I Never Planned to Be on Instagram

In 2021, we still hadn't fully recovered from everything that happened during Covid. We all felt restricted. If you wanted to travel to another city, you needed authorization. If you wanted to sit somewhere, you needed proof of vaccination. It was a weird time. Looking back at it now, it almost feels like a movie.

Back then, I was spending most of my time alone because I was living alone. Not only that, but all my work was with international clients and foreigners. It was rare for me to interact with Moroccans outside of my landlords, friends from time to time, or people I'd meet while running errands.

So I kept telling myself that this situation needed to change. I needed to start doing activities and reconnect with society a bit because I was changing. Even the way I thought was changing. I was thinking more in English than in Darija simply because all my work was conducted in English.

I had also deleted all social media except LinkedIn. Even there, there weren't many Moroccans in my network, and I was using a different name, Apha Gad.

One day I thought, let me get back on Instagram. At least I'll be able to keep up with friends and family and stay somewhat connected. Maybe I'd even come across some networking opportunities and attend events instead of staying isolated all the time.

Anyone who knows me well knows that my profession is branding.

So naturally, Instagram quickly figured out my interests and started showing me Moroccan people talking about branding.

One day I came across a guy calling himself a brand strategist who was hosting a free workshop. I thought, why not? I'll attend. I'll socialize a bit, network a bit, and see what people in Morocco are talking about in the branding space.

The day of the event arrived, and I went.

It was hosted in a coworking space on Zerktouni Boulevard in Casablanca. I was living in Aïn Sebaâ, so it wasn't far at all.

I walked in and saw a good number of attendees. Then I started paying attention to the guy running the workshop.

The first red flag was the presentation title itself. It was packed with every buzzword imaginable. UI, UX, Brand Strategy, Personal Branding, and who knows what else.

I thought, no problem. Maybe the presentation itself will clarify what he's trying to communicate.

After all, brand strategy as I understand and practice it in international markets is worlds apart from personal branding.

Then the presentation started.

And what I heard was nonsense after nonsense.

The surprising part was that people were fully engaged and reacting as if everything being said was correct.

I have nothing against the guy personally, but the amount of nonsense being shared that day started making my blood boil.

The worst part was that I had nobody to complain to.

Everyone around me was part of the Instagram crowd. They were simply repeating things they had heard on YouTube videos and Instagram carousels that were popular at the time.

Everything was theoretical. Everything was conceptual. Nothing was connected to actual markets, actual operations, or the realities of business that I was familiar with.

What was supposed to be a socializing opportunity turned into a complete disaster for me because I genuinely couldn't tolerate what I was witnessing.

One person talking nonsense while a room full of people treated it like hidden knowledge.

When I got home, I looked into the guy's work.

What I found was an average designer with an average portfolio who had become fascinated by YouTube videos about brand strategy.

The funny thing is that 99% of those videos were also just conceptual theories disconnected from real business practice.

No offense to him, but I've always struggled with people who present themselves as more than they actually are.

And I'm almost certain that he knew, at least somewhere deep down, that he was overselling himself. He just wasn't fully aware of the consequences because he was being rewarded with engagement, likes, and attention.

I know this because years later I found myself in a somewhat similar position.

Be patient. We'll get to that part later.

Anyway, that afternoon planted an idea in my head.

Why not create an Instagram account and start correcting some of the misinformation I had just heard?

Because honestly, if this was where the Moroccan market was heading, branding was going to become completely distorted.

The information being spread was almost entirely fake.

Especially when I realized that this guy wasn't alone.

There were many accounts with 20k , 40k followers and more, all teaching branding to thousands of people despite not being specialists and despite clearly not practicing any of it in the real world.

They were simply repeating what they had heard on YouTube.

After that, I got busy with work again and forgot all about the idea.

Until one day when I met up with a friend who had recently started a business.

She wanted advice on how I could help her from a marketing perspective.

We sat down to talk.

Then came the big surprise.

She started repeating the exact same information I had heard at that workshop.

At that moment I thought, hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

This needs to be fixed.

What concerned me most was that these ideas genuinely seemed correct to her.

The reality of the market wasn't even part of the conversation anymore.

She wanted to start building a personal brand but wasn't sure how.

So I told her, let me show you how I would approach it.

That was the moment I finally decided to create a profile and start sharing real world information about branding.

The goal was simple.

Share useful and legitimate knowledge with as many people as possible.

At the same time, show my friend how to build a credible personal brand without all the fluff and nonsense that dominated the space back then.

What happened next surprised me.

People immediately started engaging with the content.

During the first week alone, the account went from 11 followers to 500.

The feedback was always the same.

People were amazed by the quality and practicality of the information because they had never seen it presented that way before.

Four weeks later, the profile had reached 2000 followers and the momentum was very real.

People even started sending me private messages complaining about some of those accounts I mentioned earlier, including the workshop guy.

It was brutal.

The amount of frustration people had built up was unbelievable.

I also want to give a shoutout to Asmae Ouahmid.

At the time, she was part of that Moroccan branding community and taught me a lot about Instagram, which I barely understood.

She's a brand designer, and she was one of the first people who helped by sharing one of my posts.

I think it was a case study from a branding project I had worked on in the UK.

And that's how I unexpectedly found myself on Instagram, surrounded by people who were hungry for accurate information and eager to learn, but who had spent years being bombarded by fake experts and fake practitioners.

To avoid making this story even longer, I'll stop here and continue in Part 2.

That's where I'll talk about what this experience eventually led to and how it triggered one of the most mentally exhausting periods of my life.

A level of exhaustion I had never experienced before.