On Instagram and borrowed audiences

It’s no secret that life on Instagram is pretty tough at the minute. Tried and tested posting strategies just aren’t working as they used to. And even when you do jump through all the hoops that Instagram seemingly requires of you - hello Reels - you still are left with engagement stats that make a ghost town looks positively vibrant.

There’s no doubt that Instagram is going through a midlife crisis and seems to have forgotten what it wants to be. In it’s quest to be like the other cool platforms it has ended up like someones Dad at a hipster party, slightly awkward and out of place. Desperate to be relevant in a room full of indifference.

Hopefully it will sort itself out soon and until then we just keep plodding on, trying to connect with our audience and to catch up with the people that we have come to enjoy hanging out with there.

I have seen a lot of weeping and wailing though from some quite big accounts. Obviously people’s businesses and incomes are taking a huge hit right now, especially those whose businesses centered largely around selling to their Instagram audience. And a lot of comments along the lines of ‘we’ve earned that audience’ or Instagram owes it to us to sort things out’.

And wow, that’s quite the statement to make. Yes, of course we have worked hard to acquire an audience on Instagram and we’ve certainly put the hours in to generate those likes and comments and sales. But, make no mistake, those people are still Instagram’s audience, not ours. At best we have borrowed them for a while.

It is very literally a case of building a platform on someone else’s land. Unless you have moved those people across onto your email list or other platform - that you own - then they aren’t your audience.

As attractive and photogenic as that Instagram basket is, it’s a good idea to move some of your eggs out of it. At least until Instagram gives it’s head a wobble and gets back in the game.

An email list is one way of doing that, another is through the use of Facebook Groups. Yes, I know it’s another Meta-platform and yes, I know that you still don’t own that either. But an active, engaged Facebook Group is still a really good way, right now to connect to your people. Whilst there is undoubtedly a demographic that prefers to be Facebook-free, over 70% of Facebook users say they visit the site at least once a day. An active Facebook Group with dynamic and new content is a great way to be visible and to show up on people’s social media, in a way that Instagram at the minute just can’t do.

I recently dusted off my 20k-strong Facebook Group - the Everyday Knitter group. I archived it in 2020 in a mid-pandemic state of overwhelm, back when everything just felt too much. But I missed it. I missed the daily connection with people, with friends. And I missed that feeling of belonging to a community. So I resurrected it and I’m thrilled with how it has just picked up where it left off. Sure, we lost a few members along the way and I had some dormant accounts to clear out, but of 20k members, 11.5k are classed as active in the group (according to Facebook’s metrics) and we have lots of chatty and engaged members in there on a daily basis.

Facebook Groups are something that I feel really passionate about, I really do think they can help small businesses connect to their customers in a meaningful way and that’s why I have written the Grow With Groups course.

If you have had ‘start a Facebook Group’ on your to-do list for ever, but have always been reluctant to give it a try, or you don’t know where to start then this is the course for you.

Why not take a look and see what you think? We start on Monday 4 July though, so don’t wait too long.

Sometimes it's good to go back

“Never say never” was one of my Nana’s well-used sayings and, as so often, she has proven to be right. When I closed the doors to the Everyday Knitter Facebook group, almost 2 years ago, the phrase “never again” may have crossed my lips. It was an action largely borne of frustration and pandemic-induced overwhelm. Everything felt too big, too loud, just too much.

The much smaller Mighty Network group in comparison felt a whole lot more achievable, calmer. In short I felt more in control of it. And back then, control over external things was very much in short supply.

Obviously a lot has changed in 2 years - for all of us - and that’s definitely a blog post for another day. But one things that has changed is the set-up of Facebook groups - specifically the moderating tools that are now available and a number of automated systems designed to reduce the need for admin interventions.

I used to be a member of an official Facebook Admin group, and it looks as though a lot of the things we were crying out for back then have actually been implemented - which makes a refreshing change.

In addition to this I think it would be fair to say that I have experienced a few issues with the Mighty Network group in terms of it’s set-up and relative inflexibility in some areas. For a small group it works well, and for a larger group with integral courses and multiple teams it probably also works well, I’ve certainly seen it working well for others. But for me, for the size of my group and my team (ie me - solo) it doesn’t seem to work as well. And I’m not convinced that spending time, and money, in trying to make it so would necessarily be the best use of my time.

That’s not to say that the Mighty Network group is going away. There is a definite place for those amongst use who prefer a Facebook-free environment, and the group will continue in it’s present form, but I just won’t be developing any new things there for the foreseeable future

So, here we are. It seems as though I’ve gone full circle. I’ve now opened up the doors of the Everyday Knitter Facebook group and am once again standing on the doorstep, ready to welcome you with coffee, cake and a bit of knitting chat.

I hope you’ll decide to pop back in - we have a lot of catching up to do.

Top tips to avoid Facebook overwhelm

If you are anything like me you belong to a fair number of Facebook Groups and they have a bit of habit of multiplying when you aren't looking - a bit like rabbits.

It's always good to have a bit of a declutter every now and again (whether we are talking about digital clutter or the contents of your knitting bag) and looking at your use of Facebook groups is a good start. A few months ago Facebook discontinued it's Groups App which many people liked to use to avoid being overwhelmed by the Facebook timeline. Since then I've heard a few people say that they miss group posts or they feel overwelmed by the number of notifications they get.

It's a shame to leave a group just because you get too many notifications - after all - the more active a group is the more likely it is to be of benefit to you. So here are a few tips I have found to be helpful to keep on top of Facebook and make it work for you rather than the other way round.

1. Turn off notifications for fast moving posts or ones where you don't want to receive any updates to it. Look for the 3 little dots in the top right corner of the post and tap it to turn off notifications. A case in point, a group member may have a new baby or puppy and you want to like it or add a "congratulations". With the best will in the world though you don't want or need to see notifications from 200 people all saying the same thing. Turning off notifications is perfectly sensible in this case.

This also works for posts you see which you have no interest in (and don't want to see again) or posts that you think might be contentious and you don't want to engage in that particular debate.

2. Turn off notifications for the group altogether. I know of a few people who do this for all their groups - keeping their timeline limited to updates from friends/family, news etc. To do this just go to the groups tab across the top of the page and you can see all the ones you have joined. Select a particular group (it's right click on my Windows PC and press/hold on my android phone) and you see a few different options one of which is to turn off notifications. You are still a member of the group and any time you are ready to interact with the group you just go to the group tab, click on it and you'll see all the recent updates.

3. Browse by "Photos" rather than "Discussion". If the group is a very visual one with lots of photos being posted - the Everyday Knitter Facebook group is a prime example of this with over 75% posts being accompanied by a photo - this can be very helpful. Just select the "Photos" tab at the top of the page. This is really handy if you are trying to track down that elusive cabled sweater you saw someone had posted 2 days ago.

4. Conduct a regular group audit. It's perfectly reasonable to go through your groups every now and again and consider leaving the ones that you haven't visited in the last 2 or 3 months. You can always rejoin if you find that you miss it. Over time you will get a feel for what number of groups is right for you and will know when you are starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. For me I'm in around 30-35 groups but probably only actively participate in 5 or 6. When going through joining requests for the EK Facebook Group I regularly see people who belong to over 500 groups - the mind boggles at how they keep up and I can only assume that most of them have their notifications very firmly turned off.

So, that's my short, sanity-saving list. If you have any top tips for for keeping the Facebook beast under control do hit comments and let me know.