By Kathy Kyle, Founder and Director

I’m not one for looking back and eschewing progress or the use of technology.

Disruption can be positive. Innovative. And push us into new markets.

And when the Kardashians complain about something I am annoyed about, I tend to rethink my dismay with my feelings.

Instagram has been a source of inspiration, positivity and growth for me, my clients and my business. We connect and create communities there, cross promoting content on other channels to encourage a true word of mouth digital culture that builds up pride in local places and trust in each other.

However I must admit, and I have felt this way for some time, that Meta has lost its way and has forgotten its base. It’s forgotten about its users and small businesses who depend on these platforms to reach their customers. I recognise that younger audiences flock to Tik Tok and Meta is *desperate* to capture that engagement. I’ve written #howto blogs on how to leverage TikTok to generate sales, engagement, and reach new audiences while exporting videos to other platforms. Instagram was once used as a content creation platform – for photographers, artists, creatives – to share content. It has evolved since then and I think that is a good thing. Everyone is different (hooray!) in how they create content and there is no “one size fits all” approach (although admittedly there are trends that many follow, from hashtags to reel styles to photo themes).

Marketing can be performative. But it doesn’t mean you must literally perform. There are creative ways to reach your audience without dancing or pointing at words on screen. That works for some brands but not others. Following trends for the sake of it leaves many feeling inauthentic and it shows. Understanding your brand and your audience are the first steps in overcoming Meta’s own identity crisis. (Hint: they are having an identity crisis.)

Meta itself is doing a poor job of emulating TikTok with its suite of reel options and “updates”.

Whatever platform you use (Tik Tok has really incredible engagement rates) be sure to tell your story using a variety of mediums, *do* use video and just be yourself. It all depends on your industry, service or product, so some approaches work better than others. So many creators are using reels and editing tools creatively and effectively and it is wonderful to see. Ultimately just be yourself and live your brand in your storytelling.

Sadly you won’t receive a response from Meta if you decide to contact them if you’ve got a reel issue unless you are an influencer (10K followers) or spend major cash on ad buys. Money talks with Meta and that’s the rub. It also talks with other platforms, as we can see from Twitter’s recent whistleblowing news and their prioritisation of generating follower numbers over security, user experience and spam.

I’ve always felt that, whether I worked with a massive budget or a small one, I relied on brains and creativity — I had to outsmart the social media giants in order to help my clients and myself win and reach my audience.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments or if you need help, contact us and we will be happy to help you tell your story using video, reels and storytelling.

DigiKind provides training, mentoring and coaching and we are also Power to Change service providers.