14 Unsurprising Reasons Your Instagram Posts Are Not Getting Enough Attention

After 10 years, Instagram has become one of the top five social media platforms that millions of businesses use to reach a wider audience and increase their sales.

Instagram’s statistics:

• Monthly active users – 1.074 billion +
• Daily active users – 500 million +
• Daily active users on IG Stories – 500 million +
• Businesses on IG – 200 million +
• Female IG users – 546 million
• Male IG users – 528 million
• Percentage of IG users outside the US – 88%
• Active influencers on IG – 500,000
• Percentage of people who use IG to research products and services – 81%
• Users who tap on shopping posts per month – 130 million

Aside from those numbers, 73% of teens from the US say that the best way for brands to engage with them about new products and promotions is through Instagram. On average, users spend at least 30 minutes a day on the platform. These are just among the many reasons why IG came in the third position for the most downloaded apps in 2020 in the United States alone.

It was announced recently that there are more than 200 million active business profiles on Instagram to help boost their online visibility and reach out to a wider market. An average engagement rate of a business account on IG is 0.96%. This means that an enterprise can expect at least one engagement per 100 Instagram followers.

So, what are you waiting for?

You’re missing out on a lot of things if you haven’t set up an Instagram profile for your business yet.

With all the numbers mentioned above, it would be mind-boggling if your Instagram posts are not getting enough attention despite the number of followers you have.

What could you have done to cause this?

Possible reasons your IG posts are not getting engagements

While Instagram is an extremely effective tool for businesses, some owners are still unsure about how to use it properly. A lot of marketers, especially those who are new to the world of Instagram commit mistakes in posting that could cost them engagement rates.

It’s good to know what those common mistakes are so you can avoid them or take corrective measures before even posting on Instagram.

1. Account bio does not have a link or call-to-action

Your Instagram account, or any social media profile for that matter, is like a storefront where you promote and sell your goods. It’s an indispensable weapon in your social media marketing arsenal that could drive traffic to your online business. But for it to be effective, you need to make sure that a link to your site or a call-to-action can be easily seen in your bio.

This is what a lot of businesses don’t care too much about, thinking that all they need to do to make their Instagram account work for them is post amazing photos and engaging captions. Remember, 80% of IG users follow at least one business account, 60% of users have heard about a product or service on theG platform, and 30% of users have bought a product after hearing about it on the platform.

Those statistics mean adding a link or call-to-action in your bio is a crucial step towards your Instagram success. It’s also important to add multiple calls to action to increase conversion by as much as 20%.

2. Account is private

There’s no point in setting up an Instagram profile for your business if you’re just going to make it private.

Not only will it drive away followers but it will also forfeit the purpose of having an Instagram account. Followers will need to send you a follow request, which you will need to confirm manually. This can take some time for new followers to start viewing your content, which can be such an inconvenience. Not to mention, a waste of time and effort.

Keeping your account in private mode is counterproductive. It makes your business appear unapproachable. Unwelcoming. Unfriendly.

3. Missing profile picture

Remember, your social media profiles are your digital storefronts. The first thing that potential followers will see the moment they land on your profile is your profile picture. For followers to know that it is really your business account, your profile picture should be an image of your logo.

Every time you comment on other people’s posts, that blank photo on your profile will keep showing up. It’s going to be difficult to make people believe that it really is your company’s Instagram account. Aside from that, your business is going to appear as not too keen on growing your follower base.

Using the right image as your profile picture will help you consistently build your brand across all social media platforms. This is immensely important because, on average, a consistent brand presentation can increase revenues by about 23%.

4. Too many hashtags

Yes, hashtags, which are also keywords, can help point users towards the direction of your social media accounts. But using too many hashtags to the point of making your posts appear spammy can be a bad thing. While Instagram allows you to add up to 30 hashtags per post, a study shows that using up to 8 will get you the most likes.

It’s also equally important to consider the phrases you use as hashtags in your posts. For example, if your post about your lunch or coffee fix shows up in an unrelated hashtag feed, it doesn’t give people a great impression of your brand. What’s worse, your posts can be seen as spammy, which can put people off.

Use relevant hashtags in every post to point potential followers in your account’s direction. You can also add hashtags in a comment underneath your posts to still take advantage of the benefits of a hashtag search.

5. Recycled images

Instagram users use the social media app for entertainment first and foremost and shopping second. The best way to entertain them is to give them something new and interesting every time they visit your profile. This means that using the same product images over and over is not going to do you any good.

Keep in mind that to drive more followers to your account, you need to give them something fresh and exciting all the time. Use different images but not stock photos. Even if you have a few products to sell, you can use different backgrounds or themes in your photos to make your posts look new and attractive to new and existing followers.

6. Too many images/posts at one time

When you clog people’s feeds with all your posts, it’s not doing any good for your business. You’ll only turn off your followers and make user engagement suffer. People don’t want to scroll through their Instagram feeds and find posts from a single account dominating it. What’s going to happen is people will most likely unfollow you so they can view other people’s content.

Use Buffer, Later, or Hootsuite to space out your posts. This gives your brand more chances of engaging your followers and prospects.

7. Low-quality images

Stand out and make your profile more appealing to Instagram users by posting high-quality, high-resolution images that make an impact on your content.

Follow these tips to make your posts more enticing:

• Images should be 1280 x 1280 to be sure that they’ll still look great even when compressed.
• Videos should have a resolution of 600 x 315.
• For great-looking pictures, take a photo of your products in indirect daylight or during golden hours.
• Use image-editing apps, like Snapseed and Afterlight, to tweak your images and make them look more professional and artsy.

8. Profile looks chaotic

Your business’s Instagram account should look professional and resonate with your brand. This is why it shouldn’t look like a scrapbook that has a lot going on in it.

The first 9 photos in your account give users their first impression of your brand. So, make it a point to make your profile look cohesive, well-thought-out, and professional. Each photo in your account should fit well together. Your whole profile should have this uniformity that makes your brand look more believable, more legit.

9. Untimely posts

The best time to post on Instagram varies from company to company and industry to industry. It also depends on who your target audience is. But needless to say, timing is essential when posting on social media.

Since 2020, marketers have had to keep up with the increase in demands and interactions as people were looking for ways to deal with the pandemic and lockdowns happening everywhere. This pushed a lot of businesses to step up and stay on top of their social media marketing games.

One of the most effective methods to get a lot of engagements on social media is to time your posts properly. On Instagram, the best times to post would be Mondays through Fridays, from 11AM to 2PM. These times have been proven to have denser engagements because these are the times when most of your audience will be most active on IG. So, make sure that you schedule your posts during these days and times.

10. Captions that are unrelated to the images

One way to encourage followers to engage with your posts is to write captions that align with the images and vice versa. While hashtags are important, adding a compelling caption to every post is just as crucial.

Captions direct your followers to take the desired action, like comment on your post, follow your other social media accounts, visit your site, buy from you, etc. This is why it’s extremely important to optimize the use of captions, which can be up to 2,200 characters for every post.

You should use relevant and important words to support your images. Make sure to add calls to action in your captions. Clearly state what you need your followers to do. It has been proven that CTAs boost click-through rates when used intelligently in captions. You can even ask questions that your audience would answer in the comments to increase user engagement on your profile.

11. Not targeting your best competitors

Your competitors have followers who are already interested in the same products or services that you offer. This means that you won’t need to work doubly hard to get more followers if you engage with your rivals’ audience.

Remember: work smarter, not harder.

Interacting with your competitors’ followers by liking or replying to their comments is one way to get their attention. Clearly, these people are already interested in the kind of products or services you can offer, which means that you won’t need a lot of convincing to make them want to buy from you, too.

12. Contests without followers

Contests are one of the best ways to increase user engagement and invite new followers, considering that 80% of users follow a business account on IG. This means that you can get more engagement from existing and new followers if you run a fun contest every now and then.

However, it’s important that you already have a sizeable following to get enough likes and shares to make your content successful. So, make sure you grow your audience first before implementing a contest.

13. Video broadcast time is not announced

Instagram Live is another useful feature that can get you more engagements and new followers. Since you only have 15 seconds to grab the user’s attention during a live video broadcast, it makes a lot of sense to ensure that your followers are well-aware of the time of broadcast.

Social media marketing experts suggest aiming to post a live video at the same time every day. This is to be consistent about your branding and so people will know when to tune in to your IG Live broadcast.

14. No reply to comments

The sole purpose of your Instagram posts is to boost user engagement. So, it is expected for brands to interact with their audience in the comments section to keep the ball rolling as they say.

If you’re not responding to comments, you’re defeating the very purpose of having a business account on Instagram. It can also come off as you not valuing the time and effort that your followers have put to engage/interact with you. This can turn off your followers.

To prevent that from happening, you should make it a point to reply to comments. Also, when responding, tag the commenter’s IG handle (@tag) to ensure that they get the notification, which could encourage them to engage further.

Conclusion

Instagram is indeed an excellent place to grow your following and boost your conversion. But just like any digital marketing campaign, it takes time and effort to succeed.

Follow the tips mentioned above – come up with valuable posts, use high-quality images, respond to comments, etc. – to harness the amazing powers of Instagram.