It’s officially been one week since I broke up with Instagram and deleted the app off my phone. The changes in both my personal life and business have been transformative. Since deleting Instagram, I’ve been navigating how to build a brand without social media, well, without Instagram at least. Is it even possible?
First, let me backtrack and explain why I made this decision, especially as a business owner who felt heavily reliant on a social media audience…
Prefer to watch?
Here’s my ‘Deleting Instagram’ video
In This Article:
Deleting Instagram – Why I Decided to Ditch IG
Over the past four years, I’ve used Instagram extensively to grow my business. And even before I had my current business, I was an award-winning blogger and content creator.
From 2010 to 2019, I covered topics from travel and lifestyle to fitness. I collaborated with big-name brands, and a lot of those collabs involved using my Instagram.
So Instagram has been a pretty big part of my life for 13 years!
However, over time, it’s become increasingly difficult to grow an Instagram account without burning out – especially as a small business. To the point that running an Instagram business account was feeling like a full-time job, and it was affecting my mental health.
Reasons I was hating Instagram
- The constant comparison (very icky for mental health)
- The constant new IG features and updates are impossible to keep up with!
- The hundreds of different theories on how the algorithm worked
- The hundreds of conflicting strategies for how to break free from the algorithm prison.
- The disturbing competition for likes, comments, and views was becoming exhausting.
Earlier this year, I actually shifted my business to focus entirely on Pinterest marketing & content mentoring, so I knew that I was going to potentially lose a segment of my audience.
But despite following all the recommended Instagram strategies, my content’s performance declined significantly. My reel views died a death and my story views dropped. It felt like neither ever revived.
I was averaging at 2.3 new followers per week.
As an SEO girlie (I’ve built my business using SEO & keywords) I was disappointed Instagram’s promise as an SEO platform didn’t hold true for me.
I basically realised I was getting much better results from other platforms like TikTok and of course, my beloved Pinterest.
I knew I wanted to figure out how to build a business without Instagram.
The Instagram vs. TikTok Experiment
Before deleting Instagram, I ran a little experiment:
I posted the same short video on both TikTok and Instagram. After 15 hours, the video had 366 views on Instagram, with 8 saves, a handful of likes, and zero new followers.
On TikTok, it had 14,000 views, 59 new followers, and 297 saves. The difference was staggering.
The thought of deleting Instagram was still very scary though. Even though I felt excited for the challenge, I kept panicking and asking myself…
‘Can a business be successful without Instagram?’
‘Is Instagram important for marketing? Am I being really dumb?’
After 13 years on the app, including 4 years with my existing business account, Instagram felt like a community, with followers who were invested in me and my business.
In contrast, TikTok is a fairly new app for me, and whilst I have more followers on my TikTok than Instagram, I felt my TikTok was lacking a community. But there was no denying TikTok is fantastic for engagement and for lead generation.
When it came to figuring out how to build a business without Instagram, I started to doubt if it would be possible. But looking at the recent months of poor data on the app, coupled with my declining mental health, I decided to go ahead with deleting Instagram.
TikTok vs Instagram for Business
I wanted to figure out how to build a brand without social media, and whilst yes, TikTok is also a social media app, I see vast differences between TikTok and Instagram:
- Daily Posting: On Instagram, there’s pressure to post daily, but with TikTok, I feel confident that posting 4-5 times per week is enough.
- Lives: On Instagram, there’s pressure to post daily, but with TikTok, I feel confident that posting 4-5 times per week is enough. Instagram Lives only seem to reach my core audience, with an average of 10-15 live viewers and 300 on the replay. In contrast, TikTok Lives are pushed out to new people, with over 100 live viewers and around 700 on the replay, which has helped me gain new followers.
- SEO: Additionally, Instagram doesn’t seem to follow the SEO practices it claims to, whereas TikTok is truly an SEO platform that uses keywords, and keywords are something I excel at!
So whilst TikTok is a social media platform, I see it as a similar platform to Pinterest; a search engine.
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How to Build a Brand Without Social Media: My Attempt to Maximise My Visibility
I decided to give myself a week to inform my Instagram community about my departure. I announced I was deleting the Instagram app on Monday the 29th and deleted the app on Friday the 2nd of August. That gave me a week to get my ducks in a row.
My goal is to double my visibility in the first 30 days of marketing without Instagram.
To achieve this, I started tracking all my data using a custom visibility tracker, covering platforms like my website, Google Search Console, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, my podcast, and my email list. This approach would provide me with a 360 understanding of my current visibility.
Marketing Without Instagram: My Daily Brand Visibility Strategy
Before deleting Instagram, my average daily screen time was 2.5 hours! That’s 17.5 hours a week I was losing to Instagram!
By reclaiming this time – up to 12.5 hours over a working week (wow!) – I decided I could focus on more productive visibility-boosting activities.
Here’s what my first week of marketing without Instagram looked like:
- Daily TikToks: I committed to posting daily on TikTok Monday to Thursday and even did my first TikTok live in over a year
- Telegram Group: I created a Telegram group for people who want to follow my Instagram Break-up journey (join ‘Beyond the Gram’ here), and I posted daily updates and resources
- Emails: I increased my email frequency from one email per week to my list to sending four emails this week.
- YouTube: I used repurpose.io, to automatically repurpose my TikTok content for YouTube
- Podcast: I published two podcast episodes.
- Pinterest: Right before deleting Instagram, I had already scheduled 400 Pinterest pins. So whilst I wasn’t active on my Pinterest account at all during this past week, I still had hundreds of pins going live (this is why I love Pinterest).
Life Without Instagram: One Week Later
Here are some key metrics from my first week without Instagram:
- Website: My webpage views increased from 4,826 in 30 days to 5,207. Yay!
- Pinterest: Impressions on my lifestyle account grew from 126,000 to 128,000, with clicks increasing from 1,436 to 1,497. My second Pinterest account, a newer profile, saw impressions jump from 3,000 to 4,500 and clicks from 50 to 61.
- Podcast: Total plays in the last 30 days went from 10 to 37, with three new Spotify followers (its worth mentioning I haven’t been posting podcasts in a while, so this was me literally dusting off the mic and getting back into it)
- Email List: My email open rate increased from 38% to 45% due to more frequent emails. Woop!
- TikTok: Followers grew from 2,862 to 2,968, that’s 106 new followers in one week (my average weekly follower growth on Instagram was 2.3 per week!) with significant engagement on several videos, including one video gaining over 19,000 views.
- YouTube: I gained six new YouTube subscribers by effortlessly repurposing TikTok content.
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How to Build a Brand Without Social Media: Instagram vs YouTube
In my first week of marketing without Instagram, I could clearly see the increase in visibility on other platforms. TikTok and YouTube, in particular, showed incredible potential!
On YouTube, I grew my weekly followers three times more than my average on Instagram. What’s amazing is that I used to pour 12.5 hours during the working week into Instagram, only to amount in 2 new followers.
In contrast, YouTube takes barely any time. Thanks to Repurpose.io, my content is automatically repurposed, and I spend just one hour a week tidying up the videos with artwork and keywords. So despite this minimal effort, based on this first week, my growth on YouTube is three times what it was on Instagram.
Make it make sense! I started wondering if YouTube was key to understanding how to build a brand without social media. So, I’ve decided to invest more time in YouTube, creating long-form, in-depth videos that provide real value, rather than short, superficial six-second Instagram reels.
Instagram vs. My Mental Health
Deleting Instagram has been a liberating experience, allowing me to focus on platforms that offer better returns on my time and effort.
But what’s even more interesting is the profound sense of relief I’ve felt from not having to constantly create Instagram content or try to get engagement.
Here are the positive changes I’ve noticed:
- Better Sleep: No more late-night scrolling means I’m getting more restful sleep.
- Easier Mornings: Waking up has become much easier without the late-night scrolling, the IG stress or any urge to check Instagram first thing
- Increased Confidence: I feel more confident creating content for other platforms; I don’t feel stuck in comparison mode.
- Reduced Overwhelm: The constant pressure and stress of maintaining an Instagram presence have significantly diminished.
Overall, life without Instagram has not only boosted my visibility but also greatly improved my well-being.
Moving Forward Marketing Without Instagram
As I continue my journey without Instagram, I’m genuinely excited about the potential of other platforms and sharing more on how to build a brand without social media, specifically without Instagram.
By diversifying my presence across YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok and my podcast, I’ve already seen significant growth in visibility and engagement.
I’m focusing on YouTube as a new community hub for teaching Pinterest marketing, brand building, and content marketing without relying on Instagram and I’ll continue using Pinterest and TikTok as my key lead generation platforms.
If you want to follow along with my journey, subscribe to my YouTube channel and join my free Telegram group ‘Beyond the Gram’ for daily updates and tips.
I’m committed to helping you learn how to build a business without social media, specifically without relying on Instagram.
x Hannah x
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