If you’re currently growing your Instagram profile in order to get a better reach for your products or services you might be feeling a bit lost between all the tips, tricks, and hacks you can find online. This is completely understandable, you’re doing the right thing, but I know it can get a little overwhelming. So instead of giving you yet another tip to try, I wanted to make things a bit easier for you and reveal what three things definitely do not work when it comes to growing your following on Instagram.

#1 Leaving Meaningless Comments

Copying and pasting the same comment over and over again won’t do any good for your brand. Leaving an emoji under millions of pictures is a simple spam. A comment completely unrelated to the picture’s caption will only harm your presence. A meaningless comment is no way to get noticed. Stop commenting just for the sake of it right now. Instead, focus on building meaningful connections.

#2 Using Instagram Pods

So this was a thing a couple of years ago. A bunch of influencers of a similar size would get into a group and once they publish a new post, they will ask the rest to comment. This might gave you some engagement before, but these days that’s just too obvious. Leave all of the pods right now and simply take time to really work on engaging captions.

In their recent Instagram Stories Q&A, the Instagram team themselves shared that the best way to build sustainable engagement is by being authentic and transparent. 

#3 Not Thinking About The Needs Of Your Audience

Instagram is not about you anymore. It used to be all about checking what that person you’re following ate for dinner, but these days, people expect to see value, tips and really useful content on your feed. So, go ahead and ASK what your audience wants to learn from you. Really listen & analyse what type of content they are looking for and start creating!