Faisal Shafique is an Instagram-famous social media Guru and Entrepreneur. Having worked for years on his brand and page @fact on Instagram, he has become known in the digital space as a professional growth expert for both social media as well as entrepreneurship endeavors. Here are his top 5 lessons to impart wisdom from:
1. Interacting With Other, Larger Influencers Is Important
When he first started growing on Instagram, Shafique discovered the importance of shoutouts from larger accounts and investing in those opportunities and connections.
What is a ‘shoutout’, you ask?
An Instagram shoutout is posting a tag of another user’s profile page uploaded to an account to show support and give exposure to the other user. Shoutouts can increase a user’s followers and provide advertising to small businesses and websites. By shouting out to other users, you may even get shoutouts to your account in return.
An Instagram shoutout usually takes the form of User 1 creating a post and/or story that would contain a photo or @ mention of User 2.
If it’s a business shoutout, User 1’s post might contain a photo or video of a specific product or service that User 2 is selling at that point in time.
In a lot of cases, shoutouts fall under the umbrella term of influencer marketing, a massive trend that has more than doubled in the past couple of years and doesn’t show signs of stopping anytime soon.
2. Make Sure to Hustle
Shafique has faced much adversity in building his social media empire. He quit his day job to work at his family’s gas station while also pursuing his Associate’s Degree! It was, in fact, during this time that he worked on growing his following. So be a hustler! Traditionally, being viewed as a “hustler” was perceived in a negative light. Recently, however, being seen as a hustler is not only complimentary, it is necessary to succeed. Globally, the economic landscape has transformed dramatically. This can be vastly credited to the emergence of technology and the new tools and platforms that can be used to connect with others.
3. Keep Going Regardless of Obstacles
Shafique was told when he was spending money on his account’s growth to stop doing so by his parents, but after doing much research, he stuck with his intuition and maintained that it was a worthwhile investment, which, indeed, as we can say today, it was. It takes time to build something up. When we see success, our minds often depict the spontaneous emergence of that success, as if out of the blue. We usually don’t see the whole story – just like a pop star who’s suddenly gotten to number 1 and you’ve never heard of them before. However, if you examine their back story, often you’ll find years of hard work and grafting.
4. Don’t Stop, Create New Goals
Even today, years later, after amassing almost 8 million followers on Instagram and working with colossal companies like Game of War, Mobile Strike, Fashion Nova, and FitTea, where he helped them drastically improve their sales, Shafique sets new goals and is now working to break into the E-commerce industry, where he will build a new store within months. Additionally, he also wants to break into the music industry. When interviewed by ‘The Urban Twist’ about this decision, Faisal told them that he had an interest in music from a young age. He said, “Furthermore, gaining popularity will help me to share my life with the universe.” He also conveys that everything gets faded when music is created, and the experience is tantamount to that of breathing fresh air.
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