Extremely Common Instagram Marketing Problems and How to Fix Them
Instagram is a great platform for marketers and businesses to get their message heard.
Relatively low ad costs, a robust targeting system and a massive user base makes it a potentially lucrative platform.
However, there are several common problems that marketers and businesses encounter while they’re on the platform. Let’s take a look at some of the most common ones.
1. Your Instagram posts and videos get little to no engagement
Maybe you have been posting consistently, but you’re not seeing any significant engagement on your posts. You may even have tried several different posts times and posting on different days of the week, to no avail.
One of the major problems most marketers face is that they don’t take enough time to understand their audience and what they truly need.
One of the ways you can get a clearer picture is to look at your Audience Insights on Facebook. See what your demographics are, and what kinds of topics people have already expressed interest in.
Another potential reason this might be happening is that your content simply isn’t interesting or shareable.
One of the best ways to get some engagement is to share how-to or tutorial type of content. If you’re confused about what to post, start by educating your audience.
Look at your competition and see which of their content is working well and try to adapt it into your own content calendar.
2. You are getting a lot of engagement, but no conversions or sales
You might be in a slightly different situation right now – you are getting a lot of shares, comments and reactions on your stories, but all the engagement isn’t translating into sales.
One of the reasons this might be happening is that even though your content might be interesting or informative in a vacuum, it isn’t exactly relevant to the product or service you are offering.
You already have a piece of the puzzle down – your content is doing well. To make sure your audience is pushed to make the buying decisions, you need to start connecting the dots for your audience between your content and your product.
For example, you might want to start incorporating your products more into your photos and videos without explicitly trying to sell something.
Another potential bottleneck you might be facing is that your ad funnel simply isn’t strong enough. Unless you are selling products directly on Instagram, you need to have an advertising strategy that targets people at all stages of the customer journey. Retargeting ads are a great tool to convert people who might be on the fence.
3. You have a lot of negative feedback or comments on Instagram
Maybe you’re getting a lot of negative comments or criticism on your posts. This clearly indicates that there is a larger problem with your messaging in general or specifically with the way you are posting to your Instagram profile.
One of the reasons this might be happening, especially if customer service is a major part of your industry, is that you aren’t acknowledging comments or replying to questions quickly enough. If your users don’t feel heard, they will stop doing business with you eventually.
Managing your community on Instagram is crucial, and you need to outline a document which specifies all of the things that need to be done to keep your community thriving. This community management document is especially crucial if you have more than one person managing your social media presence.
On the other hand, if you feel like the comments are being bombarded by trolls or automated posting bots, you should feel free to block and report users. Especially if the people commenting are using derogatory or inflammatory language, consider blocking them to keep the discussion civil.
4. Your Instagram ad costs are too high
Maybe you’re just paying too much for your Instagram ads and you aren’t exactly sure how to fix the problem.
Well, one of the places you can start looking is in your targeting settings. Who are you addressing specifically? You may have selected an audience that is too broad or too competitive.
To start addressing this issue, you should start targeting smaller subgroups of your overall demographic and see if your ads resonate better with this niche audience. The more specific your target audience is, the more customized and personally relevant your ads will become.
Your target market will have some jargon or language that is familiar to the buying audience in that niche. Make sure you incorporate it into your ads.
Keep your captions short and punchy. No one wants to read a wall of text.
Another thing you should start doing is split testing your ads. A/B testing can help you salvage a potentially workable ad by allowing you to adjust in real-time with audience feedback.
Formulating an effective Instagram strategy that continues to work over the long run isn’t easy. The algorithm changes quickly, and you need to have the ability to pivot your messaging to fit the changing landscape.
Let us know what your other marketing challenges are and we would love to address them in a future article. Thanks for reading!