7 Common Mistakes Instagram Influencers Make And How to Fix Them

• Date: 1 May 2020
• reading time: 3 Minutes
• Blogger: Sirarpi Sahakyan

Which are common mistakes Instagram Influencers make? This question has become a topic for discussion for many people, especially the ones who want to become influencers themself.

Common Influencers Mistakes and the Way to Fix Them

Humorist Sam Levenson once said, “You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.” So let’s see what kind of mistakes the influencers make and what we can learn from them.

Posting Low-Quality Images

Influencer posts should be of good quality, well designed and eye-catching. Your photos are meant to carry your message across to your followers. They can’t possibly trust you if you don’t take the extra step in engaging them on a high-level.

While posting something on stories, many influencers do not pay attention to the quality of the image or the video. This, however, can lead to the loss of followers.

Solution

Leverage powerful photo and video editing tools. Get a new phone with a good camera or buy a good camera. Any tool that will provide you with high-quality photos and videos, is worth considering. Content is king, but so is the quality. Especially for Instagram.

Purchasing Likes and Followers

Let’s be honest - this is not a good practice. Some influencers follow for following or buy followers in bulk. The result usually saddens - the followers are not interested in the content. You might have 10.000 followers out of which even 100 don’t engage with your posts.

Instagram shadow bands such users and they end up being surprised why this happened to them.

Solution

If you wish to be a genuine influencer and establish meaningful relationships with your followers, don’t be seduced by buying followers. And it’s not always legal if you’re caught.

Instead, you can establish meaningful relationships with your followers by meeting their needs and by entertaining them. Create interesting stories, go live, comment on other influencers’ photos.

To keep your followers interested in your activity you can use many tools that Instagram offers you. For example, you can go live to Instagram from your computer and have high-quality live videos. To make your Stories and images appealing, use Canva or other photo editing tools.

Another good way of engaging your followers is by writing good captions. Think about new ways of creating funny, interesting and valuable descriptions of your posts, that your followers will certainly like.

Not Adhering to FTC Guidelines

FTC Act prohibits unfair or deceptive advertising in any medium. That is, advertising must tell the truth and not mislead consumers. If you're promoting another product or service, you can no longer share a post on social media without flagging it as a brand-sponsored or paid post (a common mistake that some influencers make). Influencers must declare their endorsements. That is why here a #hashtag should be added - #ad #sponsored

Solution

Be as honest as you can. Influencers must declare their endorsements. If you want to promote a certain product, use the relevant hashtags, let your followers know your review is honest. They should see you promote only the products you like using, not every product you are asked to promote and get paid. This will build trust between you and your followers and other influencers as well.

Wrong Timing

This is another mistake Instagram influencers make. You should be consistent and schedule the timing for posts. If you know the days and hours your followers are more active, you will have a better chance to post at the right time and engage your audience in a better way. If your audience follows lots of other people, they might not scroll too much to see your posting.

Another timing mistake is not being consistent. Some influencers have certain days and times when they post. This gives them a chance to engage their audience by letting them know when exactly to wait for new posts.

Solution

Do not post when you want or when it is convenient. You will lose the interest of your followers and they will not wait for any post or any news from you. Your followers should be quite aware that at this certain time you are going to make a post, they should wait for it.

Plan and be as regular as possible. The best way is to check your analytics and to know the best time when your targeted audience is online and only then post your content.

Irrelevant Content

Not only should the images be relevant to your niche, but the captions and hashtags should also be relevant to the image. You should post something that your audience expects from you. If you post out of your niche content, your followers will get confused as to what they follow you for. And if you decide to post content that shouldn’t have been in your profile, give good reasoning through the caption.

If you constantly post irrelevant content you will lose some of your audience!

Solution

Try to keep the format and the style of your activity. Besides posting relevant images, you should find relevant hashtags for your post and write an interesting, relevant and valuable caption to your post.

You can even go further and create personal branding - the style with which your followers will immediately recognize your posts.

Final Thoughts

So these are a few common mistakes and the ways to avoid them. You can use these guidelines to find a really good influencer and to become an influencer yourself.

Remember this is all about caring of others, their emotions, opinion, participation in your activity. Caring means creating a healthy relationship with your audience. And this means growth!

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• Blogger: Sirarpi Sahakyan
• digital marketing specialist at Sociality.io
• Sirarpi is an enthusiastic digital marketing specialist. She enjoys writing content about social media and marketing in general. Her passion is to help readers by providing unique information. She is also socially active, in real life, and her hobbies include dancing Latin dances, going to the gym and doing nothing on Saturdays.
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