Common Mistakes Every First-Time Instagram Business Account Makes

Instagram is undoubtedly the most popular social media platform when it comes to entertainment, information, and marketing. Over the years, the platform has accelerated the growth of e-commerce in its own way. With an average of 500 million users logging in daily, it is not surprising that every brand wants to leverage the potential of this social media channel.

Almost every business, whether big or small, has an Instagram business account.
The social media giant also regularly introduces new features to ease Instagram for business houses seeking to promote and sell their offerings through Instagram.
Since it provides so many tools and tactics to help brands in improving their business growth, it is easy for Instagram marketers to get confused. In fact, many marketers, especially newcomers, make various mistakes that consequently have a huge impact on their business performance. Check out some of them below!

Common Mistakes Made by Instagram Marketers that You Must Avoid

1. No Strategic Plan

Simply logging into Instagram and creating a business account does not help in improving an organization’s performance. Before using Instagram as a marketing channel, ask yourself why are you making it in the first place? What does your organization seek to achieve through it? There are numerous goals that brands might want to attain using Instagram. For instance, more followers, brand awareness, expand reach, connect with the target audience, drive traffic to physical or online stores, build community, and so on. The absence of a strategic plan for Instagram also leads to problems in evaluating the performance of your business account. Therefore, creating a plan not only presents clarity in terms of what objectives you want to achieve but also helps you stay on the path and measure your performance.

2. Buying Instagram Followers, Likes, and Comments

Why take the long route when you can easily buy 10K Instagram followers? The idea definitely sounds tempting. Many Instagram marketers fall into this trap. Buying Instagram likes, followers, and comments can do more harm than good. Your follower number on the business account may increase but the actual engagement rate will fall. When you are hardly interacting with real people, how will your message reach them?

Besides, the Instagram algorithm runs on numerous factors, and real Instagram followers can help you make the best use of it. Another reason why you should not purchase Instagram followers and likes is that Instagram often blocks accounts that involve the automation services of third parties. You would not want Instagram to do that to you, right?

3. Not engaging with followers

One of the major parameters that make the Instagram algorithm, at present, is the relationship your account has with your followers. Instagram marketing does not stop at creating and posting content. You must engage with your followers. Ignoring comments and direct messages can severely disrupt your connection with your audience. They may lose faith in your business and might switch to other brands. This will result in the loss of potential customers that can really hamper your business performance. Hence, always respond to the direct messages and comments you get on your business account promptly. Build relationships and not just numbers.

4. Improper use of hashtags

Hashtags are a highly useful business feature that Instagram offers. Adding hashtags on posts and stories allow your target audience to discover you. Currently, Instagram allows you to add 30 hashtags to your posts and 10 on stories. New Instagram marketers often use all 30 hashtags to reach the widest audience. While there is no harm in going for the maximum hashtags, it is extremely important to ensure that they are relevant to your brand and the post. Use of wrong hashtags or no hashtags at all might result in a loss of new potential customers. Therefore, the choice of hashtags should be proper. If all 30 hashtags are not relevant to your post, it is better to go for a lesser number of hashtags that are suitable and well-researched.

5. Using overly popular hashtags

First-time Instagram business accounts also make the mistake of using the most popular hashtags on Instagram. Some popular hashtags are #photooftheday #travel #love #photography, etc. These hashtags are used extensively in millions of posts in a single day. If these are so commonly used, then why shouldn’t you use them? It is because overuse of these hashtags results in showing your tagged posts just for a second. It is easy for posts to get lost when thousands of people are using the same tag every minute. In short, extra popular hashtags have a very short life span. The best solution would be to use branded, specific and targeted hashtags.

6. Uploading poor-quality images

Instagram marketers and small brands often try to cut down on photo shoot costs. Instead, they post poor-quality images. In Instagram marketing, it is important to remember at all times that Instagram is a photo-centric social media platform. The images posted on the feed must attract the audience to your profile. At the same time, all images must reflect your brand’s unique voice. It is not necessary to purchase an expensive camera or hire a professional photographer. A simple photo shoot in natural light or pretty backgrounds works. Also, numerous photo editing apps and sites are available. It is advisable to use them rather than posting sloppy images.

7. Ignoring Instagram Stories

Instagram stories attract a lot of engagement from viewers. This fact often gets unnoticed by Instagram marketers. For instance, tools like polls, quizzes, ask questions, location tags, and so on help viewers of Instagram stories to connect with your page directly. When business accounts ignore this feature of Instagram, they are potentially distancing themselves from their audience. That is why it is essential to consistently upload stories and engage with your audience.

8. Ignoring performance metrics

Another common error that most brands make on Instagram is ignoring data analytics. When you do not evaluate your performance, how will you know whether you are on the right track or not? Performance evaluation is necessary to find out what is working and what needs to be changed. To help businesses out, Instagram offers a useful tool called Insights that presents several performance indicators. Some of them are the location of the audience, age group, gender, most active time and day of the audience, etc. Ignoring this data can result in the loss of a number of lucrative opportunities.

9. Posting content at the wrong time

Posting content consistently but at random time frames is perhaps not the best marketing strategy. If your audience is not using Instagram at the time you publish your post, your content will have limited visibility. Most of your followers would not even know that you have posted something. This, in turn, affects your engagement rate. It is best to research and find out when your target audience is most active on Instagram and post accordingly.

10. Posting content with no value

People use and follow Instagram accounts when they derive some sort of value from the same. If you are just posting images for the sake of posting, you will not be able to attract your audience. The target audience must derive value from your content in the form of learning, information, or entertainment. If you create valuable content, you have a higher chance of attracting and retaining followers.

11. No Bio or Incomplete Bio

Your bio is your introduction. It is your first impression. Neglecting it or framing an incomplete bio can thus affect the performance of your business account. Most Instagram business accounts lack a proper or relevant bio. Using long or boring statements, not adding a call to action, absence of website links are some of the common mistakes people make in this regard. The bio should be simple, short, and relevant. Hyperlinks must be added to direct the viewers to your website if you have one. In the absence of a website, you can mention the exact way people can order your products (for instance, DM to order).

12. Not Posting Content Consistently

Consistency is an essential part of the Instagram algorithm. Regular posting is a must on all social media platforms, especially on Instagram. Here, regularity does not mean posting too many posts frequently. Over-posting and under-posting both have a negative effect on your Instagram marketing. A balanced approach with a consistent post schedule is the best strategy. Posting content regularly helps you stay relevant to your audience and also constantly reminds them about your brand and its offerings.

13. Other common mistakes

• Being overly promotional
• Posting boring or repetitive content
• Sharing too many posts or too few posts
• Making a private account
• Using poor and irrelevant captions
• Copying other brand’s strategy
• Sole focus on quantity and complete disregard for quality
• Ignoring negative comments
• Inconsistent branding and visual content
• Using no caption at all
• Not creating a branded hashtag
• Neglecting other useful Instagram features such as IGTV and Reels

To make the best use of the business opportunities that Instagram provides you with, avoid making these common mistakes.