7 common challenges you’re likely facing with your business Instagram

If you were running a creator account on Instagram, you could choose to post whenever you want, respond to comments as you see fit, and do things the way you like. But for someone who’s running a business Instagram account, you don’t have the luxury of this because everything you do has to be tailored towards the purpose of the account.

For example, while a random Instagrammer might choose to post any time of the day, an Instagram marketer who’s running a business account has to time his post. Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t have a feature to support this. Which means that you have to make yourself available around the same time when your audiences are likely online.

Sounds like a lot of responsibility!

But the issue of timing is just one of the many annoying shortcomings of Instagram. Below is a list of the most common challenges people face on the platform.

Problem responding to comments

When your business profile is just growing on Instagram, it can be easy to respond to people’s comments and engage with your community. But as soon as your profile becomes popular, it can be difficult for you to respond to the large volume of comments that will be coming your way.

To address such challenges, you can use tools like “Iconosquare.” This tool displays all of your latest posts on a single page so that each time a comment comes for a post, it will be displayed on-screen, and you can choose to reply to them right there.

Much like an instant messenger format!

IGTV problems

IGTV is the latest feature introduced on Instagram. And already it is starting to gain a lot of traction, so much so that people now buy views just to gain exposure for their IGTV videos.

But would you believe me if I told you that those videos you upload on your IGTV via your mobile phones appear as “poor-quality videos” when someone views them from a desktop?

It really is a great shortcoming on the part of Instagram! While your videos may appear great and high-quality on your mobile device, it’s a completely different story when you view them on desktops or larger screens.

To solve this problem, you just have to ensure that all your IGTV videos are uploaded from a desktop computer. That way, they will appear great on both desktops and smartphones.

Posting at optimum times

Like we mentioned above, Instagram lacks a scheduling feature, meaning that if you want to post when your audiences are online, then you need to make yourself available around that same time.

For someone who has a lot of other activities on their plates, this can be a big ask, as the time when your audience is online could clash with your other activities.

So how can you solve this scheduling problem?

Any of these Instagram scheduling tools has the answers you seek.

• HubSpot: helps you polish and publish your posts in advance.
• Later: plan your entire feed to create a beautiful profile that catches the attention of viewers.
• Buffer: automate your schedule for up to a week.

No update on who unfollowed you

Isn’t it annoying how Instagram updates you when someone just followed you but fails to alert you when someone unfollows you? For a creator account, this might not be a big deal. But for a business account, it is important for your brand image that you know who’s following and who stopped following you.

Thankfully, problems like these are what tools like “Combin” helps you eradicate. This tool helps you identify those accounts that unfollowed you, and if you desire to, it can also help you unfollow them all at once.

Sharing on other social media platforms

Who else finds Instagram’s poor integration with other social networks annoying? Maybe it’s just me, but the whole idea of using links to post on other platforms or sharing via app only seems overly time-consuming for me.

Thankfully, tools like Buffer and IFTTT save me the stress every time. With IFTTT, you can integrate multiple social media accounts with one another, Instagram inclusive. For instance, let’s say you want to post a photo on Twitter every time a certain hashtag is used on your Instagram; all you have to do is give the command on IFTTT.

Promoting photos on other platforms

For all the buzz surrounding Instagram today, not everyone has an account there. Which means that when you post on the platform, some of your audiences elsewhere wouldn’t see your post. Normally, this problem could be solved if Instagram had good integration with other networks, as you would just send your Instagram posts to these other platforms. But since the integration is non-existent, it means that if you want people on other platforms to see your posts, you’re going to need to post separately there.

Using the IFTTT or Iconosquare tool, however, you can solve this problem. Either of these tools can help connect your posts on Instagram to other social networks like Reddit, Flickr, Digg, etc. so that all those who don’t use Instagram can still see your content.

Switching between accounts

Would you believe that before 2020, if you wanted to switch from one of your accounts on Instagram to another, you’d need to first log out from one and then log into the other?

This challenge created a lot of hassles for Instagram users in the past.

But thanks to the recent updates from Instagram, this issue has been addressed. Nowadays, to switch accounts, you just need to go to your profile, tap on the account, and select the account. Alternatively, you can long-press on the profile icon and select the account you wish to open.