Imagine losing 45k Instagram followers overnight

Imagine building your Instagram account to 45k followers, and then having it wiped out overnight? 

This happened to my wife’s Instagram account in 2020. A simple mistake by her assistant led to her account being hacked, and to the hackers then holding the account for ransom. 

As I had never encountered this before, I figured it would be a simple case of contacting Instagram and having them restore her account.

I was not about to negotiate with terrorists. :) 

My wife had the legal business name and incorporation documents to prove that the account belonged to her. I thought this would be an easy matter to resolve. 

Turns out, I was dead wrong. 

After a month of back and forth, and never being able to get anyone from IG on the phone, she finally got the account back . . . but it now had zero followers, and she had to start over. 

Keep in mind that her business was all online, and her IG account was a big part of her marketing plan. 

This would have been catastrophic for most small business owners, but while she was building her IG following, my smart wife had also been building a substantial email list. 

She currently has an email list of 24k sourdough enthusiasts. 

Because of her email list, her volume of sales barely missed a beat. It took quite some time to rebuild to the 45k followers, but she was able to use email to make sales, and rebuild her account. 

It can be easy to forget that, on social media, you are a renter on someone else's platform, which is why you MUST also build an email list. 

I can share numerous other examples of how your social account can be wiped out. The point is, you would be crazy not to build an email list. 

Once you’ve built that email list, how do you keep them engaged, and how do you use your  list to build your business? 

In this week's 10-minute tactical podcast, I share my five favourite tactics for doubling your email open rate. 

You can check it out here.

→ 5 Tactics to Double Your Email Open Rate 

I think social media is a great way to expand your reach and network. I just encourage you to make certain you build your email list at the same time.