How Instagram Marketing Has Changed for Small Businesses – and Why Human Connection Still Matters
I heard something in a podcast recently that made me do a double-take and rewind to make sure that I actually caught it correctly.
I was listening to a podcast focused on branding, and the speaker was sharing about the importance of inserting yourself into the right environments for your personal and business growth. She then referred to that in-person proximity as “the ultimate hack.”
Now at the age of 33, I know I’m not that old… but I certainly have experiences from time to time that remind me that in comparison to younger generations, I’m ancient. And this was one of those moments.
I started my first business around the same time that Instagram began – so the idea of in-person connection as a marketing strategy feels like a no-brainer. As a young photographer, I was attending networking events, putting my photographs up in local coffee shops, and getting my name out there through good old-fashioned word of mouth. So when I heard this kind of real-world strategy referred to as “the ultimate hack,” it led me to wonder if I’m old enough to have seen a trend in business come entirely full-circle.
Maybe authentic, face-to-face relationships are seen as some big secret because business owners have been sold the idea that social media marketing is all about growing a massive audience – and getting them to click “add to cart” so you can make money off of them without ever having to meet them.
Right now, I see posts all over my Instagram feed telling me I can get hundreds of followers a day through trial reels, or retire my husband by selling an AI-generated digital product. And in order to do these things, I need to turn Instagram into my full-time job… when I’m really just trying to use Instagram to support my actual job – my small business.
So many business owners feel like Instagram for small businesses has changed drastically.
And I miss the way it used to be.
Before the voiceovers, the fancy video edits, and the pressure to create a cinematic masterpiece multiple times a day… there were grainy, heavily-filtered mirror selfies. And they were enough.
Social media used to feel like a place to document your life, share your work, and stay connected with people. Remember how your followers would actually see everything you posted? Now, we publish a post into the algorithm void and cross our fingers that it’s deemed “good enough” to be shown to more than 12 people.
Why has social media marketing for small business owners changed so much over the last few years?
I have a theory on when and why things started to get so complicated for business owners on Instagram… and it involves a story we’re probably all tired of hearing by now.
It starts with a little thing called the global pandemic.
In March 2020, when the world as we all knew it started to crumble around us, my world was rocked in an entirely different way. March 2020 was when my son was born and I became a first-time mom.
I wasn’t running a business at the time. I was mostly just figuring out how to keep a tiny human fed and trying not to have an emotional breakdown every single day. But looking back, I can see firsthand how things changed for small businesses… in a way that was good for some, but devastating for others.
First of all, my husband stopped being able to go to the gym – so we purchased some workout equipment online. It was wildly overpriced and had a massively long processing time as the retailer was just trying to keep up with sudden demand (for everyone else who needed an at-home workout option, too).
Second, as an isolated new mom who desperately wanted to sleep for more than two hours at a time, I started following the Instagram “sleep experts” and ended up purchasing a $30 eBook from an expert who promised it would help me get my sanity back. (Spoiler alert: my baby’s sleep somehow got worse when I implemented the tips.)
These little stories from my life hint at trends that are reflected in data – the hard fall of storefront businesses, the sudden rise of online sales, and the idea that you could beat the economic uncertainty if you had an online course to shill.
The COVID-19 pandemic faced business owners with decisions they never should have had to make. Nobody had navigated something like this before, but everyone had to decide if they were going to change their business model, adapt their offerings, or close their doors. For some businesses, the pandemic created opportunity… but for many, it created pressure to pivot as quickly as possible.
The storefront owners, the service providers, the makers who crafted everything by hand – those are the business owners who felt the shift the hardest. Not because they weren't good at what they did, but because they didn’t become eCommerce experts overnight.
Thankfully… it didn’t last forever.
Authentic connection – even on social media – matters more than ever before in today’s world.
Although we all viscerally remember what the years of the pandemic were like (while maybe simultaneously blocking some of it out), we are thankfully well past that season. Now, we’re facing something "unprecedented" in a different way when it comes to the world of online business: the rise of AI-generated content.
With both of these factors in mind, we know that people are craving in-person connection, community, and lived experiences now more than ever. People want to support real people when they make purchases, online and offline. They want to get to know the people behind the brands they love. And they want to feel genuinely valued… not like just another number in a monthly sales report.
Is "Scale at All Costs" the right Instagram growth strategy for small businesses?
Sometimes, it feels like the social media strategy advice is still stuck in its pandemic era. It feels like the goalpost hasn’t moved away from scaling and sales at all costs – with plenty of Instagram gurus out there still telling us to post a thousand times a day, copy generic content for views, and make sure every comment has an automatic response from a robot so you can make a sale without even opening the app.
This is where we get to choose to move the goalpost back.
What I know about small business owners is that they have the skills people desperately need to see from those they purchase from right now. Compassion, empathy, understanding, and a true desire to meet someone exactly where they’re at to help them get where they want to go.
There’s not a lot of advice out there about how to translate all of this heart and soul into social media content… but I guess you could say it’s my mission to change all of that.
Connection-focused Instagram tips and content ideas for small business owners
As an Instagram coach who specializes in strategy designed for connection over clout, here are a few ways I’d recommend bringing the “old school” human-first social media back through our business pages:
✨ Show us the boring, mundane parts of your day. Let us into your world – not just the world where you’re a badass female founder, but the world where you like to do yoga in the mornings and watch reality TV at night.
✨ Support your fellow small business owners by tagging and shouting them out on your page so we can see that you’re part of a community, too.
✨ Create space for genuine conversation on your feed, without always leading to a sales pitch. Ask questions in your Stories, respond to comments genuinely, and show your followers that you see them as a person and not a statistic.
✨ Let your work day inspire your content. Instead of sitting down at the end of a long day wracking your brain for a post idea, tell us about your day instead. Question from a client? Share it! New customer review? Tell us about it! The big project you’ve been plugging away at? Give us a sneak peek and get us excited along with you!
I truly believe that relationship-based marketing still works for small businesses in 2026. This is what business – and social media – are really all about. Being a person connecting with other people isn’t a hack… it’s the way business has been run for thousands of years.
And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
This piece first appeared in my Substack publication, The Post Script. Connect with me on Substack to read more honest conversations for women in business about running your social media without it running your life.
Research and Sources
While much of this article is anecdotal, I aimed to reference real research as I wrote it. Here are links to some of the articles that helped inform this piece.
https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/etsy-sees-record-sales-during-the-pandemic
https://www.clientbook.com/blog/top-consumer-trends-to-watch-in-a-post-pandemic-world
Leanne Miller of Leanne Miller Media is a social media strategist and small business content creator with over 15 years of experience in digital and print media. She helps women in business in the Portland, Oregon area create meaningful content that they’re proud to share through content strategy, on-brand visuals, and done-with-you social media support. Through working together, her clients are able to show up more consistently and more authentically online – while still having time for the life and business they love. As a fellow entrepreneur and mom, she brings real-life perspective into her work with clients. She balances a people-centered, connection-first approach to social media with smart, DIY-friendly content strategies – making her work a natural fit for values-led women in business who already have plenty on their plate but want their online presence to truly work for their brand. Leanne loves taking weekends off to explore the gorgeous Pacific Northwest with her husband and school-aged son, and loves a deep chat over matcha in a cozy Portland cafe.
