We all want Instagram growth, but the best kind of growth for your business is organic Instagram growth and today we’re diving into how to get it with someone that has done it and continues to do it.

IE 164: How to Have Organic Instagram Growth with Erica Fraser of Mom Break

Instagram is a topic that I continue to talk about on this podcast because of its potential impact on your business. It’s a great place to engage with your followers and to let them into your real life.

My guest today has seen her IG following and engagement explode in the past several months, so I asked her to come on the podcast to chat about how she had organic Instagram growth. 

Erica is a professional marketer by trade, helping small businesses take the overwhelm out of marketing and make it easy, fun, and more accessible. 

Erica is most passionate about her blog Mom Break. It’s a mommy blog that’s all about helping to take the pressure out of being a mom by just sharing the normalcy of her everyday life with 2 young kids. 

Analyzing Your Engagement

When Erica decided to begin analyzing her engagement on Instagram, she needed help figuring out how her engagement related to the influencer marketing/blogging space. That’s how we met; she reached out to work with me in a mastermind. 

We all have a love/hate relationship with the IG algorithm. 

Erica doesn’t care about getting likes. She focuses on getting as much engagement from comments and shares as possible. 

Seeing comments and shares shows that the content is resonating with the audience. 

The Gray Wall Posts

Erica admits to being an analytics junkie. She lets the numbers drive what she’s doing and if they align with her passion, then that’s the sweet spot for her business. 

So, she was looking at her IG analytics one day and she noticed that all of her top ranking posts were of “the gray wall.” (If you haven’t seen Erica’s Instagram, take a look). 

I had a one-on-one with Erica shortly after she noticed this in her analytics, and she said, “I’m going to stop posting anything other than these gray wall posts because they are performing 4-5 times better than anything else.” 

I agreed with her 100% because those were the posts of hers that were constantly showing up in my feed due to the engagement she was receiving on them. 

The Main Things to Focus On

How do we go about finding organic Instagram growth? 

There are a lot of people out there promising they can help you grow your followers and engagement. The problem is that people don’t factor in that everyone’s audience, their pain points, and lifestyle constraints are different. 

While there may be the “best ways” to do something, if that something doesn’t fit into your lifestyle, it’s not right for you. It’s important to remember that there’s not just one right way. 

There are two main things to think about when it comes to organic Instagram growth: 

• Focus on the pain. What is your audience struggling with? You will only know this if you’re talking to your audience and asking them what’s hard for them. 
• Solve or speak to that problem. It’s not about just complaining. It’s accepting the pain that we all face, and helping your audience solve it in a practical way or offering support. 

Dealing With Instagram Backlash

About 3 months ago, Erica had a crazy experience on Instagram. 

She shared how she was trying to find the healthy, happy, new version of herself, 18 months postpartum. That involved a need to lose weight, per the advice of her doctor and nutritionist. 

She did a lot of side-by-side pictures in front of the gray wall. 

The “starter picture” was just a simple full-body shot of her looking at the camera. And each week, she took the same picture in the same outfit, cropping the photos together with an inspirational caption. 

Then one day, she realized her jeans didn’t fit and ended up going to buy jeans 3 sizes smaller than she started out at. She posted about it and how excited she was. 

She got a ton of positive support and engagement from her audience. Her post picked up steam and it started to pop up on the explore page for other IG users.

The problem with the explore page is that it’s not your audience and not everyone wants to see the message you’re sharing. The post got a lot of attention from the body positivity movement and others who didn’t follow her. 

Many people were saying that it wasn’t actually possible for her to drop those 3 sizes. 

There were comments that were more than just mean and petty; they were making her scared and uncomfortable. 

Eventually, Erica realized that someone took all of her pictures, and the comments and responses from Instagram, and had posted them on a Reddit thread that was specifically about making fun of people. 

All of the mean (and scary) comments were people coming from the Reddit thread to her Instagram. 

Taking A Step Back

Nothing could prepare you for something like this.

But the way that Erica handled it within her community was amazing. The very first thing she did was to send me a message. 

We talked and she had a good cry in her car. Then she decided to take some time away. 

After taking that step back, Erica called her therapist and asked for help in dealing with the situation. 

It was okay for her to feel hurt about what happened. She acknowledged that the process made her feel unsafe. She didn’t know how it could affect her or her children. 

When Others Copy You

Some people get upset when they see other influencers or bloggers using their same idea. 

When Erica sees people testing out a “gray wall” type of post, she doesn’t get upset. She knows that a lot of people have gray walls in their house and that it might also work for their audience. 

Erica knows that if someone else’s gray wall does well, it won’t affect her because her audience will still be there. She will still be working to solve their pain points. 

One person’s success doesn’t automatically mean someone else’s failure. 

If more women see other women doing well, it opens up the room for more opportunity for success. 

Erica has created a mini-series on organic Instagram growth. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at all of the tactics Erica has used over the past 3 years to grow her Instagram.

 She created this series because it was something she wished she had. It’s under $20 and she has a coupon code for all of you. Use JENNYMELROSE for 10% off on the How I Grew My Instagram mini-series.

Erica also has two podcasts you can check out: Mom Blogging Unplugged & The Mom Break Podcast

Action Steps:

• If you liked this episode of Influencer Entrepreneurs,  please subscribe and leave a fabulous review!
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