Why I Quit Instagram in 2024 (And Still Had My Best Year In Business!)

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a small business owner who has grown utterly tired of marketing your small business on Instagram (and maybe social media in general?). And you’re wondering if there’s another way, an alternative to this constant hamster-wheel of content creation, in the hope it will give your small business more visibility or the chance to ‘go viral’.

I get you. I run my own small greeting card business based in Cheltenham, Jess A Little Creative, and in 2024 I decided to quit Instagram (and Facebook, though I was using that less anyway). It was a risk. Although I knew the majority of my sales came from other channels, it still felt like it could be a monumental mistake for my small business. 

But not only was it not a mistake, it meant that 2024 was my best year in business to date. My greeting card sales nearly doubled, I felt happier and more fulfilled in my work, and my levels of focus and productivity hugely increased. It’s honestly been a game changer for me. 

Before we get started...

Now before we get any further into this blog, I want to clearly state I am not a trained small business mentor/professional in any way. I am simply sharing my own personal experience as a small business owner, in the hopes it might help someone else. I’m not promising miracles or saying everyone should delete Instagram. But I think what happened to me is an interesting story and one worth sharing. 

I also want to caveat that we all have a different definition of the phrase ‘successful small business’. I am not writing this as the owner of a 6-figure-constantly-going-viral-and-selling-out-small-business.

I am writing this as the owner of a small greeting card business, who also works as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. 

I love my small business, it fulfils me, makes me happy, and is a great outlet for my creativity. That is success in my eyes. I absolutely could do with increasing the amount of profit I make, but I am very grateful for where the business is at right now. Just wanted to give that context before diving in. 

But now I really want to share what happened to my small business when I quit Instagram, along with some top tips to help you if you’re wanting to do the same. I really hope you find it useful!

I never really had a healthy relationship with Instagram

So I’ve never been a huge fan of Instagram. It’s not like I loved it and then suddenly a switch flicked and I stepped away. I’ve always found it a challenge. I personally don’t like the whole ‘highlight reel’ feel of everything, it feels fake to me and although I can see Instagram is encouraging more authentic content these days, it still feels way too curated and not ‘real’ enough for me to properly connect with it.

But when I started my greeting card business in 2020, Instagram was important to help me spread the word. And for that I will always be grateful, it was a huge help in the beginning. But when you run your own small business and always have so many jobs to do, I found creating content for Instagram to be quite a time drain and not necessarily one that was paying off. 

I also started following a lot of other small businesses, and although I made friends via Instagram and found a lot of lovely people on there, it just wasn’t healthy for me to be consuming all that small business content all the time. I was finding myself in a constant spiral of comparison.

How I used Instagram for my small business

Before quitting, I had around 2,100 followers, was posting to Instagram 3-4 times per week, with my posts reaching on average 200-300 people (so really not a huge following by today's standards - I'd never cracked the going viral thing!).

I used to post a mixture of product photos, carousels, behind-the-scenes, as well as the occasional photo of me (which were always the posts that did the best but made me cringe). I followed all the advice and tried to create an aesthetically-pleasing, kind and informative Instagram account, where followers would hopefully enjoy and benefit from the content I was posting.

But I just wasn't enjoying it. It was eating up so much of my time, and I knew from my website analytics that Instagram wasn't generating much traffic to my website or sales. It felt like a lot of effort and time spent on a platform which wasn't making me feel good.

I really tried to form a better relationship with Instagram, by taking regular breaks and being conscious of who I was following

When I became aware that Instagram was perhaps not the best place for me, I really tried to put some boundaries in place, to make it work for me, as I knew that having a presence on Instagram was super important for my small business.

Once or twice a year I would take a break from Instagram for at least two weeks, to completely decompress from it, and I would ensure I was trying to only follow accounts that made me feel good.

But it wasn’t really enough. Each Instagram break I took became a bit longer, and deep down I knew it wasn’t the place for me. But the importance of Instagram, and social media in general, to small businesses is constantly hammered home to us by experts, so I didn’t know how to go about solving this problem. I basically knew I wanted to come off Instagram completely, but just didn’t think it was possible.

In the end, I knew to run my small business successfully, I had to completely quit Instagram

On 28 March 2024, I posted to Instagram announcing I was taking one of my regular social media breaks, and basically just never went back (oops). I wouldn’t recommend this as it meant my Instagram followers weren’t expecting me to fully disappear, and I hadn’t properly communicated what was happening. But honestly, my productivity when I wasn’t on Instagram was just so vastly different, it had to happen.

I wasn’t getting constant notifications on my phone to check, I wasn’t getting distracted seeing what other small business owners were doing, and I wasn’t wasting time trying to think of exciting content ideas. I actually had so much more time to work on my greeting card business, and get stuff done. 

I knew what I needed to do to grow my small business, but I was constantly getting distracted by looking at what others were doing. Stepping away from Instagram allowed me to focus solely on my own path.

Fast forward to July 2024, and I knew this Instagram 'break' was more of a permanent thing, and I felt awful that I'd just left my followers hanging without an explanation. So I did log back on on 9 July and posted a 'Currently Not Active On Social Media' post, explaining what had happened, and communicating how customers could still interact with my small business.

I pinned this post to the top of my Instagram feed, as well as updating my bio to state that I'm currently not active on social media, and to email me with any enquiries.

In hindsight, I should have done all this before quitting, but at the time I was majorly burying my head in the sand! Learn from my mistakes, and have an 'exit strategy' if you do decide to step away from Instagram, so your followers and customers know exactly what is happening.

Quitting Instagram has had some interesting effects on my small business

The Pros

• I have been way more focused and productive

• I have felt more positive about my small business and compared myself to others less

• I have felt generally happier and less stressed

• I have more time!

• I feel like my connections with people have become more genuine, now they are formed away from social media

The Cons

• Repeat sales from loyal customers have decreased

• I sometimes feel a bit ‘out of the loop’

• At networking events, I find it hard to keep in touch with people I’ve met as everyone tends to exchange social media details

• I miss chatting to some of my small business friends, as all our messages were sent via Instagram

 

As you can see, there are pros and cons to my move away from Instagram. But honestly, the pros have been so beneficial to my wellbeing, they outweigh the cons. Plus, my sales have nearly doubled this year!

I wrote my annual end-of-year blog recently, and it made me realise how much of what I’d achieved in 2024 had come from moving away from Instagram. It had been keeping me stuck and wasting so much of my time.

Advice I would give to any small business owner looking to move away from Instagram

If any of what I’m saying here is resonating with you, and you’re wondering if you can also move away from Instagram for your own small business, I do have some tips and advice:

• As previously mentioned, have an 'exit strategy' for leaving Instagram. Create a post explaining that you're no longer active on the platform, and give followers alternative ways to keep in touch with you, whether that is via an email newsletter or a different platform. Don't just disappear without explanation like I did!

• Update your Instagram bio saying you're not active on the platform, and provide an email address, so anyone wanting to contact you can do so easily. You don't want to miss out on any potential sales or leads.

• If you’re currently receiving most of your sales via Instagram or other social media platforms, ensure you find some other income streams before quitting, else you will see a huge drop in income. This could be from an email newsletter, in-person events, working on SEO to drive more organic traffic to your website, or using other platforms which you prefer. Marketing does not have to mean solely posting to social media.

• I work super hard on SEO, and drive a lot of traffic to my website through that, which helped me feel better about leaving Instagram. 

• Next year I am going to be putting a lot more effort into Pinterest, blogging and building the wholesale side of my small business. These will hopefully all help increase my small business’ visibility without using Instagram. 

So if you’re going to leave Instagram, first ensure you have other ways to get your small business found - the world needs to see your wonderful products and services!

What you can learn from my Insta-quitting

The first few days were hard. Due to the addictive nature of the app, I found myself wanting to go on it all the time, but believe me that quickly faded. Like any habit, it’s soon replaced with other things. 

Remember you don't have to fully 'quit', either. You may find that setting firmer boundaries like a time limit on how long you spend on Instagram, consciously following accounts that make you feel good, or getting a VA to help with your Instagram content creation may help you feel better about it. It doesn’t have to be as extreme as what I’ve done.

And finally, you don’t have to make a black and white decision about it. Ultimately, you know how you feel, what makes you feel good, and what helps you run your small business effectively. If you try moving away from Instagram and it doesn't work, there’s no shame in going back. You can change your mind at any time.

It’s your small business, and therefore it’s your rules. If I’m honest it took me way too long to move away from Instagram, I should have probably done it years ago, I was definitely fighting my gut instinct that it was not somewhere I wanted to be.

Would I ever go back to Instagram?

Well isn’t this the million dollar question. I am definitely not ruling it out. Although the Instagram app is uninstalled from my phone, I do log in once every few months just to monitor messages, I’ve not deleted my account. 

But now I’m nearly 9 months into an Instagram-free life, and I can’t currently imagine going back. I love that I don’t spend any time on it, I’m more present in my day-to-day life, I feel happier, and when I meet up with a friend I get to hear their news from them rather than via an Instagram post. 

In terms of my small business, it has been the best decision I have made. I cannot tell you how much more productive and confident I am since leaving Instagram. For me, it’s absolutely been the right decision and has been such a healthy and good change to my lifestyle. 

It has felt quite a drastic and bold move, stepping away from Instagram, when it is such a huge part of society and culture, but I don’t regret it.

Though I would recommend if you’re going to do it, then maybe plan it better than I did, and communicate with your customers exactly how they can reach you and your business, rather than just disappearing off the face of the earth for a while like I did!

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So that is my experience of quitting Instagram, while still running a small business. I think you can tell that I am happy with the decision I made, and it hasn’t had any devastating impact on my small business.

You have to weigh up how reliant you are on Instagram for sales currently, how unhappy you feel about the time you spend on it, and ideally how you want your life and small business to look in the future.

If you don’t enjoy Instagram, it’s important to find a way to spend less time on it, the same way that all we can all do is try and spend more time doing the things we love, and less time on the things that don’t make us feel good.

I would absolutely love to hear from you if you are running your small business without Instagram, as sometimes I honestly feel like the only one doing it! Or if you’re thinking of doing it too, please just drop me a message, I’d love to chat more. This is a pretty hot topic and I’m more than happy to share my experiences on it.

I hope you have found this useful, insightful, or at least a little helpful, and it has given you some clarity around your own relationship with social media and your small business.

If you’d like to follow along with my greeting card business and small business journey, please sign up to my mailing list here (my mailing list is the best way to keep in touch now I’m not on Instagram).

Thanks so much for reading, Jess x