Why I love Instagram
Hello, my name is Kara and I’m an Instaholic.
There are nights l sit for hours, getting sucked down the vortex and ending up with a sore right thumb from scrolling and liking pictures posted by random people I’ve never met. My husband thinks I’m cray and often gives me a look that roars, “Can you put your frickin’ phone down!” Yes, I get it’s a tad anti-social, but Iike I said, I have a problem.
I am a complete sucker for a good-looking Instagram feed. Some people like the real-life, warts-and-all pictures and, while I do enjoy those posts, I just love it when I click on a profile and see a feed full of gorgeous pics.
What I didn’t really understand when I was simply using Instagram for fun was how much effort is required to ‘curate’ (fancy-pants Instagram term) your page. Pictures and quotes perfectly colour matched and positioned don’t happen by chance – they happen by using really good apps (or, even better, a social media agency). I think most ‘grammers’ will say good pictures make all the difference when starting a feed.
As soon as my polishes and packaging were ready I booked an amazing photographer, Meagan Harding, and enlisted the help of professional product stylist Anna Chisholm. The investment was well worth it. These images have become my branding and, over time, I hope people will connect the look and feel of the images with the Miss Frankie brand.
My feed is definitely curated, but it reflects what I like – keeping it real for me will hopefully resonate with others. Instagram Stories is a great outlet where it doesn’t have to be quite so polished – there I can post pics of things that happen during my day and share some personal stories.
The other thing I’ve learned about is influencers. These are the peeps you send product to in the hope they’ll love them, take amazing pics and share them with all their followers. At first, I just didn’t get how good these guys are. Of course, it’s a marketing cost and you have to do your research first to find people who have similar values, but having people who love your product wanting to share it with the world is a good feeling. To be honest, sometimes you send out product and never hear back, but that’s completely OK. Maybe that influencer doesn’t wear nail polish, maybe she didn’t like the colour or maybe she gets sent so much shit she just gave it to her mum.
The Miss Frankie Instagram account has just hit 1600 followers, and it’s definitely a milestone for us, even though my 13-year-old niece has more followers on her personal account. For me what counts is having real people follow the account. Lots of businesses buy followers, but I just don’t see the point of having 50K followers if they’re just robots that are never going to engage or buy the product.
So here’s to more real peeps sharing the Miss Frankie love. You can do that over on Instagram at @lovemissfrankie.
MF xx