Are you making this Instagram mistake in your business? Because I used to make it until I made a shift in my strategy.  I'm talking about your targeting.  In the beginning - I was not crystal clear on my targeting on Instagram & I was talking to my peers! I spent a ton of time engaging with & speaking to those who didn't really need the transformation that I offered because they either offered it too or they were at the same stage of their entrepreneur journey as I was. 

Making this simple shift to focus on your ideal audience & not your peers is a huge milestone.  We want to dedicate some of our time to networking & speaking to our peers but not everyone because that isn't going to help build our business. 

Here's what you'll learn in this episode

[6:15] How You're Making this Mistake & Not Realizing

I give an example that you are following influencers in your niche when  you first start your brand. For example if you're a health coach and you follow mostly health coaches who are putting out recipe content, workouts, etc. You want to think about expanding to attract people who need the recipes, workouts, etc. that you share.  We want to strike a balance between speaking to peers vs. the audience we want to help. 

[9:00] How to Stop Talking to Your Peers & Talk to Your Audience

By diving deep into building out your ideal audience & knowing exactly who you need to attract into your brand - you will start focusing on them instead.  So for a health coach - your audience might be someone who is a yo-yo dieter and needs to quit the dieting and begin mindful eating.  

Another way to stop this is using the hashtag strategy that our ideal audience is using or searching for. So a great example of this is how we use hashtags. If you are a health coach and you are using hashtags like mindful eating or fullness cues - your ideal client may not know what these are yet.  We want to meet them where they are.  If they are at the moment focused on diets - we can use hashtags about weight loss instead because that is what they are currently searching for vs. what we want them to search for. 

[11:00] Engagement Pods - How They Can Be a Mistake If We Do This

Engagement pods if you are not familiar is a chat (usually on telegram or Instagram DM) where influencers in the same niche commit to liking & commenting on others in the groups post.  I am sharing both sides of the coin because I am in some engagement pods but I've reduced my use of them for a few reasons. 

The first reason is it takes away time from me to focus on my ideal audience.  By committing a half hour a day to comment on my peer's content - I have less time to focus in on those who need the transformation I have to share.  If your goal is simply to get your comments up and time is not an issue for you - then you could continue to use pods. 

The second reason in the Instagram Algorithm is going to think this is the content you want to see.  The top of your feed will become all of your peers content & in turn - you are less likely to see the content of your ideal audience.  This can be challenging if you really want to focus on the people that you can help because their content will be buried on your timeline. 

The doors to Instant Influence close tonight @ midnight EST!! i am not planning to offer this program again so take advantage of this amazing opportunity to attract your ideal audience into your brand.