I Ghosted My Instagram: Now What Happens?

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I’m that mysterious hot, single mom in your area.

JK, but I am single and dating after the pandemic, and wow, what a time to be alive. You’ve heard of GHOSTING, but how about…

…zombieING? That’s when your old match or ex pops back into your life months or even YEARS after ghosting.

…breadcrumbING? They offer just enough to contact to keep your hopes up, only to drop off before anything materializes. This one wounds me the most; I love breadcrumbs!

…marleyING? Marleying is my fave- it’s a nod to Dickens’ Christmas Carol. The ghost that pops up around the holidays to check in and ghost again, “Happy 4th of Juuuuly, miss you.”

We can all acknowledge that we have BEEN ghosted and have DONE the ghosting. And no judgment, but if you are like many folks I work with, you’ve probably ghosted your Instagram.

Let’s talk about that.

I ghosted my Instagram. What now?

You start posting for your small business, and your grid (the area of Instagram with all of your pictures) looks beautiful.

But sometimes, it feels like YOU are just talking into the void. You’re putting yourself out there, and it’s just crickets 

Suddenly, you found yourself posting less and less and eventually ghosting your profile.

What happens if you’ve decided to go ahead and try and learn Instagram this time and you want to wield this powerful marketing machine? How do you reach back out to your old Instagram and see if it feels the same way about you??

In this post, I will share four things you might notice when you’ve abandoned your Instagram and are ready to return. I’ll cover those challenges, plus some ways to weather the storm. Finally, I’ll give five tips for making the best comeback possible. Let’sa GO!*

(*you know…from Mario?)

4 Things You May Notice After Ghosting Your Instagram

1. You might need to work harder to get the algorithm to recognize that you’re here and ready to work.

If you’ve left Instagram because you felt like you were talking to yourself, returning and getting even less of a response can feel worse. But it’s normal.

Instagram’s algorithm needs time to determine who you are, how valuable your new content will be for its users, and how often you can create and post that helpful content.

Keep posting, and try not to evaluate your strategy daily. Do the work of figuring out your audience before you go back, and try to assess at 30 and 60 days after your comeback.

How do things look after that? What performed well? What performed poorly? Use the answers to these questions to choose your next moves.

2. The IG conversation around your niche may have changed and might not align with the old.

Sometimes when you leave a community, big news rocks said community, and the whole conversation is different than it was when you left.

Remember Boss Babe Rachel Hollis and her Instagram fall from grace? Rachel Hollis authored the book Girl Wash Your Face, and people loved her so hard. They still do.

But Rachel’s bad behavior came to a head after she went on an Instagram rant in which she stated:

• She doesn’t caaaaare if she’s relatable

• She worked supes haaard to get where she was cough married fucking rich cough

• Offhandedly mentions that she has a lil gal clean her toilets, and she worked SO hard for THAT

• She compared herself to Harriet Tubman in the caption

Can you imagine if your niche had been self-help books, and you praised Rachel’s work before you realized how problematic she was?

Of course, now you’d probably NOT feel the same way about Rachel and may need to change a few things. In the words of Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

(PS: Rachel Hollis has plagiarized so fucking hard, including stealing the work of Maya Angelou herself and then blaming her team…)

The bottom line is that you should be a wallflower and see what has changed before jumping back in. That way, when you DO post, you’ll post relevant content your audience needs.

3. You’ve probably lost some followers and will likely lose more when you start posting again.

When you leave your followers, they MIGHT LEAVE YOU! How dare they?? But this is normal.

Some folks who followed you may have noticed you’re inactive and decided to clean up their lists. Conversely, people you used to follow may no longer be active, and you may want to unfollow them.

When you start posting again, people may ask themselves, “Wow, who in the HECK is this? I don’t remember following them!” unfollow 

All of this is entirely normal.

Do your best not to gauge your success by your number of followers.

If you were a corn farmer, would you care about how many people were watching you cultivate corn? Or would you care MORE about how many people are buying your corn?

In other words, you must take time to grow your Instagram thing to make money. It doesn’t matter too much whether you have lots of people watching you do it- it matters more that the right people are getting what they need from you.

4. You’ve missed taking advantage of all of Instagram’s new features, so your profile might be outdated.

Remember pre-pandemic when there weren’t any reels? Remember when we used to be able to post heavily-filtered pics of our shoes with sappy emo lyrics, and our fans went wild? Haha, yikes to that one.

Instagram has come a long way and will go a long way. It likes to pull the best of every other platform and do it better. Anything you can do, I can do better (music music music). Can they? No, they can’t! Yes, they can! No, they can’t!

Things have changed if it’s been even a year since you ghosted your Instagram. You may need to give your profile a considerable makeover to bring it back up to date. Old posting methods might not work like they used to, so expect a bit of a learning curve as you get into the habit of posting again in 2023.

I’ve decided to make my Instagram comeback. How can I make it the best comeback EVER?

Buddy, I am so glad you asked. Yes, it would have been ideal if you had never ghosted in the first place, but the past is in the past. Forgive yourself for dropping off the face of the planet! We’ve all been there.

When you do come back to Instagram, there are a few things to keep in mind. Do as many of these as you can before you start posting.

💜 Make a new post explaining where you’ve been but don’t make any promises.

No need to wring your hands- offer a friendly update telling people what you’ve been up to. Don’t tell them you’ll start posting again or any other promises. Just play it by ear and do your best. You may have a few starts and stops, which is normal.

Here’s an example of how I did this on my crime Instagram:

💜 Update your profile before you post.

Take some time and update your Instagram profile before you start posting again. Has your niche changed? Do you need to update your bio to reflect where you’re at today? Have your website links changed? Just make sure all your ducks are in a row before you post.

💜 Think ahead to what content you might like to discuss.

Before you jump back in, you need a strategy. But, a complicated plan might be part of what’s holding you back. “Shouldn’t I know what I will post for the whole year?? Shouldn’t I have BATCHED this??” Just get enough of an idea for the next few weeks. Please don’t overwhelm yourself when you start back, or you will likely abandon it again.

💜 Make your Instagram comeback about engagement.

Instead of posting first, make your rounds on your followers’ Instagram accounts and comment on their posts. Don’t go crazy; just 2-3 posts are OK- but leave meaningful comments. Think of yourself as a wallflower. Just observe and chit-chat with the people you know. Once you’ve done this for a couple of days, try posting.

💜 Don’t go buck wild posting just because your engagement is low.

Sometimes when you post after not posting for a while, you’ll get some good engagement. It’s exciting! It feels encouraging! It feels like this could really work this time. But then the following post doesn’t get as much attention. And then the next gets even less. So you start posting more and more, chasing that original high. Try to resist doing this. Know that a change in engagement is normal.

The big thing to know and to remind yourself about is this: just making an Instagram comeback isn’t going to be the thing that turns your whole marketing world around. You’ll still need to create a great strategy eventually, post consistently, and put in some time.

But making sure you know what to expect and how to make the best of your comeback are the keys to getting started once again- hopefully for good this time :)

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