There are so many dated, tired Instagram strategies that a lot of businesses and creators continue to use. But as we move into 2024, it’s time that we put those ineffective strategies and tactics aside and focus on things that help us reach more people, grow our business and build our community. 

If you’d rather watch the video than read the blog, we got you:

First of all, we’re not going to bore you with the same old things that we’ve said a thousand times, but just to be clear and so that there’s no confusion that these are still strategies that should be left behind, we’re going to quickly just list them so that we can all forget they exist:

• Engagement groups or pods: Just no. They’ve never been a good thing, it just creates fake engagement and it’ll show the second you try to convert those commenters into sales, or if you work with a brand and your conversations are super low.

• Buying fake followers: If we have to expand on this, then you’re in more trouble than we thought.

• Follow / unfollow: This was a strategy from a while back where people were following accounts until they followed back, then unfollowing. It ruins your engagement while doing the opposite of building a community.

• Tagging too many people, or random people, on a post: While we’ve talked about tagging theme pages in the past and this is still an effective strategy, we see accounts that just tag up to 20 random people on their posts regularly. It comes off as annoying and spammy. No.

Now let’s get into the main bunch of Instagram strategies that should be left behind:

1. Prioritizing hashtags over SEO: Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri has recently talked about the reduction in impact that hashtags have on the platform, and it’s widely discussed that SEO is now a much larger part of Instagram. Instead of focusing too much on your hashtags - it’s still worth using them but don’t waste a lot of time on it - you should be focusing on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Leverage the bold name field and your bio, and make sure that your captions have searchable terms in there to help show up.

2. Link In Bio: We’ve talked about reducing friction a lot and for better or worse, the link in bio has become more and more tedious and overloaded. If it takes much more than one or two taps, people will give up so if you have a linktr.ee in your bio, you’re looking at three to four taps depending on where the link takes them. Instead, we’d highly suggest using ManyChat, which is the sponsor of the video! Think of ManyChat as the new and improved Link In Bio. ManyChat is an automation tool that allows you to automate many elements of Instagram, in particular, it can let people comment a chosen keyword on your post which will trigger the software to send that account a DM with anything you like. It could be a freebie, a promo, a link to your sales page, or essentially anything you want to promote! Instead of forcing the friction of leaving the post, going to the link in bio, scrolling through your Linktr.ee to find the right link, landing at the page and then still figuring out if that’s where you’re supposed to go, ManyChat allows you to slide right in the DMs of a potential customer because they asked you to! This allows them to go right where you want them to (and where they want to go), and then even continue the conversation since you’re already in the DM together. Not to mention the incredible engagement that you’ll be getting as when a customer comments your keyword - say it’s “promo” - you can set up an auto-response comment so every time someone engages, it results in 2 comments and multiple DMs. Amazing! Hit this link and use the promo code HIGHSEASON at checkout for a free month of the ManyChat Pro plan!

3. Overly curated content: This kind of went out of style since TikTok’s low-resolution vibe took over the social space. Instagram always was about highly curated aesthetics but it often stressed people out and forced them into inaction. The fact remains now that it’s just not as important as it used to be; the expectation of highly curated feeds or perfect aesthetics doesn’t matter as much and can often come off as a little pretentious or that you take yourself and your business too seriously. Just be yourself - make sure the content is valuable (entertaining, educational, inspirational) and supports your business goals, but don’t stress over the visuals.

4. Posting just to post: At a time when we’re faced with more content than any other time in human history, posting too much not only stresses the creator out but also overwhelms the audience. Look at it like if you don’t have something important to say, then just stick to Stories. Keep your feed posts to valuable content, and don’t feel that old and tired expectation to post a Reel a day like when it first came out. The strategy doesn’t work and nobody wants it, so find a cadence and consistency that works for you.

5. Jumping on every trend: The whole trend thing started during the pandemic with the rise of TikTok and it went on for a solid few years, but at this point, it’s just done. If a trend applies to you then by all means go for it, but there’s no need to bend over backwards just to figure out how you can do that “stick your phone to the ceiling” thing when you’re a wedding photographer editing on a computer. Equally, focusing on going viral and doing the old “pointing and dancing” thing that we’re so not fond of is unnecessary and just won’t work anymore. Virality will happen with quality or entertaining content, but it shouldn’t be something that you’re focusing on. And pointing and dancing fortunately kind of died out this year so yeah, let’s leave that alone.

6. Only posting Reels: Since Reels came out and Instagram expressed its focus on it, it’s had creators and businesses obsessed with them. We recently did the video below where a study from Metricool analyzed millions of posts and figured out that not only is reach dropping across the board but carousels, static images and Stories are on the rise. Adam Mosseri also confirmed the focus on Stories and DMs (hence the importance of ManyChat!). We also know that Reels are a lot more effort and it isn’t practical to only focus on that for many people, so this should be a relief!

7. Covering posts shared to Stories with a sticker: We’ve all done it - shared a new post to Stories with one of those “NEW POST” stickers over it. Think about it - someone is scrolling through Stories and enjoying themselves, what are the chances they’ll want to stop their scroll to go look at a post that doesn’t have a huge payoff? Instead, share the post and put a poll or Q&A sticker next to it. For example, if you’re into fashion and the post is you in a specific outfit, ask something about the colours. If you’re a cafe and you post a latte, ask if people are dairy milk, oat, or nut milk drinkers. That’ll get you more engagement overall.

8. ChatGPT Captions: While we’re huge fans of leveraging AI as kind of like a thought partner in creating your content, one thing we need to leave behind is using the exact copy that it generates. At this point, many many people can pick an AI-written caption immediately and it’s just not a good look. It’s not authentic, it’s not human, it’s really just kind of weird and it shows that you don’t take your business seriously enough to want it to feel like it’s still carrying your legit brand voice. Use it as a tool but don’t take it verbatim.

That’s it! Do you have any strategies that you’re planning on leaving behind into the new year? Are you guilty of any of these? Let us know! Don’t forget to check out ManyChat for that DM and comments automation, use the code HIGHSEASON for a free month of their Pro plan!

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