I’ve been receiving a lot of questions about how to get engagement on social media. People say, “Jasmine, people aren’t engaging with my content,” or “What can I do to get more likes, comments, or followers?” But here’s the thing: I’ve said it all before.

This realization caused my wheels  to start turning, and I thought to myself, Why aren’t creative small business owners doing it? It took me a little while but I understand it now: we resist resistance. Why? I narrowed it down to 3 main reasons. Let’s kick them to the curb, boo boo!

1. Vanity metrics.

We often worry about the numbers: What if I’m not an authority? What if I don’t have as many followers as someone else in my industry? But I’m here to tell you: Numbers don’t matter.

Photos matter, captions matter, but engagement matters most. Instagram just recently announced that if nobody is engaging with your content initially, less people will see it because your audience is telling the algorithm that this post doesn’t matter. So don’t take it from me, take it from Instagram: numbers don’t matter, engagement does.

2. You don’t want to be irrelevant.

Friend, I know you want to be an authority, you want to be avant-garde and dare I say cool, but your objective should only to be relevant to a small group of people who are willing to invest in your business. I don’t want you to be all things to all people in all ways. Why? Because you were not created to be vanilla ice cream.

So few people go into 31 Flavors and say, “I just want vanilla today.” You should aim to be pistachio, strawberry, or mint chocolate chip. Don’t be everything to everyone because we know that people who invest become the best evangelists. And when you have other people talking about what you do, you organically grow by trust.

3. You are so concerned with being popular, not profitable.

My best friend Taylor Swift once said: “If you chase two rabbits you lose them both.” If you are not popular AND profitable, baby boo I want you to choose one. If you choose to be popular, go ahead and do the dang thing but I am not the speaker for you.

But if you say, “I want to serve a small group of people in a highly profitable way so that they tell their friends and amplify my brand year after year,” I’m going to say YES! Let’s do this together because I know that likes don’t pay my bills. I don’t need to be popular and neither do you.

What do you think? Are you ready to get over the resistance, stop being thirsty and start growing organically on Instagram? If so, I’m with you every step of the way.