The 5 Instagram Mistakes Businesses Make
The social media landscape is constantly changing, with user trends and preferences seemingly changing on a daily basis.
- Over 2 billion people actively use Facebook, 81% of millennials check twitter daily and Snapchat reaches 41% of 18-34-year-olds.
One of the platforms businesses most often underutilize is Instagram. Savvy businesses know how to harness the power of the photo-sharing social media application to help grow their business organically and through amplified-organic growth.
- Instagram is an essential marketing tool for any brand in today’s business landscape.
Instagram is a great way to engage with your customers in a more “natural” setting and allows you to build meaningful and personal relationships with your customers. With that said Brands and Business make plenty of mistakes when using Instagram, so here are my 5 Instagram Faux-Pas for business.
1. Being too Corporate
- The point of a social network is to be social.
This might seem obvious but it’s something a lot of business forget about. They view social media as a space to run the same types of advertisements they run in a newspaper or on television. Instagram is fundamentally different in the Brand-Customer interaction compared to traditional advertising mediums.
- On Instagram people share personal and intimate details of their lives, it’s all about being immersed in the experiences of others. That’s why dog photos, vacation selfies, and avant-garde pizza photo are in, while 15-second advertisements explaining the benefits of gluten-free soap are not.
Take the XYZ Corporation, they run a fashion brand targeted at teens. Their social media marketing team has been slow to adapt to changing trends and because of that their posts are: bland, generic and corporate. They simply post pictures of their clothes and tell customers to buy them.
- The posts aren’t personal or engaging and as such their customers' attraction and retention are low.
Then look at Company X. They are also a youth-focused clothing brand. They have a savvy social media marketing team. They understand how their customers engage with the platform and they create content to fit. They post daily photos of people wearing their clothing engaged in fun and interesting activities.
- They post photos of happy young people visiting exciting landmarks, attending parties, going out for dinner. They also post cute photos, like putting their newest shirt on a cute dog. All of this creates a Brand Personality and helps their Brand connect with their customers on a personal level.
Since customers connect with the content you are sharing they are more likely to: like, comment and share, which helps expand your presence even more. Just be sure to include easy links in the description for customers to purchase the products and services featured in your posts!
2. You’re Posting during the Workday
Even though it may seem like working hours won’t stop people from checking their social media, the reality is most people do actually try to get their work done.
- Most businesses fail at Instagram because they are posting during business hours.
People check Instagram when they have free time, or when they have something interesting they want to share with the world. Nobody wants to share the conference call they just finished at 10:30, so nobody is online then.
- If Brands want to win on Instagram they need to think like individuals and not companies.
When you post at inopportune times customers will miss your posts in their feeds. Their feeds will be populated with more recent posts and results, and you’ll receive less attention, leading to a less effective post.
What does this look like in practice?
- It means posting before work, as people are getting up and checking up on the social media feeds, it means posting around lunchtime and posting after the work day and in the early evening.
It’s a good idea to choose regular posting times for your brands, as consistency helps to build followers.
Every Brand will have a different “Prime Time” experiment a little and figure out which one is the best for your brand and then stick to it.
- Just remember that timing does matter. Your customers aren’t on Instagram at 10:30 so why are you?!
3. Your Posts Aren’t Corporate Enough
I know, I’m going to sound like a hypocrite but read on you’ll figure out what I mean. A lot of Brands manage to master the previous two tips. They create posts that people actually want to look at, and they post them when people will be watching, but they can’t figure out how to capitalize on those eyeballs.
- Simply put a ton of brands forget to include a call to action.
On Instagram a call to action doesn’t mean saying “BUY NOW” (but you should include links to buy in your post) on every post, it can be more subtle and more personable. For example, adding “tag a friend who needs to upgrade their wardrobe” or “Share for a chance to win Free Pizza for a year”.
Let’s take a look at how these strategies increase engagement. Firstly when you include a call to action in your post you are ensuring that the eyeballs you generate are actually being turned into momentum for your brand.
- By getting customers to “tag a friend” they are bringing in more customers to discover your post, and they are organically increasing the audience for your post.
Getting customers to share your posts on your behalf helps to increase your audience.
- Customers are exponentially more likely to engage with your brand if their friend posts about it compared to sponsored posts.
Asking your customers to share a post is the same as asking for a referral except it’s faster and easier for your customers, and can reach an even larger audience than their immediate friend group.
- The lesson here is never let a good post go to waste, always make sure you have a call to action!
4. Use Hashtags
A lot of businesses on Instagram feel that hashtags are too tacky or unprofessional, and because of this, they feel that businesses should stay away from them. Bringing it back to point number one.
- If you want to engage with customers on Instagram you should be acting like your customers.
Hashtags are how people interact on Instagram, it’s how people connect their own individual stories together to form part of a larger narrative. Hashtags help build exposure for your brand and help connect your message with a larger audience. They also help you seem more authentic.
- Hashtags may look messy and unpolished, but people are messy and unpolished.
They are many sites that can help you figure out the best hashtags to use for your social media campaign. A few words of warning though.
- Don’t overuse hashtags. Just as too few hashtags make your post look overly corporate, too many actually make your posts tacky.
It also means your post is attracting people that won’t be interested in what you are posting, which bring me to my second warning. Use relevant hashtags. You want your brand to stand out to your target market, so figure out the hashtags that will work best for your target market.
- Don’t simply use the most popular hashtags on the platform, be wise and chose the ones most likely to actually help boost engagement with your brand.
5. Your customers can and should be your friends!
One of the biggest opportunities companies don’t take advantage of is the opportunity to engage with their customers in a direct and personal way. First example: if a customer on Instagram complains about your company or one of your products or services take the opportunity to reach out to them one on one. Leave a comment apologizing for their experience and let them know you will reach out to discuss the situation right away.
- If you handle the situation well, that customer may very well make a follow-up post to share with their friends how good their customer service experience was, helping to improve your brands positioning in the minds of your customers.
The second opportunity is to take advantage of loyal fans and Instagram influencers. Making use of social media influencers with large followings is a fairly well known and common strategy, but successful brands should be engaging in those types of partnerships with all of their customers.
- If you are a restaurant and one of your customers often posts pictures of their food, send a personalized invitation (by mail or directly if possible, very classy touch) to a special tasting dinner for your new menu.
They’ll be touched by the gesture and the food that they’ll share the experience with their friends. Their friends will also see that your company cares about all customers, even those who aren’t mega-influencers.
- This will help you create stronger connections with your customers.
Just don’t get involved in major social movements. While it’s important to act like your customers on social media,
- DO NOT use major social movements or politically charged hashtags to try and sell goods and services.
It isn’t classy and it will turn a lot of people off of your brand. Use common sense when deciding whether to engage with your fans in an intimate level, some things even the friendliest of business shouldn't wade into.
What should I do now?
Take these tips, and go start marketing your brand on Instagram. Don’t worry about making mistakes, everyone does, but you learn from your mistakes. The sooner you start trying the sooner you’ll start making mistakes and the sooner you’ll finally become an expert.
- Instagram is a valuable social media tool that is undervalued by business and can and should easily be used by your brand to bring it to the next level.
About Me
Hi, I'm Ben, I am the CEO of a small Consulting start-up in Toronto, Canada. I want to help small business utilize digital tools to help optimize their business. I am currently actively looking for clients, and any leads you could send my way would be much appreciated.
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Retired
6 年Great article with a lot of common sense