I want to tell you about the moment I realized I was being lied to — because I’m willing to bet you’re being lied to too.
The lie is simple and sneaky. It’s just that you need to be on social media to have a wildly successful business, and that if you’re not posting consistently, showing up on stories, doing the Reels, you’re leaving money on the table. The problem is that the algorithm is basically your boss now — and your boss keeps wanting more.
Let me also say I’m coming from a place where I have tried. I believed this for years. I believed Instagram was one of the best ways to market your business, that you had to be there or you’d be irrelevant. I even hired someone at one point — I’ll talk about that a little later.
So when all the results were in, I quit Instagram. And in this video I’m going to walk through the whole journey: how I market my business now, why I think Instagram just isn’t providing the Instagram ROI it used to, and why it’s probably not worth as much of your time as you’re giving it.
Table of Contents
Welcome To The Kara Report
If we haven’t met yet, I’m Kara of the Kara Report. I run a content marketing agency where we’re blogging for you, writing podcast scripts for you, turning your podcast scripts into blog posts, getting you on Pinterest. I believe in the power of search-driven marketing — if somebody is searching for what you offer online, I want to help you get found. People are literally searching for what you have. They’re willing to pay for it. Why not get in front of it?
New Business Owners Do All The Marketing Things
Let me take you back to 2017, when I started my destination wedding business. During the pandemic, travel shut down and we shut down with it. I was devastated. I’d been hustling from 2017 to 2020 to get this business off the ground, it was finally starting to consistently work, and then — boom. Over.
Then in 2021, something interesting happened. We randomly started getting inquiries. A lot of them. And we weren’t marketing anywhere. I was not posting on Instagram. I wasn’t blogging or doing Pinterest or any of the things I’d been doing before. So I was like, wait — where are these leads coming from?
That’s when I pulled the data. I had a CRM that gave me access to everything. And what I found was that Instagram had not been pulling its weight the entire time. Even though I’d spent so many weekends, so much of my energy, on Instagram — blogging and Pinterest had been doing the heavy lifting all along. And even when I stopped posting there, they were still bringing me leads.
That should have been the end of the story. But here’s where it gets a little embarrassing.
It Took Me A Long Time To Admit There Was No Instagram ROI
Round two — I did it all over again with the new business.
When the wedding business shut down in 2020 and I started the content marketing agency, I built it around what people were always asking me: how was I, as a brand new destination wedding agent with not much experience, getting booked so consistently? The answer was blogging and Pinterest. So that’s what I decided to offer.
But did I immediately apply that to my own new business? Not exactly.
I started blogging and doing Pinterest for this business too, of course — but Instagram was still pulling me back in. Because everyone said you had to be there. And when it doesn’t work, you don’t blame the platform. You blame yourself. You just need to be more consistent. Better hooks. Better visuals. But not too curated. The goalposts never stop moving.
I’d literally proven that search worked, and I was doing it for other people. But I still felt this weight like I needed Instagram — especially early on, when, let’s be honest, search is slow to kick off.
Being a Marketer That Couldn’t “Crack” The Instagram Algorithm
I’ll be the first to admit it. I think search-driven marketing like blogging and Pinterest are the best ways to grow your business, but I’m not going to lie and say it’s fast. It is very much the opposite of overnight success. So I told myself: Instagram will be a good supplement. That’s where my clients are. I just need to figure it out.
I know people have success on Instagram. I know that to this day. But I couldn’t crack it, and for five years I kept trying — buying courses, testing strategies, convinced I was missing something obvious.
And if I’m being honest, I can be really stubborn as a business owner. I wasn’t actually having trouble finding leads. In the early days it was mostly referrals, and we still get a ton of those. Now our search-driven marketing — the blog, Pinterest, podcasting, and hopefully YouTube — is starting to catch up. Blogging is our main lead source right now, with podcasting second after referrals.
But the Enneagram 3 in me could not let it go. It was bothering me that this was a nut I couldn’t crack. I love marketing. I live and breathe marketing. Why could I not get Instagram?
And I think that’s exactly why this lie is so powerful. The feeling of maybe it’s just me is how it keeps you hooked.
So I decided to fix it once and for all. Instagram had been weighing on me for four and a half, five years. Time to take action.
My Experience Hiring a Social Media Manager
I hired a social media manager — not just any social media manager, but a more expensive one, and specifically someone who had managed social for a coach I’d hired. So I’d seen her work firsthand. She’d gotten me to buy coaching, which meant she knew what she was doing. I was excited. Optimistic. I told myself: I’ve given this my fair shot on my own. I clearly just don’t have the skill. This is the obvious next step.
Six months. Five posts a week.
It did not move the needle on inquiries at all.
Eventually I had to let her go. The Instagram ROI just wasn’t there. But even then, I didn’t quit. I told myself I could still figure it out.
Why I Finally Decided To Quit Instagram
Shortly after, I joined another Instagram membership. They were talking a lot about trial reels, and I thought: okay, that’s it. I’m going all in on trial reels.
I went to post my first one and realized I didn’t even have access to the feature.
I have a public account with over a thousand followers, so I should have had the feature. But I didn’t.
And I swear, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
That weekend I put up a nine grid on Instagram, recorded a podcast episode about quitting Instagram, and just… stopped. That was six months ago and I have not looked back.
I thought I’d miss it. Instagram has this way of making you feel productive — you get to jump on trends, connect with people, and sometimes it’s genuinely fun. Or at least I kept telling myself it was fun. Because the truth is, I don’t miss it at all. The time I’ve gotten back, and more than time, the mental spaciousness — I can’t even describe it. I’m genuinely the happiest I’ve ever been with my marketing.
And my business hasn’t changed. I wasn’t getting clients from Instagram before, and I’m still not getting clients from Instagram. So it’s really not bothering me.
Why I Think It’s So Hard To Quit Instagram
I want to talk about why this lie that “you have to be on Instagram” is so hard to shake. We all think there’s some magical Instagram ROI we haven’t cashed in yet.
I think it’s hard because it feels like everyone is on there. That’s confirmation bias — we assume everyone’s on Instagram, so we see a ton of people on Instagram, and we never actively look for the people who aren’t using social media to market their business at all. (I’m going to link a video where I talk about three clients I work with who have no social media presence.)
I had a slight advantage in that I do search-driven marketing for a living, so I already knew other ways existed and had been actively building them. I’d also seen it work for my clients. So I had a more open mind to the idea of a social-media-free business.
But here’s the core problem: Instagram marketing gets sold as the universal best place to market your business, where everyone’s hanging out. And visibility gets conflated with actually booking clients. Being seen is not the same as getting clients. These platforms are designed to keep you posting — their incentives are not to get you booked. That’s why so many people don’t see and Instagram ROI.
We also look longingly at Instagram gurus and forget that Instagram is their product. If they’re selling Instagram as the solution to all problems, just ask yourself: is that actually your solution?
Why I’m Doubling Down on Search-Driven Marketing Instead Of Waiting For An Instagram ROI
Search-driven marketing is the idea that you can build content assets for your business once and get found forever. Not a 24-hour news cycle — Google and Pinterest. Podcasting isn’t as searchable as you might think on its own, but paired with a blog post or a YouTube video, it can be really powerful. That’s why I’m getting on YouTube now. If people are searching for something, I want them to find my stuff. I even write full blog posts based on my YouTube content (hi… that’s what you’re reading right now).
One of my unpopular opinions: don’t trust an SEO or blogging person who isn’t actively doing it for themselves. If you think it’s the best way to market a business, it better be how you’re marketing yours.
And honestly, that was another thing that bothered me about Instagram. It felt out of integrity. I kept telling people they didn’t need Instagram, that search was the best way — but I wasn’t fully walking the walk the way I am now.
Here’s how search-driven marketing actually works: you create the piece once, and it has a much longer lifespan. Typically six months to three years is the sweet spot. That’s a completely different game than social media. It is slow to start — these algorithms usually take six months to a year to trust you — but once they do, it works while you’re not working.
What’s Your Instagram ROI?
I’m not saying quit Instagram tomorrow and go all in on this overnight. But if you’re craving less screen time, less of the comparison game, less posting-posting-posting — this might be something worth starting to build toward.
I also want to specifically call out service-based businesses, because you don’t need a super high volume of traffic to see an ROI from search-driven marketing. If you’re a graphic designer or a website designer with packages at $3,000, $5,000, $10,000 — what do you actually need? One or two clients a month? You don’t need nearly as much traffic as you think to make this a viable marketing channel.
Commit to a year of it. Commit to a year of consistency — whether you outsource it to someone like me or do it yourself. Just don’t put all your eggs in a platform that will never be sustainable for you.
I learned this lesson the hard way. Twice.
That’s why I’m so passionate about it. The leads that came in while my business was completely dark came from content I had built and forgotten about. I wasn’t online, wasn’t posting, was just dealing with a scary year like everyone else. And my life has continued to be full and unpredictable. In 2022 I had a baby. In 2023 I had a one-year-old. My schedule is constantly changing, and I cannot stress about posting times. I don’t want to. Personally, I’m a lot happier when I’m not spending that mental energy on Instagram, not staring at my screen wondering why I’m stuck in 200-view jail.
In the meantime, if you found this helpful, like the video, subscribe, and leave a comment. I’ll see you in the next one.
