Eight Reasons Your Instagram Posts Fail to Get Views or Likes

Remember that group of popular kids back in high school? Everyone wanted to talk and hang out with them and gave them tons of compliments. They basically set all the trends, decided who was cool, and were pretty much followed by everyone else.

Well guess what? Welcome to 2018. Not much has changed in our adult world. We just have a whole new way of judging who's cool and popular, and its called Instagram.

Instagram was a game changer in the world of social media, and boy do we all love it. As we spend our days scrolling through our news feeds, interacting with our friends and watching (and judging) their lives, it goes to follow that the measure of our popularity has now changed. 

Whether you are trying to be a social media influencer, promote your business or or simply just become the most popular amongst your friends, the number of people who view and like your Instagram post have a very important role to play. Even the amount of followers you get depends to a extent to the traffic you get on your posts. And let's face it peeps, these days, the amount of people who follow you on Instagram matter just as much as your real life friends.

That said, navigating the tricky world of Instagram is not easy. So many things are happening, and we’re trying to make sense of it all. It’s also frustrating because it seems that a lot of us are having trouble getting views and likes, no matter what we do. And, if we have less likes on Instagram, it's hard to grow our account. Sounds familiar? 

Well, worry not, your social media fairy godmother is here to rescue you from your unpopularity woes. Read on to figure out the eight mistakes you are making on your Insta posts and how you can fix them to reinvent your profile, digital Cinderella style.

1. Posting about the wrong subjects

The biggest power Instagram has is using an image to tell a story. Posting about a sunset from your bedroom window will probably not get the same kind of attention that one taken on a gorgeous beach will. Nor will repeating a ton of photos with your BFFs. The idea is to shoot beautiful images of stuff that grabs peoples attention and draws them in. The same goes for memes and pictures that don't connect with your followers or are in bad taste. It's best to avoid violent and disturbing images as well, unless you have a strong message to share with it. Remember, sometimes the camera angle and photo layout can make all the difference.

2. Going OTT on mentions and hashtags 

One simple rule when it comes to mentions and hashtags, if it doesn't make any sense, DO NOT put it in.

Mentioning people (especially those who are relevant and influential) can be a great way to attract attention, as long as it is related to the post. The same goes for hashtags — they're a great way to get random traffic, mention brands, and create some humour, as long as you don't go overboard and annoy people or tag stuff that's unrelated.You also have a limit of 30 hashtags per photo or comment, but that’s excessive. Maybe you can use 30, but you should rarely exceed 10, and often not even that. The more hashtags there are, the less interesting the comment is. As for mentions, you’re limited to five. That’s not a lot, so feel free to use them. A general rule that works — the more people you mention, the fewer hashtags you use.

3. The right post timing and frequency

Being consistent with your posts, posting the same amount everyday, not posting more then four times a day, spacing it out, and posting at a time that your audience is online, all these things make a huge difference in your the popularity of your posts and likes they get.

4. Choose the right response to your comments

This is another area that can make all the difference to your popularity and likes. You don't need to go on a liking rampage and respond to every comment as it can be bad for your image. However, it is important to be prompt in responding to any questions or queries and engaging in some intelligent and witty banter now and then.

5. Posting sloppy tag lines and mediocre quality content

This is similar to the first point in many ways. Grainy or pixelated pics, flooding your feed with blurry or repetitive images or using boring tag lines with grammar or spelling mistakes, can all lead to poor traction on your Instagram posts. Do think before you put something up — would you be interested in looking at this yourself? 

6. Ignoring that people love watching Insta stories

It's much easier to just watch stories on the top of your Insta handle instead of scrolling through your feed. Mentioning your posts in your stories to interact with your audience and pull them back to your page in creative ways will help you get more views and likes, so don't ignore the power that Insta stories have to help you connect.

7. Failing to create a  strong visual strategy

For a personal account or a business, it's important to have a central theme and visual flow that is interesting and draws people in. In simple words, stick to the same kind of colours, layouts, filters, and themes to help people identify with your personal ethos and they will respect and like it more. Also a good idea is to take it easy on the Photoshop or BeautyPlus app, as it alienates the audience. 

8. Buying fake followers

As tempting as this may seem, don't fall into this trap. Instagram constantly shuts down bot accounts as well as rewards real interactions, so these numbers are easy to catch and will not help you in any real way. You might end up alienating your real followers with fake likes and comments as well, which will only harm your image in the long run.