• Are you trying to grow your following on social media?
• Do you envy other lash artists who have 1,000s of followers and how successful they must be with such a huge amount of eyes on their posts?
• Ever participated in a like for like or follow for follow post on a lash forum thinking:

“Yes! I’m almost to 500 followers or 1,000 followers, there’s 10,000 people in this Facebook group, maybe some of them will follow me if I follow them back. “

Well you’ve just set yourself up to have the algorithm work AGAINST you and NOT for you… and I’ll tell you why.

1). RIGHT FOLLOWERS VS WRONG FOLLOWERS

If you think the number in your profile is a reflection of the financial health of your business, you have been misled! There are the right type of followers to have and the wrong type of followers to have.

So what exactly is a wrong type of follower? You are running an eyelash extension business so you need followers who are potential clients. Having a following of 200 other lash artists from all over the globe doesn’t do jack squat to boost your bank account. It may make you feel good to have 500 followers or 1,000 followers, but you have fallen into the false sense that being popular equates to business success.

When an artist assumes that the goal of their social media marketing is to have a bunch of followers, you forget that those followers are actual people. People whose time is valuable. And, who either want to hear what you have to say OR who have ONLY followed you because you were a part of a “follow for follow” train from a Facebook Group. Unless a client is looking for you to run their social media, clients care more about themselves and what YOU can do for THEM than how many followers you have.

LASHPRENEUR LIGHTBULB: PROFITABILITY OVER POPULARITY. My suggestion is to STOP focusing on the number on your profile and prioritize the number in your bank account.

2). ALGORITHM 101

Now, this may be uncomfortable for some but it is time to have a real talk about the “scary” algorithm that’s determined to “destroy your business one shadowban at a time”. Joking!

There are currently 2.2 billion monthly users on Facebook and over 800 million monthly users on Instagram. And what are all these 2.2 billion people doing on these platforms? They’re posting and a lot.

There are videos and pictures and essays and cooking videos and Chewbacca moms and memes and emojis, oh my! There are posts from your friends and family, businesses you like, paid ads who targeted you, viral posts from strangers that your friend’s liked, politicians, celebrities, musicians, and groups you follow, and the list goes on and on.

With all of this content, Facebook (and Instagram since Facebook owns Instagram) had to find a way to filter and prioritize the massive amount of information and data available on its platform – so it came out with the algorithm.

The algorithm serves a very important purpose and its purpose is NOT to put your lash work in front of as many potential lash clients as possible (rude!).

The algorithm serves Facebook’s purpose, which is to essentially connect people from all across the world and give them a sense of community. But Facebook can’t do this for free, so how does it make the money needed to fund our social interaction with people from around the world? Thru paid advertising.

Facebook’s goal is to keep you on the app by showing you content that you like and enjoy. If it can keep you on the app longer,  you’ll be exposed to (and hopefully engage with) more paid ads. The algorithm has over 100,000 factors to decide what you see in your news feed and at any given time, it has about 15,000 different posts it could show you every time you login. The algorithm watches you and your clicks and your interactions with posts to learn your likes, dislikes, haha faces and angry faces. It knows far too much about you which is why Facebook Ads are the best Bang for your buck because of how targeted you can get with your audience in a Facebook ad! The algorithm probably knows you better than your spouse! All so it can show you more of what you want to see, thus keeping you on the app longer.

So for you, as a business owner, the algorithm is judging your post on how valuable it is to your followers and how likely your post is to keep someone on the app longer. That means if you’re not getting engagement, it’s basically because nobody cares about your post and they don’t engage with it OR you don’t give them anything to engage with. It’s not relevant to THEM or THEIR lives. Or it’s just “C.15 8-12mm Cat Eye. So fluffy!”. What exactly is a potential client supposed to engage with in that caption?

The algorithm runs a test on a few of your followers to gauge the value of your post and if it is not engaged with, it doesn’t not push it out into more feeds because the few feeds it did put it in front of (I.e. all those “generous” lash artists who followed you in that Facebook “follow for follow” train) didn’t interact with the post and thus that told the algorithm, “yeah, this is just a waste of my time on the app.”

What’s the takeaway from all this algorithm talk?

LASHPRENEUR LIGHTBULB: Engaging content, posts and imagery that provides value to your followers is the ONLY way to get the algorithm to work FOR you and not AGAINST you.

How do you provide value? You have to get to know who you want as followers and then serve the crap out of them with your social media posts. Finding the RIGHT FOLLOWERS and then giving them exactly what they want and need (as well keeping them engaged and proving just how amazing you actually are) will not only improve your Facebook and Instagram numbers, it will improve your business’ numbers!!!

Now, I go into full detail as to how to do just that in my group coaching program The Lashpreneur Society.  You can join the waitlist to get notified when doors open next for The Lashpreneur Society here!

But I have a way for you to start improving your social media game TODAY.

Introducing the launch of “Marketing Made Easy” where your social media marketing is as easy as COPY. PASTE. POST. We have released our first round of 3 different bundles of this digital product line. Each bundle contains 10 images with 10 engaging captions meant to encourage your followers to interact with your posts and to provide relevant, timely, and valuable information about you and your business.

If you purchase a single bundle of 10 images and 10 captions, and you pair those images with 10 images of your lash work like you’re probably already doing, you now have an ENTIRE MONTH’S WORTH OF POSTS if you post 5 days a week!

Check out the “Marketing Made Easy” digital downloads HERE and make your lash biz marketing as easy as COPY. PASTE. POST.

Have a good one!

Tara Walsh
The Lashpreneur