If you’ve been consistently reading my blogs, you should know by now that Instagram is one of the greats when it comes to promoting your brand and getting your products into the spotlight. Most start-ups consider this photo sharing app as an opportunity. They find it as an opportunity to gain more customers, improve their reputation, and help them grow bigger and better. However, as promising as it sounds, it’s not that easy. Perhaps, the most challenging part is to convert those followers into customer – relevant customers that buy. If you’re one of those start-ups trying to sell your product, make sure you avoid these marketing practices on Instagram.
Hard Selling on Instagram
If you want to throw all your Instagram followers away, the best thing to do is to promote, promote, and promote some more. Yes, people hate it when the only thing they see in your account is your product and nothing else – over promotion.
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What users want is an experience – seeing stories, quality images, and getting a few sneak peek from your brand. They want something useful and entertaining. That is why, as much as possible, give them content that’s not self-serving.
But Still Promote
Ok, hear me out. Just because I said you shouldn’t do the hard selling strategy, it doesn’t mean that you’d completely cancel the practice. At some point, you have to sell, or you won’t be earning anything. However, make it discreet, catchy, creative, entertaining, and memorable. It should be an experience and not some daily propaganda of the same stuff. Also, do these marketing posts moderately. Follow the four to one rule – for every four shareable contents; you do a promotional content.
Your Website or Landing Page Isn’t Optimized for Mobile
Another reason that most businesses fail to consider is their landing page or website. You only have one clickable link to share on Instagram, failing to make it mobile-friendly is disastrous for your business. Why? First of all, the majority of the users are very dependent on mobile devices; I literally think that only a handful of people use a desktop to check out Instagram. Second, since your website isn’t easy to use when using a phone or tablet, the odds of leaving the site is inevitable. That is why it is important that you make sure your website is mobile-friendly so that traffic coming from the app won’t be discouraged right away.
You’re Targeting Everyone
Just because you have a hundred thousand followers doesn’t mean you’re going to sell your product. If that one hundred thousand are just random people – interested in random things – the chances of selling your product are pretty slim. Without targeting specific groups of people who are solely interested in your product, you’ll simply get followers. Remember, a brand with a ten thousand followers who are interested in the product is better than a hundred thousand.