A few months ago, I reset my Instagram algorithm on purpose because I was tired of what was showing up in my feed, and I wanted a clean slate. So I unfollowed a few accounts and started engaging only with content about one thing: learning Spanish.

I have a 1,200+ day Duolingo streak, so I said why not see something that’s useful instead of random content? So feeding the algorithm Spanish content felt like a natural experiment but I didn't expect was what happened next from a marketing perspective.

The first day, I was just happy seeing the new content and creators, reels about subjunctive moods and regional slang and by the end of the month, I had seen so many Spanish teachers on Instagram that I lost count.

There are hundreds — probably thousands — of people teaching Spanish on Instagram right now and almost all of them are saying the same thing Learn Spanish with me.

That's the whole positioning statement for most of them.

What cherchez le créneau looks like in a real market

I've written before about the concept of cherchez le créneau — find the gap. It's the idea that in any crowded market, the people who win are rarely the ones with the best product; instead, they're the ones who found the specific position that nobody else was occupying and built everything around it.

The Spanish teaching market on Instagram is one of the most vivid demonstrations of this concept I've seen in a long time because when you look at it from a positioning lens rather than a content lens, it becomes clear that only a small number of creators have found their gap. 

So, here’s what I found:

The ones who are doing it right

@spanishhacks — Juan Diego, 227K followers — has the clearest position of anyone I came across. His name alone is doing positioning work since "Hacking Spanish" is a method promise. It signals that you're going to learn differently here, more efficiently, with less of the textbook friction you've experienced before and then his lead magnet — a short story in Spanish delivered to your inbox every other day — makes that method tangible. He's not selling "learn Spanish." but he's selling a daily reading habit as the path to fluency — that's the gap. You know exactly what you're getting, exactly who it's for, and there's a clear reason to choose him over the generic alternative.

@thespanishlizard — Lucas, 6,748 followers — is working with a fraction of Juan Diego's audience but his positioning reads just as clearly. The first line of his bio is "I help you speak real Latino Spanish." The second line is "Sound natural, not like a textbook." That's an anti-academic position and it's deliberate. He's teaching the Spanish that actual Latin Americans speak, as opposed to the Spanish you learned in school that made you sound like a walking grammar exercise the moment you tried to use it in the real world. Small following (as of yet) but clear gap. 

@quepasa.espanol — Jon y Joan, 22.3K followers — took a different approach entirely. Two podcast hosts based in Madrid and Barcelona, conducting conversations in Spanish that learners can follow along with. The positioning insight here is about format: you're not sitting in a virtual classroom, you're eavesdropping on a real conversation between two native speakers. That's a fundamentally different learning experience and they made it their entire brand rather than just their content strategy. "El podcast favorito de los estudiantes de español" is even a bold claim, they're not describing what they do, they're asserting category leadership.

@escuelaelcano — Elcano Spanish School in Alicante isn't really competing with any of the above because they've claimed a completely different territory: physical school, accredited and located in Spain. They're for people who want to immerse themselves, who might be relocating, who need institutional credentials. That's a different buyer with a different decision-making process. Their créneau is geographic and experiential, and it doesn't need to fight for attention in the same mental space as the online creators.

The ones who have a gap but haven't claimed it

This is where it gets interesting because several of the accounts I found have something genuinely differentiated sitting right there in their bio and they're not using it.

@spanishwithpaogp — Pao, 36.1K followers — is a Colombian Spanish teacher and a certified DELE examiner. The DELE is an official Spanish language certification recognized across Europe and Latin America. There is an entire audience of people who need to pass a standardized Spanish exam — for work, for immigration, for university admission — who would specifically seek out a DELE examiner to help them prepare. That's a créneau but the bio leads with "Spanish for Foreigners" which is about as specific as saying "food for hungry people." The gap exists but it’s not claimed.

@spanishconale — Alejandra, 124K followers, verified, Telemundo47 freelancer — is an even more striking example of this. She has media credentials as she's working with one of the major Spanish-language TV networks in the United States. That signals something very specific: she knows the Spanish that professional American Latino media uses. For an English-speaking American who wants to connect with their heritage, navigate a bilingual professional environment, or just understand the Spanish they hear around them in cities like New York or Miami — that credential should be the entire positioning. Instead, the bio says "Spanish Teacher | NJ" and "Learn Spanish con Ale." There's no claim being made. With 124K followers she's clearly doing something right in terms of content and charisma, but she's building an audience without a position, which means she's leaving a significant amount of conversion on the table.

The one doing the right thing without knowing it

@espagnolyole — Cris, 3,222 followers — teaches Spanish in French. Her entire account is in French. Her bio says "Apprends le vrai espagnol avec moi" — learn real Spanish with me — and everything she posts is designed for French speakers learning Spanish.

Now, she probably didn't sit down and architect a positioning strategy, she's just teaching in the language she knows her audience speaks but what she's done instinctively is claim a specific audience — French-speaking learners — rather than competing in the global English-language Spanish teaching market where everyone else is fighting for attention.

The créneau is real but she hasn't named it explicitly. If her bio said "Spanish for French speakers who want to sound like a native, not a tourist," she'd be doing more of the positioning work at a conscious level rather than accidentally. Her following is small right now, but the audience targeting is tighter than most people twice her size.

What the follower counts are actually telling you

Here's another thing I found worth noting: Juan Diego at @spanishhacks has 227K followers and the clearest positioning of anyone in this group. Alejandra at @spanishconale has 124K followers and almost no positioning claim at all.

That gap doesn't disprove positioning, it just proves something more nuanced. Charisma, consistency, and good content can build an audience but positioning is what converts that audience. It's what makes someone choose you over the five other Spanish teachers they follow and what gives someone a reason to buy from you specifically rather than just enjoy your content passively.

An audience without a position will follow you, yet an audience with a clear position will buy from you. 

Those are different things and they require different strategies to build.

The formula applied to this market

When I work with clients on positioning, the framework I always come back to is this:

Gap = (Existing Market Options) − (Your Unique Approach)

Applied to the Spanish teaching market, you can see what this looks like in practice:

• Exam prep for DELE certification. 
• Spanish for French speakers. 
• Real Latino Spanish as opposed to textbook Spanish. 
• Immersive in-person learning in Alicante. 
• Conversational Spanish through a podcast format.

None of these are the same product as they serve different people with different motivations. Some of these positions are being claimed clearly while some are sitting unclaimed, waiting for someone to name them.

What next?

I know that for a lot of people, working through this on your own feels harder than it looks. You're too close to your own work and you can't always see the gap from the inside, which is why I'm opening up a small number of private calls on May 29th, 2026.

One hour, just the two of us, looking at your course, your audience, and your messaging to figure out where your créneau is. Spots are limited because I'm keeping this intentionally small. If you want one of the available spots on May 29th, you can book here.

Or learn more about positioning

• Course Positioning Strategy: Why Specific Always Outsells Broad
• Case Study: How Pat Flynn Uses Brand Language to Sell Community & Courses
• Get the Positioned to Sell bundle