Outdated Instagram tips you need to stop using in your strategy

It’s time to set the record straight. I see all of you out there working your butts off trying to build your content creation business - part of that is doing your research and following the advice of “experts”. But what if I told you that some of these so-called “Instagram Coaches” are leading you astray and honestly, wasting your precious time on outdated tips? I am all about saving your time and keeping your workflow efficient, so today I want to share with you the outdated Instagram tips you need to stop using in your strategy!

Write Long Captions on Every Post

Have you ever heard the phrase, “too much of a good thing”? Y’all know how much I love a long, vulnerable caption - but they have their place in your feed, but not on every post. I think the best place for long captions is usually paired with a photo, but that’s about it.

For example, Reels - the only time you truly might need a long caption on a Reel is if your Reel was short and punchy, with little to no information - in that case, you might need to lead your audience to your caption for the meat and potatoes. But, if you provide a lot of value in your Reel (which I recommend you do - in my opinion, tutorial-style Reels are the next “big thing” on Instagram), but again, if you provide a lot of value, you don’t necessarily need to repeat those details in the caption. Use this caption for a short sentence or two, including a few keywords, a couple of hashtags, and maybe a call to action. That’s really all you need.

Using ALL 30 Hashtags

Speaking of hashtags, did your catch that I said “a couple of hashtags”? Currently, hashtags are still relevant on Instagram, but not in the way they used to be. Hashtags are now used to help categorize content for the algorithm, but they should be used sparingly. Instagram CEO Adam has announced that anywhere between 3-5 hashtags are appropriate. Utilizing too many hashtags on a post could result in your profile being marked as spammy by the algorithm, therefore the algorithm may not push your content out to as many people. Instead, I recommend using a few relevant hashtags for each post and if you prefer to do some upfront research, you can create a few groups of hashtags with 3-5 hashtags in each group. That way you have a few hashtags in the topic areas that you commonly talk about - but you can also just create a few on the spot depending on the post type.

Having Only One Call to Action

Having a call to action or CTA is super important to help encourage engagement, but why am I considering this “outdated” - well, because is just encouraging engagement enough? Here is my hot take on CTAs - I think it’s important to ask your viewer to comment below or double tap, but that only can help you for so long - what about after a week or two, or a few months later? That call to action is no longer really serving you.

As you grow, you will have some folks find their way to your profile and start stalking their way through your past feed posts - and stumble upon one that has a “comment below” call to action, isn’t that a missed opportunity? Commenting on your post months later probably doesn’t really benefit your post performance at that point - but it possibly did at the time. So why not have two CTAs? One, that encourages engagement; likes, saves, shares, comments, etc. Then another that leads folks to your platforms outside of Instagram - like a website, YouTube, products or services, a newsletter, etc. This way, no matter when someone stumbles across this post, if they take action on what you suggested in the post, it could potentially benefit you even now. Using one of my recent posts as an example, I said:

Tell me a bit about your Instagram journey in the comments! What year did you get started? ✨⁠

And remember - The Instagram Road Map is available now at the link in my bio 🔗

I encouraged them to comment and also lead them to my new course at the link in my bio, now if someone finds this post in a few weeks - they might think, oh wow, I am going to check out this course versus just commenting on an old post.

Maxing Out Your Carousel Graphics

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Did any of your parents say this to you when you were growing up? Just because you CAN have 10 carousel graphics, doesn’t always mean you should use them. When you give yourself a requirement of 10 slides, you are more focused on that requirement than you are on the value of your content. You should focus on value first. If you need 10 slides to cover all of the value you are providing, then do it. But if you can get your point across in 4 or 5, that’s even better.

You don’t want to waste your viewers time having them swipe only to find most blank slides - they might feel played and lose some trust or respect for you. But if you instead pack that value in, add some amazing graphics and imagery, and have them leave your post wanting more - then that’s a job well done!

Posting 5+ Days a Week

How many times have your heard someone say that you need to be posting daily or multiple times a day to grow? Did you all say yes? I would say most people have. Posting a lot does give you more chances to grow or be seen, sure - but there is one thing you will usually lose if you put your focus on the quantity. Any guesses? The quality.

Recently, I was on a strict, 5 day per week posting schedule on Instagram and then I hit this point where I felt I was spending a lot of my time creating the super easy audio trend Reels, just to keep up with the sheer amount I was trying to produce. I could see my tutorial-style ones were performing better, but if I was going to get 20 posts out a month or more, I have to create some of the easy ones too. Then I realized something, maybe I don’t have to post that much!

I reduce my posting schedule to 3 times per week and use that time to really focus on the quality of my Reels. After giving it some time, I checked my analytics, and guess what, if anything - my performance was better. I was getting more followers, more engagement, more reach, etc. But was posting less. This is why I am a firm believer in quality over quantity.

Don’t EVER Auto-Publish

I actually just heard someone talk about this the other day - where they said they were considering that auto-publishing will affect their performance on Instagram. I just don’t believe that’s true. What WILL affect your reach is the quality of your post and potentially your activity on the app. Even though you have the option to auto-publish, it’s still your responsibility to get on Instagram, respond to comments and DMs, post in Stories, and overall, stay relevant. If you feel like you have done your part by creating the post and scheduling it on Instagram, that’s when auto-publishing will negatively affect you. But if you are spending some time nurturing your audience and viewers, you should be fine. Auto-publishing is meant to be convenient and keep you consistent, it won’t hurt your performance.

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Were you still doing any of these things? You should shoot me a DM and let me know if you are changing the direction of your strategy after listening to this OR let me know some other outdated tips you have been hearing, I am curious if there are more I missed! If you feel a little lost and want to have us take a look at your Instagram, we just revamped our Instagram Audit service. It’s only $99 - we grab your login, and go beyond the usual surface-level advice, instead we dive into your insights and provide you advice based on your current statistics and performance, and what’s currently trending at that time. You can use the link in the show notes to learn more and sign up!