Should You Run Instagram Ads?
Before jumping into ads, make sure that your content is optimised and generates engagement on its own. If not, using ads would be an expensive experiment without a good ROI (return on investment) for your Etsy business.
Also, mastering Instagram ads is a comprehensive subject in its own. This course focuses on organic growth strategies, but if you're interested about running Instagram ads, please let me know.
Should You Use Alt-Text For Your Photos?
Alt-text enhances the accessibility of your content, for instance, people with visual impairment that require a screen reader to read out the description of posts. I’d say write some short descriptive alt-text if you have time. However, from my experience, this doesn’t seem to change the reach or engagement of posts.
Should You Delete Spam Comments?
Not all engagement is good engagement. If you get spam comments like “DM to get featured on @etsyspamaccount”, I’d recommend deleting them.
Those comments doesn’t help your target audience and distract them from your post. Worse, they may contain spam links that your followers may click on accidentally.
To delete the spam comments, simply swipe left on those comments and tap the red rubbish bin icon.
I’d also recommend blocking certain keywords so that those comments would be automatically hidden. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to your Instagram settings
- Go to “Hidden Words” under “How other scan interact with you”
- Scroll down to “Custom words for messages and comments” and click “Manage custom words and phrases”
- Add words that appear in most of your spam comments (for my account, I’ve blocked “Send pic on”, “Promote it on”, “@Etsy.Community_” and “@etsy__promotion”)
Should You Delete Ghost/Spam Followers That Don’t Engage?
There’s no right answer to this. On one hand, deleting accounts that don’t engage with your content can help boost your engagement rate and possibly the reach of your content.
But on the other hand, determining which accounts are ghost/spam accounts is very time consuming. For me, time is better spent on growing new followers by creating engaging content and interacting with other Instagram accounts in your niche. With more followers, the impact of ghost account is a lot less severe.
Should You Buy Followers Or Engagement?
Absolutely not! Buying followers, likes, comments, views, or any form of engagement is a big no.
Not only does it cost money, it can kill your engagement of future content in an instant, and prevent you from growing organically altogether. It’s easy for Instagram to determine whether you’ve bought fake followers or engagement. So don’t do it.
The reach of your content largely depends on how engaging your content is with your followers. If you buy fake followers which won’t engage with your content, any new content that you post are going to get very little engagement, and therefore won’t be seen by most of your followers.
And if you bought fake likes/views/comments, all the fake engagement is from accounts that don’t follow you, which send a clear signal to Instagram that the engagement is not real and could result in a shadow ban of your account.
What To Do If You Have Previously Bought Followers Or Engagement?
If you’ve bought fake followers or engagement previously, you should start a new account if you actually want to grow your Instagram account. Manually removing fake followers would waste a lot of time. Even if you could, Instagram has likely already lowered the reach of your account or even shadow banned your account.
But if you only want your instagram to be a portfolio, then you may not need to start a new one.
Should You Pay To Get Featured On Accounts That Promote Etsy Products?
No, most of those accounts have bought followers and likes to boost their credibility. I can’t say they are all like that, but I’ve yet to come across one that seem genuine.
Getting featured by those account wouldn’t help yours grow, nor would it bring traffic and sales to your shop. Not only that, you’ll need to pay those accounts to get featured.
Should You Follow Your Friends And Family?
Your Etsy shop’s Instagram is a professional space. While it’s ok to follow a few close family and friends, it doesn’t benefit your growth on Instagram. Following many personal accounts may even confuse Instagram’s algorithm about the niche you are in and the audience that you target.
Should You Ask Your Friends And Family To Follow You?
Of course, it's natural to want support from loved ones. However, ensure that if they follow, they genuinely engage with your content. Followers who don't engage can dilute your overall engagement rate.
Should You Run Instagram Giveaways?
In most cases, no.
People say running giveaway is a great way to grow fast on Instagram. It’s only true in growing your follower count and the like/comment of your giveaway post.
Because you haven’t built relationships with these new followers and they don’t follow you organically, the new followers are not likely going to continuously engage with your future content. Because the percentage of followers who will engage with your content drops, your reach and performance of your future content suffer.
The negative effect is similar to buying fake followers, although not as serious.
But giveaways run by small accounts that are highly specific to your niche could work. The followers of the accounts hosting the giveaway need to be highly similar with yours, which means the followers of one account would enjoy the content posted by the other account running the giveaway.
Should You Join Engagement Pods?
This was a strategy that worked wonders before on Instagram for growing accounts. However, Instagram has caught on and the algorithm is pretty good at catching accounts trying to ‘cheat the system’ and accelerate growth.
They may boost your engagement in the short-run. But in the long-run, if Instagram catches you, and they most likely would, you may get shadow banned and have your reach lowered.