10 years ago this month (December 2012) I got the Instagram account @248am. I really wasn’t planning on using it and whenever anyone told me I should move to Instagram I was always quick to kill the idea. I couldn’t see my content working on Instagram and so I wasn’t interested in moving. One of the best things about my blog is that it serves as a major resource for google searches. Anytime anyone searches for anything related to Kuwait, they’re most likely going to end up on my blog. With 13,500+ posts and counting, I’ve covered basically every single topic relating to Kuwait. This vast archive of content accessible by anyone with just an easy google search is something that Instagram just can’t compete with.
Then, 6 weeks ago I randomly came across a plugin for the blog that would automatically post my content to Instagram. It wouldn’t require any work from my side so I decided to give it a shot. It didn’t take long for me to realize my content wasn’t really working there. I’d refer to a link on my blog post but since I can’t have links on Instagram it wouldn’t show there. Or I’d refer to a bunch of photos in a post but the plugin I was using would just post one photo. It looked like I didn’t care and I hated that, so I started adjusting and editing my posts a bit to get them more Instagram-friendly.
A month in things just clicked, and I quickly got a grasp of what was working and what wasn’t, I reworked my logo, created a new template for posts, and deleted everything I had posted before that. I also made a new internal set of rules, a list of what I would or wouldn’t post on Instagram, and what kind of topics I would or wouldn’t cover. Things quickly took off and the response has been incredible.
The amount of people I’ve reached, the number of engagements, shares, it’s all been really overwhelming.
The biggest difference I realized between my blog and Instagram is all the feedback that Instagram gives you. With the blog, even though I get thousands of people to come through it every day, the only way I can tell is if I check my stats which I rarely do. But on Instagram, there are so many ways for people to interact with you, people can share posts, they can heart posts, follow you, leave a comment, send you DM’s, tag you, tag a friend, repost you, etc. It’s also super easy for brands to interact with you by reposting your content or just sending you a thank you or a heart. The whole experience so far has been a nonstop bombardment of interactivity that has really gotten me excited about blogging again.
I’ve been blogging daily on this exact same platform for close to 20 years now. That’s obviously incredibly tedious and repetitive work so Instagram is now a new and very exciting challenge for me. I’m taking everything I’m good at and everything I’ve learned and applying it to that platform. My blog isn’t going to go anywhere, it will continue to be my main platform with the more varied posts, but Instagram is now going to play a much larger role and I’m really excited to see where this is all going to go.
@248am
