze your content! Take a long look at which of your posts have the most likes and which have the most comments. You can do this on your own or use a service such as SquareLovin to get great analytics about your account. This should help you decide what works and what doesn’t, so that you can make the most of your time and energy.
7. Host a contest! Ask users to comment on your post to enter for a chance to win. Doing this once every few weeks will help keep your audience engaged and help you measure who is seeing your content.

More than anything, the takeaway should be that if you continue to provide VALUE to your followers, they will keep on giving you love in return. We hope this clarifies some of the confusion surrounding Instagram’s updates and helps you develop a strong social strategy for your account moving forward. If you have questions about our services please visit our Contact Page or email hello@theinnerwild.com!