On Instagram, they drive by. Here is how to make them come back.

 

 

 

I also gained a hundred and fifty. Net negative. And I am not pretending that I didn't get a rush of OMG, this could be fatal.

But I kept reminding myself that Instagram is a freeway. People drive by at eighty miles an hour. If your sign isn't clear, they don't stop. And even if they do slow down, they do not automatically remember you next week.

Does that mean my content is failing? Or is that just how the platform works?

The question is not how to stop losing followers. The question is how to make the people who do stop actually find their way back to you.

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This week on Instagram, I’ve been talking a lot about the link in your bio. I like to think of it as the exit ramp from the freeway to your house.

You can have the most beautiful post. The most vulnerable reel. The most specific caption about exactly who you serve and exactly what you do. And if there is nowhere for someone to go afterward, you are just waving from the roadside.

Instagram is free. That is its value and its limitation. It is a free way for people to encounter you. (like my little pun? ;) But encounter is not relationship. Encounter is not trust. And trust is what actually fills a twelve-week Residency.

 

How I think about Instagram, email, and podcast as three different rooms in the same house. What it means to build an exit ramp to your front door. And why the more of yourself you let people see, the more aligned they are when they finally knock.