Tired of Talking to the Same Followers? Try This simple Instagram Ads Strategy

Nov 19

What's this episode of the lionhearted ceo podcast about?

"Instagram followers are just a vanity metric" - sound familiar? In this episode, I'm challenging that common advice and showing you why thoughtful follower growth could be the missing piece in your business strategy!

Here's what we're diving into this week:

Why focusing solely on engagement (and ignoring follower growth) could be holding your business back
The real reason your launches are getting harder (hint: it's not your content!)
How to calculate your ideal monthly follower growth based on your business model
My simple £3/day Meta ads strategy to attract your dream clients
The DREAMER framework for creating scroll-stopping content that converts

Whether you're running a membership, launching courses, or scaling your services, I'll show you how to grow your Instagram strategically without creating tons of new content or praying for that viral moment.

Ready to turn those "vanity metrics" into real business growth? Pop the kettle on, grab your favourite biscuits, and let's get your Instagram working harder for your business!

LINKS:

Audience Builder Course (including the Instagram Amplifier Ad Campaign) - sophiegriffiths.co/abc

CLICK HERE to access the free STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE: How to Get Your Instagram Posts Seen By Your Followers: The £3/day Strategy That Actually Works.

Hi! I’m your host Sophie Griffiths, a Meta ads expert and business growth strategist.

The LionHearted CEO podcast is designed for impatiently ambitious women who are ready to scale and often juggling motherhood alongside their thriving online businesses in coaching, course creation, or service-based business.

If you enjoy the podcast, here are some ways you can continue the conversation:

Social:

Love Instagram? Click here to watch a video I made on the Warm audience trap (hint, it's something almost every client struggles with!)More of a LinkedIn fan? I'm there too! Come and follow me here: Sophie Griffiths

Free Resource:

Ready to grow an audience of people who WANT you to sell to them? Radical idea I know, but it shouldn’t be! Click here to get access to my step by step guide to using simple, effective ads to build & nurture a community of superfans

Work together:

Ready to build an audience of superfans who are excited and ready to buy from you?
Whether you are just starting with Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads, you have dabbled but want to build your confidence with your first funnel, or you're already killing it and you're ready for fast growth - I can help! Click here to choose the best option for you

Got questions?

DM me on Insta or LinkedIn
Email me here: hello@sophiegriffiths.co

Thank You for Listening!

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Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.

Ep 84 - Insta followers
===

[00:00:00] Hello and a big welcome to Lionhearted CEO, the podcast for unapologetically, impatiently ambitious women who know they want to stop being the bottleneck in their business and become the Lionhearted CEO they know they are meant to be. I'm Sophie Griffiths, a tea enthusiast, marketing and Metis ad specialist and firm believer.

[00:00:24] The chocolate should never be kept in the fridge. Join me every Tuesday for bold, imperfect, fun approach to marketing and scaling your business without burning out every few months. We'll dive into practical strategies and have inspirational conversations that will support you to create a thriving, sustainable business that brings you joy as well as financial freedom.

[00:00:44] Okay, let's jump in.

[00:00:45] Hello and welcome to this week's episode. Today, I'm going to be challenging, that common advice, that the amount of Instagram followers you have, doesn't matter. It's just a vanity metric focus on engagement. Don't worry about your follower numbers. All that matters [00:01:00] is that you have people who are engaged and interested. And it doesn't matter how many of them you have. So today I'm going to talk to you about why. 

[00:01:08] Yes, that's partly true. But actually it's only half the story.

[00:01:11] So you've probably been told and you probably know yourself, you might have even given this advice to other people. That Instagram follower growth is superficial. It's just a vanity metric. You don't need to worry, gone to the days of, oh, I don't know. 2016, maybe three to 2020, where there was that real obsession was getting to 10,000 followers on Instagram. 

[00:01:32] It was all about hitting that like 10 K. And actually now we've moved on. It's not about volume. It's about quality. However, I am going to put it out there that I actually think is a false choice to have to choose between quality and quantity and actually the impact of not growing your Instagram followers can be really, really challenging for your business. Now, that's not to say we just want any old people [00:02:00] following us. 

[00:02:00] It's not a case of chasing the numbers. We don't want to just pay for followers. We don't want loads of random people that are aren't our ideal clients. You know, we absolutely do want quality followers. But that doesn't mean that we have to totally disregard the amount of people, not just following us, but the amount of people coming into our world all the time. It's much more about movement than it is about the size of your following. 

[00:02:26] So you could have 10,000 followers, but if they're the same 10,000 followers that you've had since 2020. Not ideal. However, you could have 5,000 followers and have gained a thousand over the last six months and you'd be in a much, much healthier position. So well, I'm going to talk about today is Instagram followers. Why it matters that you are growing them all the time. And the fact that growing them is not just for vanity. I'm going to talk about the opportunity that it gives you when you actually grow your Instagram followers and that you get [00:03:00] new people into your world. I'm going to talk about how you grow your Instagram followers using simple Meta ads, but use the content you've already created on your Instagram. 

[00:03:09] So you're not having to create anything extra and you can run them from three to five pounds a day. And grow your audience with new people all the time. I'm going to talk you through that campaign.

[00:03:18] I'm going to talk you through the type of content you need to be creating using my seven step dreamer framework. 

[00:03:27] Okay. So first of all, why do we need to bring new people into our world all the time? 

[00:03:33] You might think it's really obvious. Well, if I want more clients, I need to bring new people into my world and yes, you're right. You do. However, I think there's a lot more nuance to it than that. If you are running a business where you need say one new client every few months, You're not going to need nearly as many clients. As if you are running a membership that is nine pounds a month, and you need a minimum of 30 new members a month just to account for Chan and to [00:04:00] keep growing the membership. There's there are totally different requirements there. 

[00:04:04] So yes, you need to grow your audience, but their proportion and the rate you need to grow it. But what I see really often is that people move from monthly. 

[00:04:13] Like one-to-one consultancies. You don't need many clients, maybe once every few months. To a much more audience hungry offer. So a membership, a course something that you're launching, something that you want, higher volume of people. They move from one to the other when they're scaling, growing their business. But what they don't do is adjust the Instagram strategy and I'm talking Instagram because the, most of my clients, Instagram, however, this is really relevant across all the platforms. 

[00:04:41] Wherever you're focusing your audience growth. That's what you need to be looking at is am I adjusting my audience growth to my business strategy and model? And if you're not, if you haven't adjusted it enough, what you're going to find is that where you relied on word of mouth and some clients from let's say Instagram, [00:05:00] And your email list. 

[00:05:02] They came in like nice and frequently. It may be one or two a month even. You go to this audience hungry offer. And if you don't adjust your strategy what you're going to find quite quickly. 

[00:05:11] Maybe not on the first launch or the second launch. But after that quite quickly, you're going to find that you're talking to the same people over and over again. Your growth starts to plateau because you're hitting that ceiling of people that you're trying to convert. You don't have that, like momentum of the business. You don't. Feel excited about new offers. You feel nervous like, oh, if I put this out there, is there anyone going to buy, and suddenly launches or even just kind of getting new clients, even if you're not launching, just running it, evergreen becomes really, really hard work. 

[00:05:41] And where you used to have loads of engagement and people excited when you put something out there, now you're finding it's much harder . Because ultimately the people in your audience, I've kind of seen a lot of what you're offering already. So what's the opportunity. 

[00:05:54] Well, the opportunity. By getting more people into your world. Now I'm not talking necessarily [00:06:00] about huge volumes. I'm not saying if you have, I don't know, 2000 people on your Instagram at the moment, suddenly you have to get to 10,000. You know, there's no goal. There's no one number. That is going to be like the golden number. 

[00:06:12] Like once you hit 10,000 followers, that's it. Your business has made. However, if you're growing your audience in the right amount all the time, what you'll start to find is that. You have a wider pool of ideal clients, you have the opportunity to run different levels of courses. 

[00:06:28] You might offer like an entry-level service and then something that's a little bit more complex for people that are farther on. You'd get more consistent income because you'd have more people coming into a world if you have the offers that are ready for them to jump into, you've got more opportunity to then convert them into clients. 

[00:06:43] Are you going to have that compounding effect where as more people find you. More people find you because they tell people about you. 

[00:06:49] They might share your things. They might tell a friend, the more people that know about you, the more opportunity you have to then grow organically as well. There's this sort of halo effect. Now, what you're [00:07:00] probably experiencing at the moment is you are probably getting some growth. You know, you're creating meals, you're putting content out there. 

[00:07:06] You're being visible. You're on stories. You're doing all the things and you're definitely getting growth. You might see like a lovely little uptick. If someone who's got a bigger following, you know, shares you, or you might do an Instagram live with someone and you get some of their followers coming to follow you. And you start to see that real halo effect. 

[00:07:24] Now, if you run lead ads already, what you might find is you have a bit of a halo effect there because as soon as you start running ads, What will happen is that people will go into your profile to sort of check you out. And they will then follow you or, you know, once they join your welcome sequence, you might prompt them to come and follow you so often. 

[00:07:41] If we're already running lead ads, we will start to see the halo effect of getting more Instagram followers. However, if you're not running lead ads. Or even if you're running leaders, but you're finding that actually the growth isn't as fast as you want. What we can do is run ads to grow your Instagram followers really specifically. Now what you might be [00:08:00] wondering is how many followers should I be aiming for then? 

[00:08:03] Like, what's what is fast enough? Like. Cause organically. You're probably getting people following you. Like I said, you might be finding every week you're getting, I don't know, 10, 20 people follow you. 50, a hundred people follow you. A hundred or 200 people following you. Like what's enough. And really, like I said, it's going to come back to your business model and it's going to come back to what is good for you. 

[00:08:24] Go onto your insights. I'd really encourage you to go onto Instagram, go into your insights and have a look over the last 30 days. You can see how many followers you've gained. You'll also see how many you've lost and there will be like a net amount then of how many you've gained overall. Go and have a look at it because you might be surprised. 

[00:08:41] I think in our head, when we see people following us, we think, oh yeah, that looks good. Oh, that's great. People are following me. When you actually look at the numbers and you realize over a month, maybe you've had. 50 people follow you. That's just say, I know if I'm not running ads. So if I have all my ads off. And I'm still posting and I'm sting stories and I'm doing all the [00:09:00] things. Naturally my Instagram growth will be between 30 and 50 people. Now, if we just kind of multiply that out across a year, let's say that's 500 people. Ash over a year. Now that's not bad. But also, it's not great. 

[00:09:15] Especially if you're running low cost offers, if you want more people in those, if you're running launches or memberships or courses or group programs, actually, what's your conversion rate. So is that say your conversion rate is 2%, which would be a pretty healthy conversion rate?

[00:09:28] Actually 2% of 500 people is 10 people. So. And that's of course a year. And that's just, I mean, that is just from Instagram, but if we're seeing it's similar across your, your email as well, like how many people do you realistically want in your office? So that's where you need to start thinking about, okay, 

[00:09:48] what is my goal? Let's just say, I want, I don't know, 50 people in my office across the year. I'd have to grow my audience by 2,500. If I had that 2% conversion rate. Okay. I don't want to get too hung [00:10:00] up on conversion rates. But I think it's really helpful sometimes to have that perspective. Of whether it's just Instagram or whether it's email, whether it's LinkedIn, whatever it is. If you say roughly 2% conversion rate, which is really industry standard. Across even all of it, all of it combined 2,500. 

[00:10:17] I wonder naturally how close you are to that or not. And I think that's where we can have a look at something like ads and say, okay, for three pounds a day, I could run ads to my Instagram profile and invest in more people following me. And then, because you've got a goal, let's say it's 2,500. 

[00:10:34] You can really start to see what is working, what isn't working. Okay. Instead of having like 30 to 50 people following me every month, I have a hundred to 150. So how close is that going to be? To my 2,500, actually every month, I really need my net amount of people following me on Instagram that say. To be at least 200, if I'm going to hit that target. Suddenly that gives you a little bit of a target, a little [00:11:00] bit of focus and a little bit of understanding whether you're doing enough to grow your Instagram or not. 

[00:11:06] And again, we absolutely want it to be the right people. This isn't about just getting 2,500 new people in your world. This is about getting the right people. And actually ads can be an incredibly effective way of doing that. Because the alternatives are things like going viral, in which case, you know, you lose control of that. 

[00:11:24] Like that just goes out. It could be one of those random meals you do with a little bit of fun to show your personality, nothing, to do a business that goes viral. You've suddenly, yeah, you've got loads of new followers, but they are all really, really interested in something that's totally unrelated to your business, or you're just relying on sheer volume, like real after reel, after reel, really, really kind of focusing on. Reaching new people all the time, and yes, you can do that. But also we can use ads to help us and make it a little bit. Less stressful and less like you're on a hamster wheel of creation and actually just start showing your content to your ideal clients. [00:12:00] 

[00:12:00] So, how do we do that? We're going to go into ads manager and the objective we're selecting is actually traffic. Then when you go onto the ad set, we were looking for something called Instagram profile visits. What that means is we are going to be sending people to visit your profile. Okay. This isn't directly getting people to follow you. This is going to be showing people your content as an ad. And then at the bottom. It's going to have a button which is going to say view Instagram profile. The person who sees it, if they like the content, they're going to click the button and they're going to go through to Instagram. 

[00:12:33] Okay. Now the key here is that yes, the ad does some of the work. Okay. So it's a cold audience. We're just going to reach new people so we can select like that interests their demographics, all the normal kind of stuff. The type of post you choose is really important. 

[00:12:48] The type of post dictates whether someone stops, engages with it and things, or do I want to go onto their profile? So that's the second filter. The first filter is the audience you choose. The second filter is [00:13:00] the post you choose. So you're thinking, okay. I want to make sure that I'm attracting my ideal clients. 

[00:13:04] I want to really use content. That's going to speak to them. The third filter. Is there going to be them seeing your Instagram profile and deciding if your account is something they want to follow. Now, this is really key because the ads can do really well. You can even choose really great posts. 

[00:13:21] You can get people onto your profile if your profile isn't optimized. And this is another I guess common advice that I like to challenge actually. 

[00:13:30] Yes, your bio is really important and yes, story highlights are important, but so is the top nine of your grid. Okay. Now a lot of the time I hear. Don't worry about putting like front covers on or what your posts look like. You know, people are only ever going to see them when they're scrolling in the feed. That's actually not true when you're running ads. 

[00:13:47] When you're running these ads, people are going over and seeing your profile. As a whole. Okay. They are seeing those top nine posts. And if they have no clue, What those top nine posts are talking about. If there's no front covers on the reels. [00:14:00] Or the lives that you've done, if it's just pictures of you or pictures of your dog or pictures of a great view. You're going to make them do a lot of work to work out. 

[00:14:08] If your account is something they want to follow. So the content that you have up when they're coming over onto your Instagram profile is so important, that is what's going to prompt them to follow you or not, as well as obviously the ad and the content you've chosen that as well. 

[00:14:24] So these ads. 

[00:14:25] Yes, they're simple. And yes, it is the content that you've already got, but it's being really strategic. So what content do you choose to show to people? Well, I would suggest the content you use is content that you would be happy to show somebody who, you know, has never heard of you. 

[00:14:41] So these are people I've never come across you before. All they've got is like your, the name of your Instagram profile that they can see. And like a little picture of you. They've never heard of you before. We don't want anything about you, frankly. We want it all about them. So instead of how I hit six figures this year, how you can hit six figures, even though there's [00:15:00] only two months left of the year or something like that. 

[00:15:02] Okay. It's about them. We really want to hook into their problems, what they're looking for, how you can help them. Okay. So the introduction posts and those connection posts about, you know, you and how you've built your business. Save them for the warm audience posts. 

[00:15:16] Save them for the engagement post. The previous episode, I talked all about that kind of content and how you can use it on engagement ads. To help your followers actually see the posts that you're putting out, but for these ads, we really want them to be able to see. Themselves in your posts. 

[00:15:29] We want them to be like, oh, This is me. This is the problem I have and oh, I can see how they help me. Okay. So that's what you want. You want to use your really targeted content that is talking to your cold audience. People who've never heard of you.

[00:15:42] Thank you so much for listening today. Before you go, if this episode struck record with you, I'd be over the moon. If you could take a moment to rate, subscribe, and leave a review, your words not only brighten up my day, but they are also the magic that helps others discover this lion hearted [00:16:00] community.

[00:16:00] Again, thank you so much and I will see you next week.

[00:16:02] Now, it's all very well me talking about just create these posts, the ones that talk about your followers and not you. The ones that talk about your ideal clients and not you. But the reality is especially when you put pressure on yourself to create this kind of content and you're like, Oh, this isn't just a normal post, this is a post

[00:16:20] in ads.

[00:16:22] That's probably the fastest way to paralyze your brain. So what I have done is created a little

[00:16:27] for you that will give you a guide as the kind of content that you can create to use in these kind of ads. So let's start. You're very welcome. So let's start with the acronym is DREAMER.

[00:16:42] DREAMER. As in D R E A M E R, I'm a dreamer. And this is what it stands for, okay? So the first thing, the D, is desire. Now you've all heard about desire posts, okay? But these are kind of examples like Now, we've all heard about desire based [00:17:00] marketing. What I'm going to do is give you some examples that I might use if I was promoting, that I might use if I was creating content that I was going to use based on getting people, I'm going to give you some examples that I might use if I was creating content I was going to use in Instagram growth ads related to specifically these Instagram ads.

[00:17:21] Related specifically to people who want to grow their, related specifically who want Related specifically to ideal clients who want to grow their Instagram using ads. So, for example, a desire based so, a desire based post

[00:17:38] something like what if your Instagram actually brought you consistent inquiries from dream clients?[00:18:00] 

[00:18:17] So an example might be something like, imagine, imagine dropping a link for the wait, so an example might be something around, imagine, imagine dropping a link to the wait, imagine dropping a link for the

[00:18:32] to your calls, imagine dropping a link for the waitlist to your calls. So an example might be, imagine dropping a link

[00:18:43] to the waitlist to your calls. Imagine dropping a link for the wait list of your course in your Instagram stories, checking in the next morning. So, so an example of this. So, an example of this might be, so an example of this might be something like, [00:19:00] imagine dropping the link for the wait list your next course in your stories one after In your Dropping the Imagine So an example of this might be something like, imagine dropping the link to your next dropping the link to your next course in Imagine dropping the waitlist link in your stories one afternoon.

[00:19:24] Imagine dropping the waitlist link for your next course in your stories one afternoon, checking in the next morning to see if a few people have Checking in the next morning to see if a few people have checking in the next morning and realising you've got over a hundred people signed up. Then the next one is reality.

[00:19:41] Okay,[00:20:00] [00:21:00] [00:22:00] [00:23:00] [00:24:00] 

[00:24:25] so let's first, so let's talk about desire. So let's talk about desire. Now you've probably heard of desire based marketing and this is about posts that talk to what your ideal clients want. For example, if we're talking about people For example, if we're talking about people who want to grow their Instagram, I might, I might have a hook that says something like, what if your Instagram actually attracted new clients instead of just talking to the same people?

[00:24:50] instead of just talking to the same people over and over again. Okay, the next one is R, which is reality. So this is about their current situation, the reality of the [00:25:00] impact of their current situation not making any changes. So for example, so for example, for me,

[00:25:07] have something like point of view, you're posting daily and hoping for a viral post.

[00:25:13] You are posting daily, hoping something go vi. You're posting daily, hoping something will go viral whilst not really, no.

[00:25:23] Your post point of view, you are posting daily and hoping that your posts are gonna reach new people, but you never.

[00:25:51] Point of view, audience growth is at the top of your to do list and yet even though you're posting daily You're just, you can't work out how,[00:26:00] 

[00:26:03] point of view, audience growth is at the top of your to do list And you're posting daily and doing, you're posting daily how a You're posting daily, but it's just having no impact. The next one is evidence. So proof that it's possible. Sometimes we call this social proof. For example, I could have something like, meet Sarah who went from 500 to 2000 engaged followers in six weeks using my four step process or something like that.

[00:26:30] The next one's action. So this is a next clear step. Okay, so this is like ready to, ready to transform, ready to grow your Instagram. Ready to grow your Instagram with dream clients for just three pounds a day? Here's how. Okay, the next one is mindset. So this is about addressing like limiting beliefs, reasons why people think they can't do whatever it

[00:26:55] you offer.

[00:26:56] So for example, I could have something like,[00:27:00] 

[00:27:02] for example,

[00:27:03] something like Point of view, I don't want to have to pay to play on Instagram. Okay.

[00:27:09] that to me. Or

[00:27:11] is, people always say that to me. The next one is empower. So give them back control. So

[00:27:23] Stop hoping your Instagram is going to grow and take back control with this simple three, two, one.

[00:27:28] three pound a day meta ads, three pound a day ad strategy. And then finally, the R is results. So paint the picture. Okay. So this is a little bit like desire based, but it's a little bit more tangible. Okay. So it's things like, imagine waking up to DMs from, imagine waking up to Imagine finding out someone followed you, binged your content, and then is in your DMs asking how they can work for you all in 48 hours, okay?

[00:27:55] So you don't have to have all of those, so that's, so that, [00:28:00] so that's seven different types of posts, okay? You don't have to have all of those, and you don't have to You don't have to have all of those. And I don't want that to like paralyze you even more. But if it just gives you some ideas around the type of content that you can create, but it might just give you some ideas around the type of content you can create that often works really, really well in these Instagram growth ads.

[00:28:22] However, as I had said, As I've said earlier, it's not enough just to have great content in the ads. You need to have this on your grid as well. So even if you're not going to use all seven in the ads, start thinking every week when you're, start thinking every week when you're creating your content, okay, how can I How can I incorporate some of this type of content in my con How can I incorporate some of this type of content so that even when they're coming over from the ads they're seeing this type of content and then hopefully i'm going to follow you from there because you can see that they're Because they can see that you're addressing, because they can see that the type of thing that [00:29:00] you offer is exactly what they need.

[00:29:18] So, so there you have it. That is, so there you have it. The Instagram ad campaign that you can run from three to five pounds a day that will grow your Instagram followers. That will start, that will help you build the momentum around your Instagram, reaching new people all the time, increasing your followers, but in the right way, so actually bringing in ideal clients, but in the right way, so you actually bring in ideal clients and grow your audience, not for vanity, not just because you want more people in your world for the sake of more people, but because you want more people in your world who will potentially buy from you.

[00:29:54] I hope that has been really helpful. If you are sitting there thinking, If you're sitting there thinking, well, that's all well [00:30:00] and good, but I have got no idea exactly, but I've got no idea how to do that, Sophie, then you are in luck because the audience builder course, which is my signature digital course includes this campaign, includes this campaign.

[00:30:13] So I detail, includes this campaign. I go into detail, include, includes this campaign. includes this campaign. In it, I, in it, there are short videos where I literally record my screen and take you through step by step exactly how to do this campaign, the types of posts, exactly how to do this campaign.

[00:30:39] There's a checklist with the Dreamer framework, so you can go through and create that content. And there are videos around how

[00:30:49] And there are videos on how to work out if it's working, how to optimise the campaign and exactly what you need to do to make sure you are getting the best results. I will put the link in the show notes. It's called the [00:31:00] audience builder course and it's sophiegriffiths. co forward slash. I'll put the link in the show notes, but it's sophiegriffiths.

[00:31:08] co forward slash ABC. And you will find all the information there and you will find all the information and you'll be able to sign up there. I hope you have found this information helpful. I hope you found this, I hope you found this useful and I really look forward to seeing you next week.