If you’re trying to grow on Instagram and use it to reach your business goals, but you’re just not getting the results you want – you might be making some Instagram mistakes without even realizing it. So, here are 9 Instagram mistakes to avoid if you want to grow (and how to fix them).
To find out the most common Instagram mistakes I see, and to learn how to avoid them, keep reading.
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Table of Contents
9 Instagram mistakes to avoid (+ how to fix them)
Growing on social media isn’t a one-strategy-fits-all kind of thing. Not even the slightest. Every good strategy will be based on your specific goals, business, niche, audience, and more.
However, there are some universal mistakes you should avoid if you want to grow on Instagram and reach your goals.
So, let’s cover each mistake, explain why it’s a mistake, and find out how to fix it!
1. Not optimizing your profile
One of the very first steps you need to do when getting serious about Instagram and wanting to use it to grow your business, is optimizing your profile.
Optimizing your profile will help you turn your target audience into followers and then turn those followers into clients and customers.
When someone comes across your account, they need to see who you are, what you do, and how you can help them.
If you have a good strategy, youāre attracting people to your profile, but if your profile isnāt optimized, those people wonāt actually follow you.
A well-optimized profile will also help you reach more people by making your account searchable.
Here are things to do to optimize your profile:
- Make sure your profile photo is high-quality.
- Add keywords to your name that describe what you do or what your profile is about.
- Add keywords to your bio, and add a CTA.
- Optimize your highlights – share more about you, your business, and your offers.
- Your profile design is also important – make sure to use your brand fonts & colors, so your profile is cohesive.
2. Not engaging
Being social on social media is a crucial step that many people overlook, and it’s one of the biggest Instagram mistakes to avoid.
Engaging with your audience and people from your niche is a very important part of your Instagram strategy.
It will help you get more eyes on your content, get more engagement yourself, make a connection with your ideal audience, network, and grow your account.
So, how do you engage with other accounts in a strategic way that will help you grow?
First of all, let’s cover who you should engage with. Here’s where/with whom you should engage:
- engage with your followers,
- engage with larger accounts in your niche,
- engage on hashtags,
- engage with your target audience.
Now, how exactly do you engage?
Easy.
You do that by liking, commenting, replying to stories, and responding to DMs.
The main thing to keep in mind is to leave meaningful and helpful comments – don’t just write “Great post!”. Take the time to actually provide value or share your thoughts. Your comments need to be genuine.
3. Not having a strategy
Posting with no strategy will not get you the results you’re looking for – it’s not only one of the main Instagram mistakes to avoid, but it’s the most crucial one.
You need to know who your target audience is, what your business goals are, and what your goals from Instagram are.
Then, you need to develop an Instagram strategy tailored to reaching those goals.
This should include a content strategy and a growth strategy.
Content strategy
Your content strategy will, of course, be based on your specific goals, niche, business, and audience.
You should know what your audience wants to see, what content resonates with them, and what content is related to your goals.
Then, create your content pillars and start developing your content calendar.
Here are a few questions your content strategy will help answer:
- what content your target audience wants to see,
- what content will help you reach your goals,
- how can you provide value to your audience,
- what content pillars youāll have,
- when will you post,
- how often will you post,
- what content formats youāll use.
Growth strategy
Your growth strategy will focus on ways you’ll actually grow your account and reach new people – it will include your hashtag strategy, your engagement strategy, and so on.
Some questions a growth strategy will answer are:
- how will you reach new people,
- why should new people follow you,
- where does your target audience spend time online,
- what can you do to improve your reach,
- what can you do to get more follows, likes, saves, comments, sales, clients.
If you want to manage your own social presence, but you know you need someone to help you with the strategy aspect so you can do it the right way and actually have a social presence that helps you attract, nurture, and convert your ideal audience, let us develop your social media strategy for you.
4. Not providing value
Only posting promotional content will likely not get you the results you’re looking for.
While you definitely should promote your products and services as well, your focus should be on providing value to your audience.
That’s how you’ll grow your account, grow a community, and turn followers into clients or customers.
5. Being inconsistent
Another one of the most common Instagram mistakes to avoid, is being inconsistent with your posting schedule.
To grow your account and build an audience that trusts you, you want to find a schedule that you can stick to.
Yes, posting every day will get you the results faster than posting 3 times per week, but if posting every day isn’t realistic for you, find something that is, and stick with it.
It’s better to consistently post 3-4 times per week, than to post every day one week, then disappear for 2 weeks, then post 6 times the next week, and disappear again.
However, I do have to note that posting 1-2 times per week isn’t really enough for a business, unless you’re ONLY looking for having a social presence without growth. Your social media is an important aspect of marketing, so if posting consistently isn’t realistic for you, you should probably outsource it to a social media manager.
6. Buying followers
No. Just no.
NEVER buy followers.
This is a horrible strategy. You will have a bunch of followers that don’t care about your content, don’t engage with it, and don’t buy from you.
It will lower your engagement which will be very bad for your growth, and if Instagram catches what you did, you won’t be able to grow.
7. Posting and ghosting
What does that even mean?
Well, this is a known term in the social media community and it means that youāre posting to your feed, and not doing anything on Instagram afterward.
To get more eyes on your content, you should be present after you post:
- share the post to your stories,
- reply to comments youāre getting,
- reply to any old comments you haven’t replied back to yet,
- engage with your followers and people from your niche,
etc.
Of course, this isn’t necessary every single time you post and it will not make or break your strategy. However, if you just schedule out your content and you never open Instagram again to engage with your audience, be present, show up on stories, etc. you will not get the outcome you’re looking for.
8. Posting content for yourself, not your audience
Your content should be based on what your audience wants to see, not the content you like seeing or creating.
What does that mean? Well, hereās an example: if youāre a professional chef, you might personally enjoy watching videos of super complex recipes that take a full day to make. But if your target audience consists of amateur home cooks who are looking for quick recipes to make for their kids, that content wonāt resonate with them.
So, know your audience, and post content THEY will find valuable.
9. Not tracking your analytics
Instagram analytics can be used as a very powerful tool that can help you:
- create your strategy,
- tweak it,
- see whatās working and what isnāt,
- figure out what to shift your focus to if needed.
Being able to see what content is performing the best, when your audience is active, what are your stats each month, etc. – all that is extremely valuable information that shouldn’t be ignored.
You can track your analytics in the Instagram app directly, or use a professional tool like SproutSocial for more in-depth results.
So, now that we covered 9 Instagram mistakes to avoid, and exactly how to avoid them, it’s time to start implementing what you learned in this post.
If you have any questions, leave a comment down below.
If you want strategic AND aesthetic content, and a professional social presence tailored to your business and goals, apply to work with us.
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