Let's talk about how to properly manage your own social media account. The purpose of managing it varies: some need to sell something, others want to communicate with friends and share their lives, some share useful tips, while others use social media as a photo album to remember travels and significant events. But, as you might have guessed, my recommendations are for those who want to promote themselves and their services on Instagram. This advice is specifically for personal accounts and blogs, as companies need commercial accounts.

Error #1. Separating personal and work accounts

This is the most common mistake. My advice: don't do it. People should see you as you are, and you should find your true audience. This is necessary to avoid any dissonance.

Often, work accounts feature formal photos in suits with business-like expressions, primarily creating purely advertising posts. Meanwhile, the personal account of the same user reveals that they are a cheerful person who likes to dance, travel, and occasionally fool around. I believe that maintaining two accounts and constantly switching between them is inconvenient. Moreover, when selling yourself, you need to present yourself as a multifaceted individual. It is important that your current or potential clients see you from different perspectives and clearly understand who they are dealing with.

Error #2. Depersonalization of the account

To illustrate, let's say you are looking for a good cosmetologist. Someone recommends one to you, or you come across an advertisement. To learn more about their work, services, prices, and who they are, you ask for a link to their Instagram. As soon as you log into their account, you find that the information you need is not there. There are no photos of their work results or of themselves, just stock photos and text sheets with information you could find on Wikipedia or any thematic site. Such an account is not helpful, while it would be very useful to see how the cosmetologist looks, what they do to maintain their beauty, how they take care of themselves, what they eat, and where they relax. For many, trust in such a specialist begins with seeing how they apply their knowledge in practice.

Therefore, my advice is: google less, download fewer pictures, and generate more of your own, individual content, including about yourself. If you teach yoga, record a video of yourself doing the Warrior pose or the Pigeon pose, show the landscapes you admire in the morning, tell us what you have for lunch, and what kind of music you listen to. People want to see both a professional coach and an individual personality in you. Sharing hackneyed quotes, magazine clippings, or well-known facts is perceived as free and useless information in the feed and does not connect with you in any meaningful way.

Error #3. Buying followers

Yes, you can buy any number of followers on Instagram, but this does not lead to sales and is essentially a waste of money on unnecessary junk. Moreover, everyone is aware of such practices, and they are easy to identify by the ratio of likes and comments to the number of fake followers. My advice: take care of your real followers – those who are genuinely interested in you. You may have few followers, but they will be your fans who turn only to you. Engage in conversations with them, share more about yourself and your work – and you'll see, new followers will soon follow.