Social media marketing has been around for a while now. However, recent trends have seen Facebook take the backseat allowing Instagram to take over the world by storm when it comes to creating a brand online. It’s become something along the lines of existing originality on Instagram and re-sharing on Facebook to keep the news in the market.

I mean, it does make sense, 1 billion people use Instagram per month, that’s reason enough to explore such a huge market.

Instagram, is an application that provides various features like Instagram stories, hashtags, photos, and video posts to each account holder, which makes it a hub for increasing brand value. Most social media influencers have started their career on this platform.

Think about fitness enthusiasts like Natasha Noel. The term fitness enthusiast would not exist without a platform like Instagram. Moreover, you might even notice, comedians and YouTubers post a lot of frequent and daily content via their Instagram accounts as compared to once-a-week or once in a month YouTube videos.

However, you have to be careful during the whole process of Instagram marketing. Selena Gomez certainly would not have 149 million followers if she made these mistakes during her career on Instagram.

1) Keeping your account Private

There are two ways of having an Instagram account, public and private. A private account would mean that any interested consumer would have to send a request to follow your account and wait for your approval.

This becomes time-consuming and demotivating on both ends. Moreover, a public account gets priority during hashtag searches which are a major crowd-puller! You can easily change your settings from private to public on your Instagram app. In fact, this is usually asked during the process of making your account, so make sure you answer ‘Public’ then. Better be safe than sorry.

2) Random posting

Your virtual brand deserves the same kind of effort, that you put in every day at your office, for your customers. The only difference here is that you can’t see your customers. For example, if you keep making unnecessary purchases without any accounting, your company is sure to go haywire in near future and ultimately start incurring losses.

Similarly, if you keep posting videos or content that your viewers don’t have anything to do with or which doesn’t add value to your account, you will not only lose followers but also your digital presence will be questioned. Say, if you are a shoe brand, it doesn’t make sense to post pictures about a trendy meme or a T-shirt that looks nice or how cute a dog is. Posting irrelevant content on your profile would make you appear unprofessional in front of your audience. So don’t do it. Keep it short, honest, and to the point.

3) High-interval posting

There are two things that you need to balance when it comes to Instagram marketing. Firstly, change is the only constant and secondly, consistency should always be your priority. Your viewers will not want to see the same things again and again when it comes to videos or photos. However, there is a high possibility that you might not have any latest updates for your followers, but don’t you dare break the consistency.

Otherwise, it will cost you a lot of your loyal customers who followed you for a purpose. Try to pre-plan your posts, decide on a pattern and see when your followers are known to be active. This allows more views, more shares, and more feedback. But don’t do injustice with quality to become consistent in your posts. Sending a plethora of images to your followers’ accounts will also annoy them and chances are you might get blocked by them. So it is always better to schedule everything.

4) Too much personal information

A Brand is a consumer product, it sells because consumers pay for it. Personal information has no place in the creation of a social media product. A brand that sells clothing has no business posting about how the owner’s day went or the coffee mug that looked pretty in a cafe.

Trust me, you don’t wanna make this silly mistake to tell your fans, ‘we are too stupid to understand our business. Instead, twist these little things around and turn them in your favor. Using the same example, post about a customer wearing your product, an article that features your product, or the insides of your product store. Give the customers the view that they like!

5) Low-quality pictures

If it’s not attractive and eye-grabbing, it’s not right. It is because of this reason that Instagram boasts various camera features and editing options. However, all of that becomes useless when you choose pictures of low quality.

For example, if you take an already existing picture on the internet and try to use it, the original quality falls or, if you use a bad camera and click a hazy picture. These reasons can lead to pictures that are getting views but not likes. So create Instagram graphics that not only look pretty but are of high quality that you can re-share on other platforms like Facebook and Snapchat!

All major brands in the world, ranging from fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) to business firms, all have departments to look after their social media accounts. I mean, even Netflix keeps making the news because of its marvellous social media presence, especially on Instagram.

The best part about Instagram marketing is that it is extremely user-friendly. Moreover, the hype is real. You can reach a wider audience as compared to a poster or newspaper article. Why ruin all the effort with such petty mistakes? Instead, let’s just take note of all these mistakes and make our digital presence count.

However, reaching almost 1/8th of the world’s population is not an easy task. Making an Instagram account is just the first step. Avoid these mistakes so that you can make Instagram your own little brand world!