This challenge is free for all readers of Too Much by Nicola Washington to join in with. This is the second of 7 short emails that will be sent out this week. If you do not want to take part in the challenge, feel free to ignore the series. Normal service will resume on 2nd September 🙂
If you’re not a subscriber and you’d like to receive all of the tasks this week then make sure you hit the pink button. To read all of the WAKE UP posts click here.
Welcome to Day Two of the WAKE UP INSTAGRAM Challenge - a week-long series of 10 min daily tasks to ‘wake up’ your Instagram account and get you back in front of your favourite people after you’ve been on a break.
TASK TWO
Listen to the audio, or read the instructions below, to join in ❤️
Go in to your account settings (tap the three lines in the top right hand corner of your account page).
Scroll down the menu to the ‘What you see’ section.
Tap on ‘Suggested Content’.
Toggle ‘Snooze suggested posts’ so it turns green. This will mean all of the posts you see in your home feed will be accounts that you follow for the next 30 days*.
Set a timer for 10 mins.
Scroll your feed and look out for posts that draw you in, or speak to you in some way. Comment meaningfully on these posts by adding your own thoughts, experiences, or insights to the conversation - this is more than emoji drop!
If you don't find any posts that resonate with you, then stop after 10 minutes and come back tomorrow.
*you can toggle this back once you’ve completed this task if you prefer to have suggested posts in your feed.
How does it work?
Like yesterday’s task, this activity is all about being a good Instagram ‘citizen’ and is the kind of behaviour that will lead to more meaningful, satisfactory, deeper and longer-lasting interactions than any trick or tactic designed to ‘hack the algorithm’.
I’m a big believer that where your energy goes, grows.
There is so much discourse around the best ways to please the Instagram robots but really, the simple key to social media is to be social - if you wait for everyone to come and speak to you, you’re probably going to be left alone in the corner, disappointed and alone, just like in real life. You have to get out there!
Yesterday’s task was about greeting the people you follow - today is about joining conversations. Don’t force it though, if you have nothing meaningful to add then like the post, scroll on, and come back another day, OR you could always ask them a question in response to a post that has piqued your interest.
By actively participating in your online community in this way you are reminding people that you are around, which in turn makes them much more likely to take an interest in what you are doing too.
I hope you’ve found this useful - let me know in the comments if you have any questions or thoughts. I’ll be back tomorrow with the third task of the challenge and I hope you’ll join me!
If you’re joining this challenge late, you can read all of the posts here.
Get back in front of your favourite people on Instagram