The Impact of Instagram's Paid Verification on Social Strategies | E232

I'm lifting the veil on a potentially game-changing shift in the social media landscape: Instagram's experimentation with paid verification tiers. If you're an entrepreneur or an avid social media user, you're likely pondering how such a move could alter the very fabric of online engagement. Tune in to the latest Mindset & Action podcast episode, where I dissect this development's possible repercussions on organic reach and the core principles that have long-defined platforms like Instagram. Beyond my own contemplations of parting ways with the photo-sharing giant, I delve into the broader implications for strategic social media use, the underestimated might of Facebook groups, and why LinkedIn might just be the new go-to for B2B connections.

The digital world can be as unpredictable as the weather, and having an exit strategy is more important than ever. In this episode, we touch on the topic of safeguarding your community against the tempestuous seas of social media's changing tides. Discover why nurturing an email list could be your life raft, and why diversifying with tools like podcasting can anchor your connection to your audience.  Whether you're seeking a fresh approach to reach your community or simply intrigued by the evolving digital sphere, this conversation is tailored to help you stay afloat and thrive.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:40

You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast, the place to be to grow and streamline your business. I'm your host, donna Eade. Let's jump into the show. It's okay to have all your eggs in one basket, as long as you control what happens to that basket. Elon Musk, Welcome back to the podcast. Everybody, I am so glad to have you here today for this episode because we've got a conversation to have and I'm not sure whether it's going to actually come to fruition or not, but I could see it being likely and we need to talk about it, so let's jump in.

Speaker 1: 1:24

So many of you may have heard the rumor mill last week where people were talking about the fact that Instagram are testing payment levels on their verified status and that these payment levels are going to offer you more benefits, perks and opportunities within the Instagram platform. And what does this mean for me and you? Well, I'm not verified on Instagram. I don't feel the need to pay for verification. I'm not a celebrity who's likely to be cloned. Yes, there is a potential that somebody might clone me. You know, we've had that on Instagram, where people have be cloned. Yes, there is a potential that somebody might clone me. You know, we've had that on Instagram, where people have been cloned and have tried to get accounts taken down that are pretending to be them, etc. And it can be very difficult and the verified status is supposed to help that. However, for me, social media has always been a free platform to use for its users and I don't like the idea of having to pay for it, especially when we're having to see adverts. So adverts are on the platform, they're playing for the platforms. They're giving Facebook all the money that they need to be able to run. And you know, with Mark Zuckerberg building a massive house in Hawaii with a great big underground bunker and all this that I've heard of, you know, I don't think he needs the extra money, so it just seems like a cash grab to me and I don't like that. So I'm not sure of all the rules and regulations.

Speaker 1: 3:04

I did try to do a little bit of research before I jumped on this episode to kind of see if I could look at what the different levels are going to get you. Now, jules, on social media, I will link her in the show notes if you want to go and follow her. She did a reel about it and she was talking about how you know and follow her. She did a reel about it and she was talking about how you know, the higher up the tiers you go, the more links you can get on Instagram and she was talking about links in reels, which is something that I've not heard of before. So you know, there's potential to get more links, potential for you to be pushed out further. So basically that you will suddenly be a top priority for Instagram in their algorithm, above everybody else, which basically means that anybody who is not paying gets pushed to the bottom of the list, which means for you and me, who are just trying to run our businesses and are just trying to get to our clients, who are out there just wanting us to find them, it's very, very difficult. So it's already very difficult. We already know that a very small percentage of our followers see our stuff on social media, and so what does this mean in the big scheme of things? And what it says to me is that we really need to look at being very strategic with what we're doing with our social media currency, how we're spending our time on social media and how we actually look at attracting our potential clients and what that looks like.

Speaker 1: 4:43

So I have spoken before about how I literally did an episode a little while ago and I'll link it in the show notes I can't remember the number off the top of my head about me breaking up with Instagram, and then I said how I suddenly started to see a little bit more traction on it. So I was like, oh, should I give it up or shouldn't I give it up? And I am still on there because I like the platform. You know, I like engaging with Instagram, I like the images, I like the people I follow over there. My feed is always full of beautiful images and funny videos and I really enjoy my time over on Instagram. So I haven't really broken up with it as much as I had hoped I was going to break up with it. However, in light of this, if this comes to fruition, I will definitely be culling my Instagram connection for sure.

Speaker 1: 5:39

So, in light of this, I am very much looking at my intentionality around my social media and what I'm posting where and what that's doing for me and if I want to continue it. But also, in light of this, do I want to be putting my effort into Instagram if there is going to come a point where people are paying for views and likes through Instagram, pushing them further and higher in the feed than me, therefore reducing my reach. And the answer is no. I don't want to be on a platform that's going to do that. So, again, we need to be very strategic and very intentional with the time that we're putting into our social media. So, for me, I am very much moving towards LinkedIn being my main platform.

Speaker 1: 6:37

I really like LinkedIn, the simplicity and the calmness of LinkedIn, and I've heard a lot of people in the business space talking about how they're actually hanging out more on LinkedIn now. So I think it is becoming that hub for business owners. So if you are a B2B person, I think LinkedIn is a great place for you to be, to hang out and get to know business owners, because I think more business owners are leaning in to LinkedIn as a platform that they're spending time on. If you are a B2C, then it's slightly different and for me and I'm not B2C, I'm more B2B, but if I'm looking at what's working and what seems to be drawing more attention, I would say for B2C, being in Facebook groups is much more likely to yield results for you over Instagram, and it makes me sad to think that Instagram is going to do this and they're testing it, so it may not come to anything, but if they do, I think they will see a big drop off of the people who are not willing to pay, just basically not interacting on the site anymore, because it's a waste of our time as business owners to spend our time there, if that's going to happen.

Speaker 1: 8:01

So I have a private not private, but a personal account on Instagram. I have my business account on Instagram, so I'll probably feed into my personal account a little bit more to see what's going on over there Because, like I say, I enjoy the platform, but I doubt I'm going to be uploading on there very often, if at all, especially for my business, because it's just not going to be worth it to me. So you need to really sort of sit down and work out what it is that you want from your social medias and how it is that you are integrating them into your business. Is it something you're doing because you just enjoy doing it? Is it something you're doing because you're getting a result from it? So you need to really sit down and analyse the social media platforms that you're on, and I'm somebody who loves the data, so for me, I actually keep a log and I'm going to pull it up now while I'm speaking to you.

Speaker 1: 9:01

But I actually keep stats of my social media. So I will go over to my social media plan, pull that up and I have got stats on my followers and I can see that from May last year to May this year. Well, obviously we're in May, so I'm not quite at the end of the year. I suppose I am. Yeah, so my followers have gone from 1,300. So at the end of May it was 1,399. And I'm now at 1,500. So I've basically grown by 100 followers in a year. Is that a great use of my time? I'm not sure it really is. And obviously our followers aren't even the ones that are getting pushed our stuff. Most of the time it's kind of just going out on an algorithmic basis. So therefore, some of your followers may see it, maybe they don't, but, looking at it, I have seen growth on there in regard to the accounts reached, but it's sporadic. So, for example, back in January I had accounts reach 1500. Then it dropped down to 500 and 800 in the following two months.

Speaker 1: 10:18

Yet I keep a note of my content. I keep a note of my content. So if I slide over I can see that when I had that 1500, I put out eight posts, I put out 132 stories, 11 reels and I didn't do any lives. So that was the 1500. Then it dropped down to 500 and I put out six posts, so two less posts. I did 77 stories, so my stories dropped quite dramatically and then seven reels. Okay, so my reels dropped by three over the course of a month but it dropped me down over a thousand accounts being reached. And then last month I actually had an ad running. So I've got an ad running to one of my podcast episodes. So there is some that's coming from ads.

Speaker 1: 11:14

So content I have got the breakdown for my content interactions. I got 6.7% from ads of 163. So my content interactions were 163 and I got 6.7% of that from ads. So ads only formed a small part of the content interactions. The accounts reached is probably that high because of the ads. So of the accounts reached, the ad accounts were probably a lot higher. But I did 84 stories, so still low on the stories compared to that first month. Six posts and 16 reels. So I did four extra reels, five extra reels, sorry to that first number that we were speaking about. Yeah, I doubled. So just by paying for ads and these ads are like I'm spending one or two pounds a day on this ad I have doubled more than doubled my accounts reached.

Speaker 1: 12:12

It has increased it's not really increased my content interaction at all, because if I look back at that first month, I was talking about 1500, I got 160 content interactions and this last month I got 163. So I only got three more interactions and 6.7% of those came from ads. So actually my content interactions, if you take the ads off, was even less and I did 16 reels, you know. So it's it's all a bit of much of a muchness. I'm not seeing any particular spikes, any particular patterns in you know what I'm doing and I'm certainly not getting the engagement that I feel the content that I'm putting out there deserves in respect of the amount of time it's taking me and the quality of the content that I produce. So to me it's like is that really where I want to be spending my time? So, just to give you an alternate view, on LinkedIn, for example. So if I look back at my December on LinkedIn and of course December is a slow month because we're shutting down for Christmas. So there's a lot less stuff happening on there. So let's not choose that one.

Speaker 1: 13:28

Let's go for January. January I had 3,554 impressions. That was up by 66% on the previous numbers. I got 216 engagement, which was up 55%, and I got an audience of 1,400, which was up again 107% searches in the last 90 days and 38 in the previous week. So those were my stats for January. Then in April my stats were 4,453 impressions, so that was almost a thousand more impressions. That month. I got 393 engagements, so that's 180 something. 170 something extra engagements. My audience was up by over 100. My search results almost 100 more search results in the previous 90 days and the previous searches in the previous week were 38 as well. So same on that.

Speaker 1: 14:43

I started a newsletter in February and in February I got 168 subscribers and it's now at 233 subscribers. So I have gained 233 people onto my newsletter subscription in three months and that's more than the subscribers I got to my Instagram account in the last year double in fact. So to me this sounds much more appealing and much more likely to have an effect for me. So those are just some of the stats that I kind of look at and I keep them on a monthly basis. I'm also keeping an eye on my Instagram not my Instagram, sorry my Pinterest stats. So that's something. I'm going to come back and do an episode on Pinterest at a later date when I've got more data to share with you and to just really explain how I'm using it and how it's working for me. So, good or bad, I will come back in a few months with that information for you. But yeah, I just really wanted to draw your attention to this potential change in Instagram and again draw you back to your strategy and how you are actually attracting your clients into your business. I would much rather have something that I owned, like a podcast or a blog that is mine, that I can have control over the distribution of it, and then use things like Pinterest, which is a search engine, to promote that and use social media as a tool to promote those things that I own, rather than building these large communities on your social media accounts.

Speaker 1: 16:38

A little bit different with Facebook groups, because obviously that is a group, but at the end of the day, you know Instagram is part of meta. They could they could change things in an instant and suddenly groups won't work either. So it's just really important to sort of have your exit strategy in place. Like you know, if Facebook was to just change its rules and all of a sudden, if you have a group, you need to pay to host that group, or something of the like, how would you get your members out of there and where would you take them? So, for example, I have a really good friend of mine who has a wonderful Facebook group and a little while ago she requested everybody's email address and it's a small group and she pretty much knows everybody in person, like either to have had a Zoom conversation with them or somebody in the group who she does know knows them and that's why they're in the group. So it's a very tight-knit community.

Speaker 1: 17:37

So her putting that out was a little less maybe abrasive than it might be if it came into a group that had like 5,000 people and the host of that group came in and asked for it, because you might not even really know the host of the group very well, but she just said, look, you know she'd had an issue with her Instagram account had been hacked and she was struggling with getting that back and there were some things with Facebook and she was just like look, if, if this group ever disappears for any reason or you know, I get hacked and I can't get back in, I want to be able to connect with you. So please let me have your email address and so we signed up for her weekly email so that she has that as a backup if anything went wrong and she has that, that exit strategy in place. I think it's really important to have that when it is a platform that you don't own. So, for me, when people come into my group, I ask them if they would like to get notifications of my podcast and they can drop their email in there and then they go on my list and then I will send them the weekly email. But if the group disappeared for any reason, I've got most of the people in there's email addresses and obviously they don't have to give me their email address to get into the group the group but it's my safeguard against Facebook doing what Facebook can do, which is basically what it likes because they own the platform.

Speaker 1: 19:03

So I really wanted to bring this to your attention, if you haven't heard of it. What do you think about it? What are your feelings on it? Do you use Instagram a lot in your business? Do you use other social media platforms? You know, is this going to be something that there is then put out into the other social. You know they own Facebook, so is it going to be something that comes over to Facebook as well, with this tiered system? So you know there's lots of unknowns at the moment when it comes to it, but I really wanted to kind of draw this to your attention, if you haven't been aware of it, and ask you to think about your exit strategy from social media in case anything like this does happen. And you know you don't want to be shouting in the wind and not being heard, and I think a lot of us feel that way already on meta platforms that you're sort of shouting and not getting heard.

Speaker 1: 19:58

So what is the answer To me? The answer is this podcast and it's my email list and it's my website, my website. I have a community there that I can grow if I need to. It's harder because everybody's obviously used to Facebook and Facebook groups and they're all logged in on Facebook on their phone, so it's really easy to get in on Facebook. So when you look at making a group outside of Facebook, there's got to be a really big pull for somebody to want to go and log in there. So, but if Facebook ever disappears, then obviously people might be a bit more willing to go elsewhere. But I have those exit strategies there and I am implementing them.

Speaker 1: 20:39

So I'm trying to move away from consistently posting on social media when it's not doing me any good. So I love popping in Instagram stories, I love listening to Instagram stories, but if I'm not getting the engagement, not getting the reactions, not getting the feedback from people, then it does seem to be like why are you wasting your time? There's an old saying how long are you going to flog a dead horse? And we don't want to be flogging dead horses over here. So that is it for me today. I just wanted to bring that to your attention, get you to start thinking about it, and if you are interested in getting a podcast started as part of your exit strategy, then reach out to me.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Donnaedecom is where you'll find all the information. You can connect with me in there, you can go to the contact page and you can book a call with me if you want to have a discussion about it. I offer VIP strategy days for people who want to kind of just lay out all the strategic elements of podcasting, what it would look like, what they would talk about, how they would get it going, when it would go up, all of that jazz. We can spend a day together and get that sorted for you, that sorted for you, or you can sign up to be a VIP client with me and I can help you start your podcast from scratch, from creation to publication. So if you are interested in that, then head over to my website and you can see everything that I do over there. And that is it for me this week.

Speaker 1: 22:11

Join me next week where I'm going to be joined by another Donna. Can you believe it? Two Donnas on the show next week. So come and join me where I'm going to be speaking to Donna and we're going to be talking all about business, sort of the back end systems, how we kind of it's a productivity episode. So how do we manage our time? How do we look at what we need to be doing and what we shouldn't be doing? You know, do we need a VA? How do we look at what we need to be doing and what we shouldn't be doing? You know? Do we need a VA? Don't we need a VA, what can we do to make our business more successful? And we're going to be talking all about that next Thursday and she's with me on Monday for a mini Mindset Monday where we're going to be talking about the biggest mindset block she's had to deal with in her business. So come and join us next week on the podcast and until then I will say goodbye, see you next time. Bye for now.