5 Instagram Business Mistakes and how to fix them NOW!
Is your business making any of these Instagram mistakes?
Have no fear, I’m here to tell you how to fix them with actionable tips you can implement into your social media strategy.
1. Using the Regular Account Instead of Instagram Business
Are you using a regular Instagram account or a business profile? Go to your settings in the app and tap on Switch to Business Profile.
If you already have it selected there will be a section called Business Settings in the list.
Why should you use AN Instagram business profile?
In a nutshell, there are a lot more features to take advantage of. You can add extra buttons to your profile such as call, email and address. This also unlocks the Insights feature where you can see stats like how many impressions your posts have had, the reach, profile visits and website clicks!
These are all metrics that your business should be keeping an eye on and help with your social media strategy. Unfortunately there’s more to it than just updating with a photo and a few hashtags every few days.
The benefits are that you can see what your followers enjoy and create more of it! You can also create Instagram ads using the Facebook Business Suite app or desktop dashboard for analytics and to link your Facebook and Instagram accounts.
2. Running Instagram Ads The Wrong Way
There are many ways to go wrong with instagram ads, but lately the same mistake keeps popping up on my feed. This tip might save you some money!
Imagine: Luigi owns a pizza shop in the center of Madrid and takes amazing photos of the pizzas as they come out of the wood-fired pizza oven. He’s doing a great job of uploading and staying in touch with his followers. Luigi decides it’s time to invest in some instagram ads.
What Luigi didn’t pay attention to was the fact that when he set his geo-targeting up in the ads, he chose to deliver his instagram ads to the whole of Spain!
Now you might not think that’s a big deal as people often travel to Luigi’s Pizzaria from other parts of Spain all the time, it is the best after all.
Think about the fact that Spain also has islands, The Balearic Islands and there’s also The Canary Islands, which are over 4 hours flight from Madrid.
If Luigi zones in on Madrid and surrounding areas when he is setting up his ads, he will be getting more bang for his buck as the people who are seeing his ads are more likely to visit his pizza shop than if he delivered his ad to the whole country!
I see this mistake happening so much, even on profiles that seem to be doing everything else right. If you are doing ads, make sure you have your location set up properly in the bio and the ad copy itself so people can find you. People lose interest if they have to click too many times to find information.
RELATED: Does your social media need a declutter?
3. Not Taking Advantage of Environment
Imagine: Maria has a little shop that sells beach items, towels, swimwear and inflatable swans. Her shop is located right next to a popular beach.
Maria is pretty good at taking photos of the products on her shelves and her fancy shelving display. But, what if Maria were to take some of her products down to the beach?
A photograph of her inflatable swan down on the sand or in the water is likely to grab more attention than a catalog style photo or the product on the shelf in the shop. If Maria wanted to she could get someone on the beach to help her out by positioning the swan in the water while she snapped the photos, then as a thank you let them keep the swan.
Of course making sure to point over to her shop and let them know where it was from.
Just think how many people on the beach might be watching this exchange? Could lead to some immediate sales or at very least some visibility to a small shop that people may otherwise have walked past.
Ok, so not everyone is lucky enough to have a shop by the beach but taking advantage of the environment can really work for local businesses. People will also appreciate and recognise the location which if you are using geolocation should get more eyeballs on your profile and in turn convert into sales.
4. Not Keeping It Real
Imagine: Carrie owns a cafe that sells great coffee and homemade cakes. A lot of effort goes into each cake, so she’s very proud when sharing them off on instagram.
What if, instead of a caption under the photo that says:
‘Come and try our homemade cake’,
she wrote
‘Our delicious Homemade Nutella Cheesecake is made fresh every Monday, come and try some with our special Cafe Latte.‘
What do you think would work best? With the second example, the customer knows what to ask for when they visit Carrie’s Cafe and that that particular cake is made fresh every week.
You could take that a little bit further and say something like ‘Mention our secret word ‘Pineapple’ for a free cakepop‘.
It’s important to show the food as it is when someone orders it and not spruce it up for the internet. Keep it real! People will be wondering why they got something different than what they saw on your feed. This can also apply to hotels when they show breakfast on a balcony. Is that really what the clients will get?
RELATED: What’s better? 100 superfans or 1,000 people who aren’t really bothered. Here’s how to remove ‘spam and ghost accounts’ from your followers.
5. One Sided Conversation
Take all these tips into consideration and you seem to be on the right track BUT..it’s not enough to upload pic after pic.
Upload, filter, hashtags, geo-location…. share, check how many likes you have, great!
Next upload, filter, hashtags, geo…..
STOP!
Instagram is a social networking platform, which, shocker, means you need to be social! Just tapping like on other pics isn’t enough. You need to engage!
Find your customers and let them know how great that photo is they took enjoying a meal with friends at your pizza shop. Thank them for visiting, tell them you hope to see them again. They are going to be so happy that you acknowledged them and are likely to tell friends about your business.
This should be a very important part of your social media strategy.
Just
be
human.
pin it for later? 💖
