Everyone has probably heard that in order to get online with your product or service, you need to be on as many social networks as possible. That's why people create a fan page on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. However, usually nothing comes of it. Zero sales effect. Why does this happen? Startup entrepreneurs make a lot of mistakes when it comes to social media, and as a result, they lose money. There are some taboo topics that no one talks about when it comes to social media.

Instagram - why is nothing for sale on it?

The best example of this is the social network Instagram. This site is mainly used to upload photos. There are different ways to advertise yourself here, but after a lot of research we did, we came to one conclusion. There is no point in advertising yourself on Instargam. It doesn't matter what you want to advertise - whether it's technology, service salons, or healthy food - you simply can't sell it on Instagram.

Almost all social networks, when indicating the number of users who view a given post, significantly inflate it. And this is mainly due to the fact that at least most of the accounts created on social media are so-called bots, i.e. fake accounts created by programs (machines), not real people. In the case of Instagram, this percentage of fake accounts is even higher (according to some estimates, up to 90% accounts are created by bots).

These accounts later "like" some things, comment on them (comments like "That's great.", "I like it", and they are often comments in English). All of these are comments posted by a machine, not a real user, and are only meant to increase the apparent popularity of the profile in question.

Such Instagram is one big bubble, a game of bots, because most of these likes or comments do not exist at all. Of course, the owner of Instagram or Facebook doesn't talk about this loudly. It is very convenient for them to build their marketing in this way, because Facebook simply makes money on it.

However, the biggest disadvantage of Instagram is that you hardly generate any sales from this social network. Instagram just doesn't sell.

We and many of our friends have tested Instagram in this regard, and each time the sales results were, if not zero, then so miserable that it was not worth considering Instagram as a sales channel at all.

Then why does almost everyone have an Instagram profile if it's not for sale at all? Well, for example, Eva Khodakovskaya (a fitness trainer and personal trainer) certainly makes money thanks to Instagram. Only here we are talking about giant profiles. Eva Khodakovskaya's profile has over 1.5 million followers, so even if the vast majority of her "followers" are fake accounts, there are a large number (about 200,000) of real accounts.

In addition, Ms. Eva Chodakowska is a well-known figure, a celebrity, she appears on television, so her name alone attracts people. Moreover, Eva has been running a profile for many years on topics that are perfect for Instagram, such as diet, weight loss, metamorphosis (this is one of the few topics that are just great for Instagram). And this is something to keep in mind.

If you are going to open an office supply store, for example, and expect to find customers on Instagram, we can tell you right away that it is impossible. As they say professionally, Instagram does not convert. When people go to Instagram, they don't think about shopping. So why does this bubble work at all? Why are all these people creating profile accounts and running all these marketing campaigns?

Our answer is that you can make money on Insagram, but in a different way - by deceiving corporations. As scary as it sounds, it is true. Large corporations have multimillion-dollar marketing budgets.

When looking for advertising space, they also look for popular profiles on Instagram. The owners of such profiles receive a lot of money for, for example, posting photos of themselves with a popular drink for six months or advertising a popular clothing brand. Advertisers from large corporations will not necessarily see that the majority of those who follow a given profile do not exist de facto. If you want to make money on Instagram, you can also buy views, followers, comments, so that your profile becomes stronger and you can show the corporation how great an advertising medium you have. However, if you plan to sell your products through Instagram, just don't do it because it doesn't pay off.