Stop Building an Instagram Brand: 5 reasons why Social Media Isn't Enough

For years, Instagram has been the go-to platform for eCommerce brands to establish a presence, gain followers, drive sales, and build a "relevant" brand. But the truth is, relying on a single social media platform—typically Instagram—isn't the silver bullet many business owners believe it to be.

Sure, it's great to get off the ground, but think about this: back in the '70s, when TV advertising was the primary investment, would you have put all your spending on one channel?

Owning an agency gives you a unique vantage point where you see brands overly focused on short-term targets. Before co-founding NOVOS, I worked for MADE.com, and that was the peak of what I'm referencing. We had daily targets, even for SEO. There was no long-term marketing strategy—just pure acquisition with over 80% of the marketing spend going towards Google and Meta advertising.

Social media platforms, especially Instagram, have always struggled with trust and authenticity issues, making it a risky strategy to build your entire brand presence there.

In this post, we'll explore why building an eCommerce brand solely on Instagram ads is too limiting—and what you should focus on instead to ensure long-term growth and trust.

Cost of Investing

Social ads are an excellent way to launch, but once your concept is proven, you need to think long-term. If your ads stop, your business could die. During the pandemic, we witnessed many of our direct-to-consumer clients go bankrupt because they relied solely on advertising and didn’t diversify channels quick enough.

Remember these platforms are public limited companies so will always prioritise the money-grab over their users.

Here is the YoY trend of the cost of advertising on meta and Google which is only going in one direction….

Channel Diversification

These businesses hadn't diversified into organic channels early enough. They lacked brand presence in industry publications, valuable content for customers, and a solid retention strategy.

Some survivors struggled to compete with inflated ad costs, forcing them to sell their businesses or operate on a leaner scale.

By focusing only on Instagram, you're ignoring other valuable channels where your target audience might be spending time. A strong brand must be accessible in multiple places, offering various touch points for potential customers to discover and trust you.

This LinkedIn post explains this conundrum very well, mapped across the lifecycle of an eCom brand.

Competition

The low barrier to entry in advertising means copycat competitors can quickly catch up by matching or exceeding your paid media budget. This underscores that advertising isn't a competitive advantage. Today's market is a budget battle, with short-term, algorithm-chasing content vying for attention.

Cost to Your Brand

The long-term cost to your brand is harder to quantify. Constantly creating algorithm-driven content risks eroding your brand identity, potentially turning you into a follower rather than a leader.

The Trust Problem with Social Media

A key challenge in relying on platforms like Instagram is their struggle to foster genuine trust between brands and audiences:

• Short-term Interactions: Social media's quick-scroll nature and short attention spans make it difficult to forge deep, lasting connections. It's challenging to convey your brand's unique value proposition amidst a sea of competing content.
• Algorithm Dependency: Instagram's ever-changing algorithm means yesterday's successful strategy might fail today. Your content's visibility depends on the platform's whims. Even loyal followers might miss updates due to algorithmic preferences. Worse, you might compromise your brand vision by creating short-term content just to appease the algorithm.
• Forced Ads: Many eCommerce brands heavily rely on paid ads for visibility. The problem? When ads stop, your business visibility plummets. Without ads, you're practically invisible to many users. This approach creates forced interactions rather than genuine interest or loyalty. You're essentially purchasing temporary attention instead of building a lasting brand.

The Solution: Build Your Own Audience & Trust Through Consistent, Niche-Relevant Coverage

If Instagram isn't the answer to building a trusted, sustainable brand, what is? The key lies in expanding your focus and establishing trust through repeated exposure across multiple credible channels.

Here's how:

• Diversify Your Presence: Instead of putting all your eggs in one Instagram basket, aim for coverage across various platforms and media. Look for niche-relevant publications, blogs, and websites where your target audience is already spending their time. Whether it's PR placements, or influencer collaborations, being featured in respected spaces can instantly boost your credibility.
• Focus on Niche Relevance: Rather than focusing on the next big thing or where the latest generation is shopping, build a presence in areas directly relevant to your niche. If you sell eco-friendly products, be featured in environmental blogs. If your e-commerce is fashion-based, aim for inclusion in style or lifestyle magazines. In the Interior world, there's a trend of seeking advice from Substacks with sub 5k followers. The numbers may be lower, but the quality of this traffic is high.

• Consistency is Key: Trust doesn't come from a one-off appearance. The consistency of seeing your brand in multiple places over time cements your reputation. Aim for recurring coverage across different media outlets to build familiarity. People trust brands they see repeatedly in various contexts, especially when they appear organically rather than through paid ads.
• Leverage Publications Over Ads: While ads have their place, authentic coverage in publications does more for your brand's reputation. People view it as a stamp of approval when your business is featured in reputable niche publications. It also gives you content to repurpose across other channels, further strengthening your brand's message. You've earned this coverage and the eyeballs that come with it rather than bought them.
• Build your own audience: Create an email database of customers who find your content engaging. Once they're in your database, you have more control to segment and show relevant content rather than pushing the same ad to thousands of potential viewers
• Social & Search together: Leverage social media for demand generation and search engines for demand capturing. We consistently apply this strategy with our clients: we identify trending topics on social platforms, position the brand in key publications around these topics, and create relevant content on the client's website.

Build a Brand That Lasts

In summary, while Instagram and social media ads can be a great way to get off the ground and prove the business concept when your brand matures, you must start diversifying your investments and thinking longer term.

The moment your ads stop running, so could your business.

Instead, build trust through consistent, niche-relevant coverage across multiple platforms, use social media trends to influence your search content and generate your audience through CRM. This will create a more authentic and trustworthy brand that can thrive without being dependent on a single social media platform.

In the coming months, we’ll be doing some deep analysis across our clients data to provide a more detailed picture and demonstrate the significance of non-paid marketing channels.

Sources:

1. Octoboard - Provided insights into the changes in CPC from 2019 to 2024.
   Octoboard
2. WordStream - Detailed analysis of Google Ads benchmarks, including average CPC trends across industries. Semrush / WordStream
3. Revealbot - Offered trends on Facebook and Instagram CPMs and other advertising metrics for 2021 to 2023.
   Revealbot - Automate Your Ad Strategies
4. WordStream - Provided further analysis on Instagram and Facebook ad costs, including CPM comparisons.
   WordStream / Metricool