If you just searched the words “why isn’t anyone following me on Instagram,” then you’re obviously frustrated. You put in a lot of work to establish your brand and create content. You are now attempting to build your audience, but no dice. No one’s following you. All of these other brand and business accounts seem to have figured out the secret, and you want to know what it is.

What are you doing wrong? Let’s address some of the possibilities.

Your content is boring

Content is the most important part of your Instagram account and strategy. It’s the ultimate reason why people follow you. Without content, you have nothing to share, and therefore no audience.

Simply having content is not enough. Images detailing promotions and sales won’t cut it — neither will poorly-shot photos of you and your friends if you have a personal brand. Every picture, every video, needs to be well-produced, dynamic, and interesting. How else will you capture people’s attention?

You post too inconsistently

It’s possible that people decide not to follow you because you post too inconsistently. Do you post three times a week, or once a month? Your content may have caught someone’s eye and they want to see more, but upon visiting your profile, they discover that you post so irregularly and infrequently that they decide you aren’t worth their time. They follow hundreds or even thousands of people already, and they aren’t interested in an account that will be drowned out.

You might also be posting too much. There is no definitive number of times per day or week to publish new material — it’s different for everyone — but posting too often makes you seem spammy. No one wants you clogging up their feed.

You don’t post at the right times

Besides the frequency at which you post, it’s also possible that people aren’t seeing your content to begin with. No wonder no one is following you! The time of day you post matters, such as in the morning when people wake up, in the afternoons when they get home from work, and at night before they go to bed.

The precise times of day to post at depends on your audience. Instead of relying on trial and error or guesswork to figure out when your audience is most active online, you can use analytics tools like Sprout Social, Buffer, and Later to tell you when the best opportunities are to share new material.

You’re trying too hard

Ask yourself: are you trying too hard? Are you trying too hard to be people’s friend, or win their affections? It’s true that users want to know you are accessible — such as through returned engagement and customer service — but don’t expect too much from your followers. They do not want to be friends with brands as if they are people, they just want you to care about their feedback.

It’s also against your best interests to try to seem more popular than you are. Purchasing fake followers for false social proof is more noticeable than you think. Users can see that you have a high follower count and low engagement rate, so don’t resort to something unethical. If you are struggling to attract followers and put your content in front of the right eyes, then you can buy targeted Instagram followers from other sources.

You keep forgetting hashtags

You may be neglecting hashtags. Hashtags are an integral component of Instagram and help keep an extremely cluttered platform navigable. With over a billion users and the even higher number of posts, hashtags categorize content so that people can find material and profiles that they are interested in.

Are you using hashtags in your posts? If not, you need to remember to tag them with relevant keywords. There is no definite number that will guarantee you perfect visibility, but most experts agree on 8-10. Make sure your hashtags are pertinent to your brand and not simply whatever is trending (though it is beneficial to pay attention to trending hashtags in your niche).

You don’t follow other people, either

If you want people to follow you, it’s important to follow other people, too! It’s not necessary to follow everyone who follows you (and no one likes it when someone follows them, only to be unfollowed as soon as it’s reciprocated), but you should follow a few of your fans and other strategic accounts. Participating in your field’s conversation means being able to interact with other users and brands.

So, why isn’t anyone following you on Instagram? It’s because you need to be strategic about your campaign, and not focus on only a few details. Why do you think people aren’t following you, and how will you fix it?