Critical Marketing Mistakes to Avoid at all Costs on Instagram

Instagram, the Facebook-owned social media platform, is now home to more than 300 million active users, making it one of the focal points of digital marketing today. Since its inception in 2010, Instagram has only gotten bigger and bigger, and businesses of all sizes are now using the platform to share attractive visuals about their products and services with followers.

However, the marketing efforts put in by businesses and influencers on Instagram don’t always bear fruit, mostly owing to certain mistakes that can ultimately derail marketing strategies. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the critical marketing mistakes that you need to avoid on Instagram so that you can keep gaining more Instagram followers and make your marketing strategies successful in the long run. So, without any further delay, let’s get right into it!

1. Ignoring the bio

People who don’t know about you or your business will first head over to your Instagram bio to see what you’re all about. However, it would surprise you to know that a lot of businesses don’t take the time out to fill up their Insta bio sections with relevant, meaningful information.

While there are numerous ways in which you can craft your Instagram bio, the following steps are the most effective:

• Keep your Insta bio crisp and concise. Include enough information to tell people what they need to know about your business but don’t fill it up with too many words, as people simply don’t have the patience to read up a full-blown biography.
• Include emojis to give your Insta bio a colorful look. A bio devoid of colors can look boring and dull, while one that is colorful can immediately capture a user’s attention.
• Include links to your business’ official website or relevant pages and include calls to action so that viewers feel encouraged to visit them to know more about your products and services. Apart from including links to your official website, you can also add additional links such as those that re-direct users to your YouTube channel, Facebook profile, etc.

2. Keeping business profiles private

Privacy is a key concern as far as personal Insta profiles are concerned, but the same doesn’t apply for business profiles. If your business profile is private, you are losing out on numerous potential followers, and Instagram likes, which is not really going to help your business expand its reach, right?

Instagram users can’t view pictures and stories uploaded by private profiles, which is why you need to ensure that your business profile is public. To do this, open your profile page and tap on the ‘Edit your profile’ button. Next, scroll down and ensure that the ‘Photos are private’ option is unchecked.

3. Not interacting with followers

The point of being active on any social media profile is to be social and the same goes for Instagram. If you are not interacting with your followers, it creates a bad impression in their minds, and they’ll be quick to unfollow you and look for an alternative.

Remember that every time a follower is taking his time out to leave a comment on one of your posts, it is a sign that he wants to engage with your brand. To help build a sense of faith and trust in the follower’s heart, you need to reply promptly and in a humble manner. Even if a comment is critical, be accepting of it and promise to improve in the future.

If a user wants to know more about a certain product and/or service that you’re offering, reply with in-depth information so that it clears any confusion or doubt. Not replying to your followers is often seen as disrespectful and uncaring, which are not characteristics that you’d want your followers to associate with your brand, right?

4. Not using hashtags

Old-schoolers may not be too comfortable when it comes to using hashtags, but the fact is that they matter a lot on Insta. After all, Instagram allows users to include up to 30 hashtags for each post and there’s a reason for that. Most Insta users, particularly those from the younger generations, use hashtags to search for relevant content. If you’re sharing posts from your Insta business profile without hashtags, your posts may be missing out on a lot of potential viewers.

The best way to know what hashtags to include for a specific post is to conduct some research regarding the hashtags that are trending in your business niche. The easiest way to do this is to look at popular competitors’ Insta pages and check out their hashtags. The more relevant hashtags you use for your target audience, the more chances your posts have of being discovered, liked, and shared.

5. Not posting high-resolution images

The image resolution is a matter of great importance on Instagram, particularly for business profiles. While you can get away with posting low-quality images on your personal profile, the results aren’t so forgiving as far as your business profile is concerned. If you’re the one capturing the photos to be uploaded on Insta, consider investing in a high-quality camera and also don’t be shy of using editing software to finetune the photographs before uploading them.

If you’re using a stock photo, ensure that you download a high-resolution version and again, experiment with editing software to make sure that the image leaves a good impression on the real Instagram followers. Instagram has several filters of its own for users to experiment with, so even if you’re not confident regarding editing software, apply Insta filters for some truly stunning results.

6. Not using Instagram Stories

To ensure that all your Insta followers are aware of your latest post, there’s no better feature on Insta than Instagram Stories. Each Instagram story lasts for 24 hours and it’s a great way for you to promote your latest post without spamming your followers. Not using this feature can make many of your posts go under the radar, particularly if you have followers who are also following a dozen or more other profiles.

Instagram also offers users numerous options to make their stories colorful and attractive, so use your imagination and creativity to make your story stand out and be sure to include a call to action to draw your followers’ attention to your recent post(s).

7. Being inconsistent with your posts

Be it Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, every social media platform today rewards consistency with growth and punishes inconsistency by pushing visibility down. That’s why you must be consistent with your Instagram content posting. You can’t have an erratic posting schedule where you’re posting photos for five consecutive days and then not posting anything for two days.

To make your Instagram posting more consistent, you should have a strategy in place, and you should stick to it no matter what happens. For example, you could create a posting schedule where you’re uploading content every Monday and Wednesday. Once you create a posting schedule, you can also keep your followers informed about when to expect your next post. For example, you could include a line such as ‘New posts every Monday and Wednesday’ in every post’s caption.

You need to find your own balance between under posting and overposting, and unless you experiment with different posting schedules, you won’t be able to figure out what works best for you and your brand.

8. Uploading posts that look unprofessional

All human beings make mistakes, but when you make silly mistakes across your social media posts, it will automatically bring down your reputation in the minds of existing followers and turn off potential followers. All it takes to avoid grammatical mistakes and spelling errors is some proofreading. Thanks to software like Grammarly, you can verify your posts’ grammatical proficiency before you upload them and make changes if required.

If you’re unsure about the kind of captions to write for your Insta posts, you could also consider hiring a professional content developer. However, if you’re low on budget, it’s best to use the wide variety of free tools available online. Also, remember to steer clear of plagiarism.

9. Repetition leads to stagnancy

Naturally, you want your older posts to get as much attention as your newer posts. However, this doesn’t mean that you’ll post the same thing over and over again, as this practice can feel like spamming to many of your followers. Instead of repeating the same posts, try and find innovative and more subtle ways of drawing attention to your older posts.

For example, you could add a link to your bio along with a call to action to encourage your followers to take a look at an older post. Repeating the same posts ultimately leads to stagnancy, as it gives off the impression that you don’t have anything new to share, which is why you’re resorting to posting older content.

By avoiding these marketing mistakes on Instagram, your business profile will carry much more weight, and more Insta users will feel compelled to follow you.