5 Instagram Mistakes!! Are You Making Them?
Growing Instagram followers is really hard sometimes ... just ask me: I'm stuck below 15,000 and I have no idea why I can't break out of this!! The slow crawl to 15K followers on Instagram has been urking me for a while. UGH!!! Even though my climb may be slow there are still 5 Instagram mistakes I try to rarely make ... see those below!
1. ONLY TAGGING SOMEONE IN YOUR BLURB
If you are tagging people for credits on an Instagram post then it's important to make sure you tag them in the blurb AND in the photo! A lot of people won't know they've been mentioned just by a comment and if you tag the photo too then they get 'pinged' twice in their notifications and they also get a 'flag' on their feed that there is a new photo of them. This is also helpful for getting more visitors to your post as sometimes people go to the 'photos of people they follow' and browse those for more info!
2. ONLY LIKING AND NOT COMMENTING
As you are getting buried in Instagram-land are you just liking images and never commenting on them? Writing a comment when you REALLY like something shows the other IG'er that you are a human who actually cares and not some 'app' autoliking their sh*t. It may make them want to come over to your feed and see what you are all about too! Commenting can bring attention from other 'commenters' on the same image and start a networking wave you never knew you needed! I love commenting on IG.
3. NEVER REPLYING TO COMMENTERS ON YOUR POSTS
I wrote about this in length last week - I feel this is too large of a mistake for people to keep doing. If you have people commenting on your posts then be a pal and comment back! I'm not saying you have to comment back to EVERYONE individually, but if they took the time to comment and tell you how awesome you are then would it hurt to turn some of the love back their direction? Replying to your commenters also reminds them that you are around and they may pop in to see what else you've been posting ;)
4. HAVING A LARGER FOLLOWING COUNT THAN A FOLLOWERS COUNT
I realize this may just be 'my pet peeve' but I don't suggest ever following more accounts than the number that follows you. If you have 1,000 followers then maybe keep the number of accounts you are following to the 400's. There is just something more appealing to me about going to an account that doesn't 'over follow' - if you are following over 1,000 accounts and your following is in the 400's then just take a look at that and let me know if you agree that having those numbers flipped would be more visually impressive ;)
5. OVER-HASHTAGGING POSTS
Hashtags do hold a purpose and you should use them - but you should use them to keep things FOCUSED on exactly what your post is referencing. When I see a post that has 30 hashtags it's a major annoyance. I try to keep my hashtags to 7 at the very most, but I realize that there are instances where a post requires more. Just don't BOMB the entire blurb with hashtags - try to say something interesting too. Another note about hashtags: try to switch it up! I know some people just have their hashtags saved in a 'note app' on their phone and they always use the same ones ... try changing it up for different posts and see what happens! You may pique the interest of an entirely different group :)
