Article Contributed by Harris Scott
Whatever the type of business you are running today, it is possible to harness the power of Instagram to achieve your objectives. This is the fastest growing social media networks with over 700 million monthly users (MAUs). Within 7 years, this photo and video sharing platform has grown by leaps and bounds and it is now one of the most powerful business marketing tools.
Whether you want to grow brand awareness, increase conversion rates, improve engagement levels or target millenials, this is the platform you should be using. According to eMarketer, 48.8% of brands in the U.S already have an Instagram account and this number is expected to grow to 71% by end of 2017.
Most marketers jump headfirst into Instagram marketing with the belief that you just need to post nice photos to get followers for Instagram. Well, this doesn’t work out for most of them and today, you should learn from the most common mistakes they make to tweak your IG strategy early enough. Here are some of these mistakes with ideas on how to avoid them:
- Lack of strategy – This is the most common mistake because business owners mistakenly think that all IG accounts are the same. For a business IG account, you have goals to achieve and as such, your posts should be goal-driven. Lack of strategy is what drives brands to share any picture they come across. If you have no Instagram strategy, your marketing campaign is bound to fail.
- Private account –This is a mistake that you would expect no one to make but surprisingly, many brands don’t take time to check their account settings. By setting your account to private, you are limiting the opportunities you can enjoy on Instagram.
- Random posts – This closely relates to lack of strategy but it is even worse. Just because you had an office party doesn’t mean those photos should end up on your Instagram account. You must have a theme/shtick that guides the kind of content you publish. It is by having a theme that you start getting a regular flow of people liking your posts.
- Failure to optimize your bio – if you don’t have a link in the bio, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to drive traffic to your website. This is the only place where you can have a link and therefore, make sure you have one. It could link to a landing page, social profile or any other relevant platform.
- Poor use of hashtags – For starters, you have to appreciate that hashtags drive Instagram and as such, you must use them. To do this, you should come up with the best hashtags because you are allowed to use up to 30 hashtags. The idea is never to use too many and only use those that are relevant to your marketing campaign.
There are many other Instagram marketing blunders you should avoid and it is important to keep learning.
Author Bio
Harris Scott is a leading blog writer and content marketing professional with thousands of real Instagram followers for his postings.