With an average of 1.38 billion users, it is evident that Instagram is immensely popular. On a broad scale, Instagram is a visual app, and that is what makes it so popular. People connect better with visuals. Presentation is at the forefront of gaining interest among users, and Instagram attracts its users with its methodology of operating on a purely visual portal.
There was a time when Instagram was only used for sharing content. However, with time, Instagram has become one of the best places to practice marketing. It’s not just a choice anymore. It is an option that you need to consider while increasing your reach.
However, there are some dos and don’ts of Instagram marketing like any other platform. Before you even know what to do, you should certainly know about what you must avoid at any cost.
Here are a few Instagram marketing mistakes that you must avoid at any cost:
- Vague Approach
Always have a goal-driven approach towards your strategy. If you don’t set a goal for yourself beforehand, you’ll lack the vision needed to succeed.
Goals are nothing but the main idea behind the whole campaign. Ask yourself why you would like to do that? And once you have the answer, you have your goal.
Most people conclude that Instagram marketing is of no use or is not for them, which is not the case. They just don’t know how to use it efficiently.
The first reason to start will be your first step to prosper and grow on social media.
Whenever you post something, make the visuals and captions clear and to the point. Keep a clear CTA, which directly notifies the customer of what’s next.
Be it a poll, a post, story, or any content that you post on Instagram, make it clear.
Make your goal visible to your customers.
- Static posts that bring in no traffic
This is a common mistake most people tend to make. However, as a business on Instagram, you should never make this mistake.
Always add links that drive traffic to your website. Add links in your bio that’ll help you gain traffic, as people mostly click on the links they see on someone’s bio.
If you run an alternative store, never forget to tag it in your posts. If you skip this step, you are leaving people clueless about what’s next, which would decrease their interest over time.
- Private Accounts as a Business Owner
If you have a business account, never make the mistake of making it private. If your profile is private, there is no way Instagram will promote it, even if your feed is gold.
The private profile feature exists on Instagram for a reason. It’s only for those who want to keep their feed confined to certain people. It prevents promotion.
As a brand, you need promotion, and that’s why ensure that you make your account a public account. Further, go ahead and set it to a business account too.
If you want to switch from a private account to a public one, simply go to the edit your profile option and change the settings.
- Repetitive feed
If you post the same stuff repeatedly just to increase the number of posts on your feed, you will eventually have a decent amount of content, however, with depreciated quality.
If nothing is new, people will soon switch to an alternate platform that provides them with new things every day.
So, maintain your feed. Enhance it with good posts. You can also use Instagram video editor that’ll help you create good brand testimonials and other promotional content. Go ahead and experiment with different styles, edits, etc.
After all, good posts bring in good engagement.
- Avoiding DMs and comments
People are often curious about the quality, price, or anything related to the product. They want a proper explanation at times.
Generally, they express it in comments and DMs when they disagree with something or have any query or opinion.
Make sure you respond properly to most of them, if not all. As customers, they have the right to know the product well before making a purchase, and your ignorance may leave them uninterested.
- Irrelevant hashtags and tags
Many creators misuse hashtags just for the sake of increasing their reach. They even tag people who are not even concerned about the post or the product portrayed in the post.
You can put any number of hashtags under your post; there is only a constraint of 30 hashtags.
Make sure that the hashtags that you are using are relevant to the product being portrayed. This does not mislead the customers, and thus, you build trust and reliability.
Moreover, using relevant hashtags also increases your chances of being seen often. People notice you for your work and products.
- Not knowing the best times to post
Timing is essential for building engagement and posting on Instagram.
To know your perfect timings, you need to know your audience first and evaluate their activity.
Post when many users are active on the platform for them to be able to like or share. This increases your reach.
Some times are better than others, like 7 a.m. in India is an ideal time for posting as people are most active around that time.
So, if you don’t know about the best timings, you might be missing a lot of engagement you could have otherwise got.
Conclusion
These were some of the common mistakes that you need to avoid. Besides these mistakes, buying fake followers and likes, fake shoutouts, etc., should be avoided.
Instagram is an excellent space for marketing at the moment. So, make sure that you use it to the fullest. Avoid small mistakes, and you will grow invariably on this platform.
To summarise, always focus on the quality of the matter rather than the quantity. All other good things will follow!
