My top tips on taking a break from Instagram.
We are in December and the countdown to Christmas is well and truly on! Hopefully, most of you are going to be able to take a break away from your business over Christmas. But you may be unsure of the best way to do this without affecting your business’s Instagram account. Here are my top tips on how to prepare for an Instagram break which you can apply to any time of the year not just for Christmas.
The assisted break
If you want to take a break from your Instagram account but dont want your audience to know, one option is to hire someone to cover your account for you.
Do you know you can hire a VA (virtual assistant) or social media manager for short contracts? Most people think if they hire someone to look after their pages it’s a long commitment and expense but there are people who will be happy to take on short contracts to just cover holidays and breaks. You can hire someone to simply respond to comments and messages on your prescheduled posts or you can pay someone to create the content for you from scratch. It all comes down to how comfortable you are with temporarily handing your social media over to someone else and what kind of budget you have.
The prescheduled break
If you don’t feel ready to pass your Instagram account over to someone else the other way you can still have content posting on your account is to preschedule it.
You can currently schedule your static posts and carousels in Meta Business Suite for free up to 2 months in advance however Instagram recently announced that it was adding the function to schedule directly within Instagram. This will not only be for posts but will also include reels and is rolling out slowly across Instagram accounts so you may or may not be able to do this yet.
If you do decide to preschedule make sure to still include a call to action to keep people engaging in your posts and as soon as you are back respond to any comments and messages you have.
The complete break
So you want to take a complete break from Instagram for a while. Sometimes a clear break for a couple of weeks is just what you need to reset and come back fresh with new ideas and content.
If you are going to take a break and not post anything make sure you give your audience plenty of warning. Create a post explaining the dates you will be away from and pin it to the top of your profile, especially if you are a product business it’s important your customers know when they can order from you again or if they place an order what date you will be returning to process it. If you have an online shop you may even be able to pause orders or put your shop in holiday mode however just be cautious of this as you could put people off ordering from you at all, a delayed delivery time may be more favourable that not being able to order at all. Finally set up automated responses for your direct messages that let people know how long you will be closed and when you will be back and they can expect a response.
When you are ready to return to Instagram after your break it is important that you re-engage with your community. This includes replying to any comments left on your posts, replying to all direct messages, commenting on the posts of your most active followers and reacting and commenting on the top posts of your most popular hashtags.
I hope this has helped give you some ideas for preparing your business for the Christmas break. Taking a break is so important for your mental health and whether you choose to have someone cover your account, preschedule your content or are planning to take a complete break having a plan of how to prepare and what to do when you come back will ensure you have the least impact to your business.
I would love to know if you are going to be using one of these options for taking a break this Christmas and you can find out more about my Tech VA services here.
Have a great day
Nicola – New Wisdom Design and Digital
