33. 7 Reasons Your Instagram Strategy Isn’t Working (and What to Do About It)

You see 120k combined account followers for my brands on social media. What you don’t see is all the mistakes I made along the way to get there. That's why I put together this super special episode for you where I'm teaching you seven reasons why you're struggling to grow your business on Instagram and how to fix each one.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• [04:58] The Balance Between Sales and Value: Why focusing too much on promotional content might be turning your audience off—and how to shift toward value-driven content that actually converts.

• [06:26] Optimizing Your Instagram Profile: Learn the three key things your Instagram bio needs to clearly communicate within the first 7 seconds to attract the right followers.

• [08:18] How to Narrow Your Focus: Avoid going too broad with your content. Instead, become an authority in one area and watch your growth take off.

• [09:41] Creating a Clear Customer Journey: If people want to work with you, do they know how? Learn how to simplify your call-to-action and make it easy for people to take that next step.

• [10:40] Consistency is Key: Why showing up consistently is non-negotiable if you want to grow your business on Instagram.

• [12:54] Collaboration Opportunities: Don't go at it alone! Collaborating with others in your niche is one of the most powerful ways to grow your reach and your follower count.

• [14:43] Avoiding Vanilla Messaging: Craft specific, targeted messaging that speaks directly to your ideal clients and stands out in a crowded marketplace.

Key Takeaways:

• Attraction content that provides value is more effective than just pushing sales.

• Optimize your Instagram profile for clarity, consistency, and visibility.

• Show up consistently, collaborate with others, and refine your messaging to avoid being too generic.

Action Steps:

• Audit your Instagram feed to check if you're too focused on sales or if you're offering real value to your followers.

• Optimize your Instagram profile with clear, concise messaging.

• Stay consistent with your posting schedule, even when engagement feels low.

PS: I’m excited to announce that I’m opening up three spots for private mentorship! If you’re interested in working with me 1:1, apply for a free Instagram breakthrough session where we’ll talk about your business, your goals, and how I can support you in fast-tracking your success.

Links mentioned in this episode…

Apply for a complimentary IG breakthrough call! - or DM me the word APPLY on Instagram and you’ll get the link.

REELS FOR BUSINESS 3 DAY WORKSHOP REPLAY: If you missed my recent live workshop on creating Instagram Reels, don’t worry! You can still get access to the replay. REGISTER HERE AND WE’LL EMAIL YOU THE REPLAY FROM ALL 3 DAYS!,

Want to dive deeper into using AI for marketing? Check out my four-part mini-series and my interview with AI coach Juan Galan, one of the most popular episodes to date!

JOIN HOT REELS: The 12-Month Instagram Content Lab
An intimate, strategy-packed mentorship for established business owners ready to create killer content that stops the scroll, grows your following and attracts your dreamboat clients (even if you have no idea what to post and feel like you’re always throwing spaghetti at the wall!)

FREE guide to Monetize Your IG: Seven Simple and Proven Ways to Finally Make Money on Instagram

Apply for your FREE Instagram Breakthrough Call with Elizabeth

Quote

"To build trust, you have to keep showing up. Stop being hot and cold with your posting, and commit to serving your people."

S3 Ep33 - 7 Reasons Your Instagram Strategy Isn’t Working (and What to Do About It)

00:00

You see 120,000 combined account followers for my brands on social media. But what you don't see is all of the mistakes I made along the way to get there. That's why I put together this super special episode for you where I'm gonna teach you seven reasons why you're struggling to grow your business on Instagram and how to fix each one.

00:21

I hope that this will shortcut your learning curve so you can avoid all the mistakes I made while having the most fun marketing your business on social media. Let's go. Welcome to Strut It, a podcast about creating bold visibility on social media with zero apologies.

00:41

I'm Elizabeth Marberry, your host and Instagram marketing coach. I help small business owners get seen on Instagram and monetize their offers so they can make more money doing their sole lead work. If you're tired of spinning your wheels on Instagram and you're seeking simple, proven Instagram marketing strategies that actually work, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

01:14

red carpet. Thank you so much for investing in yourself and your business taking this time to learn and implement. You are my people. Today's episode is going to be short and sweet and hopefully very impactful for you, your business, and your bottom line. But before we dive into that I want to quickly highlight a fun thing I do every October on my Instagram account and that is I break my own rules.

01:41

So if you've been listening to this podcast, you know that I always teach you to deliver on the promise of your bio with your content. So if you tell me that you are gonna teach me how to arrange flowers in the most epic way possible, and I look at your feed and you're playing with your dog, I'm not gonna follow you, right? Now, that is definitely true, and full permission to break my rules, break your own rules from time to time, because this platform is all about entertainment and fun.

02:11

And if you're not having fun, what the heck are you doing? You must always remember that Instagram is a place to experiment and test your content out, and most importantly, be your authentic self, right? Your authentic self, your authentic brand vibe is what is going to make you stand out in a saturated marketplace. So in me embodying my most authentic self, every October, I do the Pamela Pumpkin dance.

02:40

on Instagram, you're on TikTok, I'm sure you have seen this. This song is originally created by Laura Cleary and it is hysterical, you guys. It's like the Pamela Pumpkin workout. She says, I'm gonna squash Satan, kick him in the crotch. I mean, it is completely ridiculous. And my favorite part about doing this dance is the one reel a year that I can get my husband to do with me. So if you go look at my feed, he is nowhere to be found, okay?

03:10

My husband has no interest in being on my Instagram, but every year I convince him to be a character in this video. So it's kind of turned into a family tradition for us, reluctantly on his part, but every year I get him to do it. So I am sharing this with you because I'm so excited to create this piece of content. What's funny about this is every time, knock on wood, I create a Pamela Punkin workout video, it goes viral.

03:39

And it's fine and I don't stress about it. Yeah, it's out of my niche. I no longer focus on the dance niche. I'm more focused on marketing as you all know, but it's fine because it's showing that part of my personality. I am a former professional dancer. My wild, unapologetic, bold self is there. And the people who are drawn to me, yeah, they might click on my profile and if they're a business owner, maybe they'll follow me.

04:05

but that's not even the point of that video. It's just me showcasing a part of who I am. And so I wanna highlight that for you that I am breaking my own rule this month and going outside of my niche and full permission for you to listen to your intuition. Don't overthink and be so precious about every single piece of content. Just do it. Just post your content, get it out there, be yourself and I'm cheering you on.

04:31

Okay, let's get into the seven reasons why you're struggling to grow your business on Instagram and how to fix each one. Please note that these are in no specific order. This is just what my brain dumped out for you today. The first reason you're struggling to grow on Instagram is that you are focused too much on salesy promotional content instead of value-driven attraction content. Now, if you're like, what the heck are you talking about, Elizabeth?

04:58

You need to go back to last week's episode where I teach you in depth the difference between promotional content and attraction content and how you can balance those so your content can do the selling for you, but not in that salesy, in your face, me, me, me kind of content way. So I'm not gonna go into depth because I did that last week, but your content needs to always add value to your ideal client.

05:27

That is just a simple way of saying your content needs to help them in some way. It could help them laugh, it could help them learn something new, it could help them feel something and be motivated, but in some way, your content needs to serve and help your ideal client. Now, if you're too focused on, here's my workshop, here's what it's all about, here's the price point, here's the date, here's the time, no one cares. They care about how you're gonna help them.

05:56

right now and then there's a whole strategy on how to take that attraction content and then invite your people into that next step with you. So again go back to last week's episode if you want to go deeper on that topic. The second reason you're struggling to grow your business on Instagram is that your profile is not optimized. Now what I mean by this is that I go to your Instagram bio and I'm not clear within the first seven seconds who you are

06:26

who you help and how you help them. If I'm not clear on those three things, I'm not going to follow you, you're not gonna get the conversion. So your bio needs to be optimized, you need to have keywords in there. There's certain aspects of your profile that are search engine optimized, meaning that you need to include keywords that your ideal people are going to be searching for. So,

06:52

the algorithm can really help sort your content and put it in front of the right people. Another aspect of having your profile optimized is that your most recent content, meaning the last nine posts that you did, they need to be congruent with what you promised that you're gonna deliver in your bio. So I just said this at the beginning of this episode, but I'll give you another example. If you go to my feed, in my bio it says, I'm gonna help you to grow your following,

07:22

get more Dreamboat clients, and boost your brand visibility online. Now, if you looked at my content, meaning my recent nine to 12 posts, you're gonna see that that's what I talk about. That's what I teach in my content. Now, too often I see that businesses and brands will say what they do in their bio, but then their content is completely scattered and all over the place.

07:49

So that is what I mean about your profile being optimized, your bio, your handle, and your content, it all is congruent and it has a clear brand message of who it's for and how you're gonna help them. Which leads directly into point number three, your content is not focused. You're going way too wide instead of narrow. And I've shared this before, but I'm gonna share it again. When I first started building my coaching brand on Instagram, I was...

08:18

way too wide. I was talking about helping women with their body confidence. I was talking about helping with intuitive eating and making peace with exercise and mindset and energetics and it was all over the place and I had a business colleague, Leah, look at my feed and she said, Elizabeth, I look at your feed and I don't know what you do. Like I don't know who you help or what you're an expert in.

08:45

So I invite you to be really disciplined about the type of content that you're putting out there. Allow yourself to be really, really focused and become an authority and an expert in one thing, that one thing, and you will grow so much faster on Instagram and content creation will feel so much easier because your brain is gonna be more focused and clearer on exactly

09:12

who you're creating content for and how you're gonna help them. Number four, no clear customer journey or call to action. I can't tell you how many times I see businesses, they come in, they're like, Elizabeth, Instagram is not driving any leads or sales. And I go look at their page and it's like, okay, what do you want people to do? Let's say I do wanna work with you. I'm not even clear from looking at your page or your content, what would be my next step? If I wanna work with you, how do I do it?

09:41

This is one of the most overlooked things. And I think it's because sometimes we feel bad about asking for things as business owners or brands. Like we kind of assume that people are gonna get it and they're not, they're not. People need to be told what action to take. It actually is kind. I always tell my team, communication is kind. The clearer you can be, the more it respects that person's time and...

10:09

If you have a solution to their problem, why not just give them the clearest path on how to solve it? Don't make them poke around all the links and try to figure out where to go. You need to lessen the resistance to the sale or the lead. So you need to make it as simple as possible for people to invest in your product or service. The fifth mistake is not showing up consistently. So this is so major, especially in the beginning

10:40

deciding, okay, I want to grow my business on Instagram, Elizabeth, I'm ready to do this. Here's what I see. I see in the beginning, clients come in, they're excited, they're motivated, and then they expect things to happen overnight. And the truth is, it just doesn't work that way. You have to be in it for the long haul. You have to be willing to show up and post consistently every single week, at least three times a week.

11:09

even when there's crickets, even when you think nothing is happening, no one is seeing my content, nothing is working. Because the truth is you could be one video away from it popping off and then all these ideal people are finding you, right? Because you know that reels are shown to people who don't already follow you. So you could be one video away from reaching your ideal person, but you're never gonna be successful if you have this kind of energy of

11:39

Like I've been doing this for two months. Why isn't it working? You have to really, really be in it for the long call. And that consistency is critical because if I can start to rely on you as a creator, as a business and brand on Instagram, and you're creating content that I like, and I start to look forward to the content, I expect you to show up for me. That's how you build trust. It's like any relationship.

12:08

To build trust, you have to keep showing up for the other person. You can't just say, well, I showed up for you like all of last month, like, are we done? Of course not. You have to keep showing up. So stop being so hot and cold with your posting and commit to serving your people. And I cannot emphasize this enough. If you have 50 followers, serve those people, show up for those people. Imagine a room with 50 people in it.

12:34

Okay, so no excuses. If you're gonna do this, then do it and show up consistently. Because if you're not consistent, you're not gonna grow on Instagram, and that's just the truth. Number six, you are going it alone. One of my favorite things on Instagram is collaborations.

12:54

I recently did some Instagram lives with some really big creators that have a bigger following than me and they're also social media coaches. They're in my niche, but we have a mindset of collaboration over competition and, you know, exposing our audiences to each other and just going live with those creators. I gained over a hundred followers from that live. My point to you is that you can start collaborating now.

13:23

Reach out to someone who is around your size of following, who is in your niche. See if they're willing to do an Instagram live with you. See if they're willing to collaborate on a reel with you. When I say collaborations, I don't just mean collaborate with the intention of growing followers. Collaborate as in reach out to them. If you're a local business, a brick and mortar local business, and you're trying to grow your account with other people who are in your local area,

13:50

Why wouldn't you use your Instagram to send messages to those local businesses in your area? Hey, we have a store here. I love what you're doing. Let's talk about how we could support each other's businesses, you know, pitch an idea for them. I always say if you're going to pitch someone, make it easy for them to say yes. Already have thought through the idea, already have thought through the topic, the questions, make it an easy yes for them. But

14:14

Never underestimate the power of just reaching out in the DMs to people to grow your network and collaborate. Finally, the seventh reason why you're struggling to grow your business on Instagram is vanilla messaging. This is so key. If your messaging is too general, it's not gonna work on Instagram. Now there was a time, I wanna say in like 2021, when Reels were first coming out and

14:43

Instagram was just pushing reels all the time. Like it didn't matter the quality of them. You could get a lot of reach. It has gotten so much more competitive. People are much more savvy on these platforms. There's so many different creators and companies and everyone's coming in. So you have to cut through the noise with really crystal clear messaging. And that...

15:04

takes time and you have to be really clear on your target market, like who it is you're talking to. You need to be really clear on your strategy and your goal for how you want to leverage Instagram. I can't tell you how many people say, well, I want to grow on Instagram. And I'm like, okay, well, what's your goal? And they're like, I want to grow. But why? You got to look under the hood a little bit there. So.

15:26

Messaging is something that I'm gonna be honest with you in running multiple companies, marketing them, helping my clients with their marketing. It takes some time to refine your messaging. Again, it's not like you sit down and you figure out your messaging in one day and then you're done. It's an ongoing process of continually refining it.

15:45

testing it, seeing what kind of content is gonna resonate with your people. And then once you start to find the content that is getting the eyeballs, that is getting the follows and the engagement, then you create more of that type of content and you continue to refine it as you go. I hope those seven reasons helped you. And if you are wanting my support to implement and understand all these things, because of course,

16:13

Every business and brand is different. You have different goals, you have a different target market, you have different products and services that you're trying to sell. And what works for one company won't work for another and vice versa. So I would absolutely love to be able to have my eyes on your business so I can audit your feed, give you that feedback of, okay, these are some things that we need to tweak, here's where the messaging is going wrong, all of the things.

16:39

And that is really the work that I do with my clients in my private mentorship programs. These are high touch private programs where you and I meet on Zoom, we do our strategy sessions, you walk away with a clear plan and then some of my packages also include unlimited audio coaching. So as you are implementing, you're able to send your content to me, I give you feedback in real time and it's just very powerful. It's a powerful way.

17:06

to implement everything I just taught you in the most time effective way that will drive the best results. If you're curious about one of my private mentorship programs, I invite you to apply for a complimentary Instagram breakthrough session with me. You can go to elizabethmarberry.com slash application.

17:28

to apply or you can send me a direct message on Instagram, a-p-p-l-y, apply, and my little robot assistant will send you a link to my application. You'll fill that out so I can learn more about you, about your business, your visions, where you're feeling stuck on Instagram and your social media marketing. And then in our call, I will help you to identify your next steps and which of my.

17:54

private mentorship programs may be the best fit for you. So head on over to elizabethmarberry, M-A-R-B-E-R-R-Y.com slash application. I will look for that application to come through and then we will send you over my calendar link. I cannot wait to meet with you and dig into all the goods. This gets to be easy, it gets to be fun.

18:17

I can't wait to help you shine brighter on Instagram. I'll see you back here next week. Thank you for listening to Strut It. If you're ready to start leveraging Instagram to grow your business, then you're gonna wanna grab my free monetize your IG guide.

18:34

where you'll learn seven simple and proven ways to finally make money on Instagram. You can grab your guide at ElizabethMarberry.com slash freebies. That's ElizabethMarberry.com slash freebies to get my monetize your IG guide. If you got some incredible value from today's episode, be sure to leave a review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And I cannot wait to start it with you again next week.