There’s nothing cooler than opening up your email to a total “pinch me” opportunity.
That happened to me a few weeks ago when I was invited to an event with Net-A-Porter at Instagram HQ. I mean, every digital content creator’s dream, right?! We heard from digital powerhouses, Nicole of Gary Pepper Girl and Gala of Amlul, and then Eva Chen and team came to chat about the app that truly changed the influencer space: Instagram.
On competition…
One of the biggest takeaways from this event was that every single speaker talked about collaborating with other content creators. I thought this point was really interesting considering these women don’t necessarily need anyone to grow their followings. From Eva’s perspective, she said all content creators are unicorns…and nothing is better than a lot of unicorns.
Why shouldn’t we collaborate with other like-minded creators? There’s strength in numbers, especially in this relatively new space.
On your following…
Eva’s team chatted about what makes someone follow an account and I thought it was pretty interesting. First, there’s 4 reasons why people follow an account:
- To be entertained
- To get information
- To be educated
- To get inspired
When I think about the accounts I follow it’s absolutely a mix of all of those. I also thought it was super interesting to hear their thoughts on getting your followers attached to you. This was kind of tough to hear because my Instagram feed is much less “in the moment” and way more “curated”. If I don’t have anything curated, I just simply won’t post. From their side of things, they feel the more personal things resonate more with your audience. While I think I do a good job of showing my personality on Instagram, I don’t think I do enough of the “in the moment” thing. It got me thinking that I should do more of this because it worked so well on my blog.
On the grid…
If you’re like me, you have a specific strategy when you post to Instagram. Well, the Instagram team doesn’t think a pretty grid is necessary. This was probably one of the most thought-provoking takeaways for me because I have a specific way of posting: One “filler” photo for every full body/outfit post. And if we’re being honest, it’s actually really stressful. Way more stressful than it should be. One of the ladies said to take a look at your insights and see JUST how many hits you’re getting from profile visits.
On the algorithm…
All of the conspiracy theories about the algorithm NEED.TO.STOP. I think most creators are just looking for ways to compensate for their posts not performing well. The algorithm is meant to help people who are constantly putting out content. Since we are following more people and the platform is growing (there’s over 1 billion users), it’s nearly impossible to go through and see EVERYONE who you follow. There’s over 500 “signals” that the engineers look at when determining what posts will be shown to your audience.
On protecting your account…
I’ve recently have noticed A LOT of influencers talking about their Instagram accounts getting hacked. This is honestly SO scary, and I’ve seen some girls actually PAYING hackers to get their accounts back. I recently received an email about a “brand” wanting to collaborate with me. There was a link to their “Instagram” account that I could click to see more about their collaborations. Like an idiot, I clicked the link. LUCKILY I noticed I was asked to sign into Instagram. I was on my laptop, and had JUST been on Instagram on it…so I thought it was weird that I was being asked to sign in. I looked at the address bar and BAM…it was a weird domain from Russia. I panicked anyway, even though I didn’t enter any information, and changed ALL of my passwords. I was SO DAMN CLOSE to being hacked. Lesson learned.
Trust me, the Instagram team is aware of this and I wanted to share these tips:
- 2-step authentication is a MUST
- If you do get hacked, or think you might be, change both your Instagram AND Facebook passwords
- Never click and/or respond to any email from Instagram if it seems weird (i.e. trying to unlock your account or telling you that you’ve been verified)
Overall, getting to go to Instagram HQ and sit in a room with major boss babes and EVA CHEN HERSELF, was an absolute dream. It was so informational, so inspiring, and so motivating. I’m taking Eva’s advice, and sharing what I learned from yesterday because I want all of you to learn and be able to put these practices to use!
