Resisting Niching Down!
Preamble
Usually several times a day, I get the feeling that I don’t actually belong. What I mean by this is that I feel there is no niche that I and my content fit into.
But, the other day, everything seemed to come together and it all made sense to me!
IG influencers
During this summer vacation, I’ve been working hard on my content creation. I have watched numerous videos on the subject and followed influencers mainly on Instagram. The amount these influencers posted really impressed me. They posted several reels a day and kept this going weekly.
The frequency impressed me. So I looked at my own content and started to work towards creating a schedule that would match that of the influencers.
I soon fell by the wayside. I couldn’t keep up with the amount they post. The content was also wrong and not focused enough. With that acknowledged, I decided that I needed to niche down!
Niching down!
For those who are not familiar with that time, it generally means, that you focus on one aspect of the content that you promote. The previously mentioned IG influencers would be an example of this. They promote content relating to increasing views and engagement on Instagram.
To become more focused, I decided to identify some niches that I could create content for. Initially, I was just thinking about one – productivity. But, I soon realised that although I do have plenty to say about being productive – I’m not a guru or expert on the subject. I am more of a multi-passionate person. The range of interests I have makes me who I am and without all of them, I would actually cease to be me!
So, with this in mind, I decided on four areas that I wanted to share information about. Productivity, Successful Streaming, Creative RPG games/campaigns, and Positivity, including a positive mindset.
These elements resounded well to me and, I started to focus on creating content on these and these alone. But there was a hidden slap in the face coming up on the horizon that I didn’t see coming.
30 reels challenge!
To increase my followers and engagement on Instagram I decided to try and complete the 30 reels challenge. Basically, an Instagram Influencer Brock Johnson published a PDF of reels. These are his old reels that you are encouraged to follow to post a reel every day for 30 days!
I spent a day scripting content for all thirty reels. That way I just had to create the reels on the day. But after I started there was a response that I wasn’t expecting
After 5 days into the challenge, I had already lost five followers. It appeared that this was not what my followers wanted! When you looked at my analytics – and thank you to Metricool who makes this so easy to look at! – I noticed that it was not only my followers that were dropping but also my engagement, my reach, and my retention.
Things were not going well and I felt myself plunging into despair!
The future…
It at this moment that I had a good thing about the future. First, I’m not giving up with the 30 day reels challenge. I have never given up on anything like this and this was not going to be the first time.
However, I am wondering whether Instagram is not actually the best social media platform for me. I have already made a partnership on YouTube and Twitter appears to be a much better way for sharing content – mainly because it allows you to add links to your tweets – something that you are not allowed to do with Instagram. It is obvious that they don’t want you to lead your audience away from their platform.
I’m not sure yet, but I think I might be starting to focus more on YouTube and Twitter to share my content. Both these platforms allow me to be multi-passionate and create different content that fits into different niches.
Instagram is not getting away from me. I’m just not sure that I am creating the correct content for the platform. The analytics are going to be pushed to one side and I am going to stop listening to influencers who make their money by encouraging us to follow their plans to become big on social platforms.
One thing I know for definite – I’m not going away, so stay tuned to see what happens next!
