This past weekend I reached 750 followers on Instagram. I joined [I think] back in 2011 or 2012 but really didn’t do anything with it until 2016 when I started posting on a [semi] regular basis.
In 2017 when I was diagnosed with stage 3c colorectal cancer, I started using it almost every day. Especially once I started finding other cancer patients who whould post articles, pictures and videos documenting their journey with colorectal cancer.
For once I finally had a “community” that I could be a part of that I couldn’t find elsewhere except for the Facebook “groups” that I joined. The groups on Facebook are great as they are exactly that, groups of people that strike up conversations about everything from chemotherapy options to side effects and stories that I can take part in.
Instagram on the other hand is more of an individual thing. I can tell my story with pictures and strike up conversations with an individual person. I can “follow” those individuals that I can relate to and have (albeit long distance / virtual) a relationship / friendship with a real person who also has colorectal cancer.
Over time though, I began posting pictures of my personal life, my cancer related pictures such as surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatments / sessions, business development (work) pics, my very popular pathway pictures as well as posting pics of my favorite addiction, coffee.
I never really paid any attention to the vanity metrics such as likes and followers. However, just recently (last week) they did away with showing how many likes you get with each post. That reminded me that likes and followers were a thing and I switched my account to a business account so that I could view the metrics.
I then realized that I had gone from a couple hundred followers to 750 followers! So I decided to ask my followers if I should start posting videos on Instagram in the same way I do on other social media platforms. Prior to this however I have received a number of DMs (direct messages) telling me that I should post videos on the Instagram stories feature and or the Instagram TV.
So I did a [question] poll asking if I should start posting videos and I had about 138 individuals that clicked on the YES button and zero people clicking on the NO button. So, since 100% of the respondents said YES, I decided to go ahead and start posting videos on Instagram.
I’m not sure yet if I should simply post a short little video in the news feed section in the same way I do with pictures, or if I should do an Instagram Live session each week. Or, should I do a 5-10 minute video via the Instagram TV feature. I will probably just test the waters by doing a few of each and see how the metrics play out.
So this week (probably tomorrow) I will do an Instagram Live session where I will answer questions sent to me (via email, DMs or via my story video) ahead of time and then do a Q&A session at the end with those who actually join the live session.
Guess we’ll see how things shake out this week and go from there. So…..if you have any question (at all) you’d like to ask me, please do so in the comment section below or via the contact me page of this website/blog. You can also email me at JR at Sarzoza dot Net
Thanks again to all of you who follow me @jsarzozajr on Instagram and, have yourself a wonderful day!