5 Things I Noticed When I Spent a Week Without Posting On Instagram

Last month was spent mostly in Portugal on holiday with my family and with that, came an unintentional absence from social media, notably Instagram. I put the emphasis on Instagram because I have definitely succumbed to the pull of Instagram and allowed my other platforms to take a back seat (which is something I'm not proud of and am dying to change but it's much harder than I anticipated!) Don't get me wrong, I was still scrolling through my Instagram feed daily BUT the difference to my usual antics was that I had nothing new to post so I didn't. Taking a break isn't a bad thing but I noticed a few things which I thought I'd share with you!

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1. It's hard to come back

A morning became a day, a day become two and next thing I knew a week had passed and I had nothing to show for it (on Instagram at least). This all sounds so trivial and in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter but if social media plays a part in your life - whether it be big or small - it does have the capacity to impact you in so many ways. It's enough to fill my head with numerous doubts: Will this photo be good enough? Am I going to get any likes? Have my followers lost interest now? Will everyone unfollow me?

2. People respond to honesty, it's relatable

Whilst I never expected to have any DM's or comments from people throughout my absence, I did get a couple of really lovely and supportive comments once I started posting again. After a week long hiatus on Instagram, I admittedly felt a bit anxious about posting again as I didn't want to end up failing again and that felt like added pressure. With that said, my caption was a pretty honest one where I shared how I was feeling and people responded to that. The photo got lots of lovely positive comments as well as some feedback about how I said I was feeling which definitely offered me a bit of a booster which was just what I needed after a week of feeling not good enough.

3. Planning content in advance is so helpful

I am a planner, I like to write many lists of all the things I have to do before taking on those tasks. I feel more at ease with a schedule and I like knowing what's ahead which I think is why this really stood out to me when I stopped posting. I would go as far as to say the reason I stopped posting was because of the spontaneity of it all. I didn't have a backlog of photos like I usually have back in the UK (I shoot in bulk in London so I have photos to last me slightly over a week) and I found it difficult to shoot, edit and upload on the same day as I just wasn't taking photos daily - I couldn't keep up.

4. Posting twice a day trumps posting once a day

I've been posting twice a day for a while now, I can't quite remember when I started to up my posting but I haven't really gone back since. When I got to Portugal I decided to only post once a day to ease the workload, I was on holiday after all, and I noticed a drop in engagement, likes and followers. Personally, I have noticed a difference with posting twice a day as opposed to once a day and my aim is always to upload two images daily.

5. It will get worse before it gets better

When I left for Portugal I was at 40.3k. Now, I'm down to 40.2k and believe me, there have been many days I've been teetering on the edge of going down further to 40.1k. Obviously this is still a huge number of people, forty thousand people!! But I think we're all guilty of measuring our success by numbers and losing any number of followers will always be disheartening. With that said, my only tip would be to not give up. Continue posting as often as you can (ensuring it is content that you are proud of because posting for the sake of posting can be detrimental) and things will turn around.


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Mini dress - ASOS
Black round straw bag - (c/o) Next
Black sandals - Topshop
[Photos taken by Faith]