You’re probably a user of social media if you run a blog of your own. Instagram is undoubtedly one of the best social media platforms to use, not just to market yourself but to create that engagement between your followers and yourself. If you cherish using Instagram for your personal use to connect with your friends and family and showcase your personal life events, you may have had no choice but to create a new Instagram for your branded one.
When you run a blog (whether that’s a travel and outdoors one too or whatever your niche is), your Instagram would have to strictly be tied to your brand and feature things that your blog site is promoting or within the niche. It’s only professional to keep it that way.
Though, sometimes people may use just one account to display it all. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but most of the professional bloggers I follow on Instagram only post what’s relevant to their blog. Putting something random or out of the blue outside your brand may hurt the audience you want to attract towards your blog.
My personal experience
I actually run two Instagram accounts. One is for this blog site and the other is a personal one of mine. When I began my blog, I decided to make a separate new Instagram aside from renovating my already existing one. Sometimes, it feels like too much work to have to go back and forth with a personal and a blog one. I thought that if I had just kept one Instagram, it would be way easier and some of those came with back-and-forth regrets of not just starting from my already existing Instagram.
One thing I found was that it doesn’t matter if I have two. I came to embrace the idea of having two, in the long run. There are some great reasons why you SHOULD keep your personal and business Instagrams separate (or what I just call as ‘brand’ instead of the word business since a blog doesn’t always have to equal as a business). For me, I have pictures of my loved ones and I that I want to share on my personal one, most of the time they are completely irrelevant to anything my blog would typically showcase. What’s even worst to put up is that on my personal Instagram I show silly, dumb videos on my stories of my friends and I that our mutual friends might find interesting and for me to keep memories of.
Those might just throw someone off who is just inspired by travel and outdoor photos or want to know updates of my life as a blogger or hiker. Although, if you think there may be less work when it comes to owning one Instagram account (the reality is there is LESS work) … consider this: have the commitment to just market and post for YOUR brand.
So, if that’s the case, you can revamp your personal Instagram, delete or archive your old posts that do not fit and continue on creating an aesthetic feel of your feed and posting content that only pertains to YOUR blog. But, only do this if you no longer need to entertain people you know in real life. Because… I can tell you that not everyone you know in person cares to just follow your blog journey and more of what’s happening personally.
Pros of having a separate brand Instagram account
1. You can use paid promotions.
Maybe you just don’t have any intentions to promote your personal Instagram at all so there’s no sense of making it into a business account. These paid promotions or ads can capture the attention of what kind of leads you’re trying to attract towards your brand.
2. You’re comfortable in showing off your brand without worrying about privacy.
When you have a personal account, you may feel worried about people you do not know that well judge you for your selfies or for announcing something super personal. You know those are private to you and not everyone should have the privilege to know that. With your brand, you’re free to express what you want to show because it’s there for you to promote your blog and your thoughts that people want to know about.
That’s why your followers follow you. They are only interested in receiving information based on your niche, not details about how your best friend is engaged or just got married.
3. Being open to selling a product and advertising it.
Whether your brand has sponsors that require you to advertise their product or you choose to review a product or advertise about your own products that you’re selling, I bet a lot of your followers on your personal Instagram won’t be as pleased and think it’s another spam account.
This is especially towards your personal friends (or acquaintances) that don’t know anything about running a business or brand. You don’t need to hold back if you decide to merge your brand and personal into one account and then feel like you’re going to lose out on followers.
I hope this has helped clarified of what steps to take if you’re running a blog or just starting out on your own blog for Instagram. I can tell you I have had this damn dilemma for so long and thinking, “man, it’s a lot of work to keep up with two”, especially if you want to re-post the same nice quotes you find that can be ambiguous or if you want to show your travel and outdoor adventures to both your real-life friends and to your brand’s audience.
You may just find having two as rewarding as with just one.
*Photo credit to the banner picture belongs to Jeremy Levin on Pexels.com.
These are good arguments in favour of keeping separate accounts but I tend to be lazy in updating social media in general, so I opted to keep one account.
Hi Rochelle, I don’t blame you at all. I sometimes wish I also kept only one account because it’s becoming too much work lol. Good choice!