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I am gonna tell you the eight business
mistakes to avoid when using Instagram.
My name is Sue B. Zimmerman and I
want to make sure that you don't make any of these mistakes.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
OK, I am now going to tell you the eight most common business
mistakes that I see on Instagram,
and you are going to promise me that you are not
going to make any of them.
The first one is there is no profile picture.
It's just an empty image of nothingness.
So I don't know about you, but I have a hard time doing business
with someone that I have no idea what they look like
or what their logo is.
So if you want to get some engagement on Instagram,
you absolutely want to upload a professional photo
or a professional logo.
The second mistake I see is that there is no linked URL.
You have the opportunity to link a website, an Etsy
shop, your Twitter page, maybe your YouTube channel.
Or you might want to link them to your Facebook fan page
to grow your fans over there, or even an opt in page.
You can change this at any time on Instagram.
So you absolutely want to make sure that you have a URL.
And if you don't have a website, you
can create an About Me account, which is free.
About.me, so check that out if you don't have a website.
And the third mistake I see is that there is no bio.
If I have no idea who you are and what you're
passionate about, most likely I am not
going to follow you just because you started following me.
I need to know that you're going to add value to my life
by looking at your content.
And I need to know quickly who you are
and what you love to do and share with the world.
So make sure you write a bio, you
have 150 characters to write one.
And the fourth mistake I see is that the user name is just not
lining up with the business or the account name.
The best rule of thumb is to try to grab your same handle
that you have on Twitter.
And if that is not available, you can try to get your name.
And if your name is taken, you can use an underscore
in between your first and last name,
or add your middle initial.
There's all kinds of creative ways
you can get a user name that aligns with your business.
And the fifth mistake I see is that there are blurry photos.
I'm going to talk about this more in a little bit.
The sixth is that you are posting irrelevant photos.
The seventh mistake is that there is no hashtag strategy.
And the last mistake, which is just crazy to make,
is that you have your account on a locked setting.
So let's just go over a few of these things.
So this is an incomplete bio.
You can see it's a bad Insta user.
There is not a very good picture, there is no bio,
and there's no URL linked.
So these are three things that are not
working to your advantage on Instagram
if you want to start attracting your ideal client.
Here is an example of a blurry photo.
Although my cockapoo is insanely cute-- this
is a painting actually on his treat container--
there is no reason to upload any photos-- OK, maybe one,
I will tell you my rule-- on Instagram if it's blurry.
Here's my rule.
If you have just one picture with someone
who you think is famous or you view as a thought leader
or someone who inspires you, and you really
want to share that to your followers
and have some social proof that you were with them in person
and the picture is a little bit blurry, it's A-OK to upload it.
Because on Instagram, there are 20 filters.
And I'm sure you can find one that
will make that blurry photo look a little bit better.
Or you can try stabilizing it as well.
So there are definitely ways that you
can tweak it to make the photo look better.
So that is the only reason why you can, in my opinion,
load a blurry photo.
And here's an example of an irrelevant photo.
You are in a hotel going up an elevator to your hotel room
and you take a picture of the buttons.
And this is just content that's so not worth looking at.
And I will unfollow you if I see these kind of photos,
because I value my time and I don't
want to be looking at things such as buttons in an elevator.
So make sure that if you're sharing
visual content, either photos or videos, that they add value.
And I mentioned not having a hashtag strategy.
Having a hashtag strategy on Instagram
is where all the magic is.
And it's best to put the hashtags
in the secondary comment, not in the initial description.
And you can use 30 hashtags per post.
And if you wanted to put one or two in the initial description,
that's fine.
But you really want to save them for the comments.
Because what you can do on Instagram is you
can delete those hashtags and you
can add them later to refresh that post.
So if there's a post that got a lot of engagement
and it's about a month old and you want to bring it back
to life, you simply just delete the hashtags that you posted
and you refresh them.
And if you need to understand and learn
how to delete comments, especially if you spelled
a word wrong, I do have a YouTube video that teaches you
how to delete a comment on Instagram
that you can check out.
So having a hashtag strategy is very important.
And if you really need to understand the strategy,
we've created a book called GetYourHashtagOn.com, which
is a $19.99 download that you can buy.
And it highlights 30 plus industries
and all the relevant hashtags for each category.
So it might be worth your investment to have that on hand
as a reference.
The lock setting, I mean, there's
just no excuse for this.
If you are concerned about people seeing your pictures
and it's for personal use, then just
have it be for personal use.
If you are in business, this is like having a lock on your door
to your store and it's like saying,
don't come in for business.
So you just simply want to go into your account settings
and change that so it is not private, it is public.
OK, so those are the eight most common business mistakes.
And I want you to take an oath right now,
even though I can't see you, that you will not
make any of these mistakes.
Did you find this video InstaAmazing?
Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Also share this on Twitter, Facebook,
and take a screen shot of this video
and tag me @TheInstagramExpert on Instagram
and hashtag SueBZimmerman and I'll
be sure to see that you commented.