How to increase your Instagram Engagement?
How to increase your Instagram engagement For many Instagrammers having a good Instagram engagement rate can be essential.
Instagram Engagement is the sum of all your likes + comments per post divided by your followers.
Instagram offers a number of strategies to help increase your engagement, here are a few which will help you increase your followers, grow your reach and build your own community.
Post Consistently
It’s no secret that Instagram is killing organic reach!
Organic reach on Instagram keeps declining, so knowing when to post and how often you should post is important.
Don’t be afraid to post more than once a day!
As long as you are posting high quality posts which are relevant to your brand and try posting content that your followers are more likely to engage with.
Don’t go crazy posting several times a day as this could result in you losing followers which could affect your engagement rate.
The best posting frequency would be the posting frequency you or your business can maintain.
Level up your Hashtag game
Hashtag it! Create branded hashtags that’s unique for your business.
It can be as simple as your company name, products, services, taglines or it can be anything associated to your brand identity.
Make sure you promote you branded hashtags whether its through your marketing campaigns, on-site, emails and not forgetting you Instagram Bio.
Using hashtags makes your content more discoverable. Make sure your hashtags are relevant to your brand or content and which makes sense.
Limit your hashtags to 25-30 hashtags per post and try not to post too many hashtags on your comments as the comment will not post if you already have more than 20 in your caption.
The hashtag limit in stories are 10 per story.
Try not to use the same hashtags over and over again. Using the same hashtags repetitively, could get your content penalized by the algorithm.
Remember the best hashtags are the ones that speak to customers language!
Post Videos
Studies reveal that video posts receive twice as much engagement then other posts and it shows no sign of slowing down.
By making use of more videos in your content strategy, you are almost guaranteed to have twice as much as engagement.
Video content can be easily produced for Instagram stories, IGTV and your grid.
IGTV boosts visibility and engagement.
You can also reuse video content and post it on IGTV and give it a new life. IGTV Videos appear 4x larger than photos on explore.
Instagram stories is a popular feature on Instagram which can help you fight organic reach because it is not affected by the algorithm.
Make use of all emojis, stickers, GIFs, links and much more if you simply slide up when posting your story.
Go Live more often
Going Live more often will allow users to interact with their audience in real-time.
Using Instagram live can also help expand your reach on Instagram as live stories are placed in front of normal stories, increasing visibility.
Run Contests
Contests are a powerful tool on Instagram which are usually overlooked by brands.
A few Contests ideas to run:
- Surprise giveaways
- Like/Comment to win
- Tag a friend to win
- Run a photo contest (example: branded hashtag)
- User-generated content contests
Add CTAs everywhere
A Call-To-Action (known as CTA), is a phrase used to alert users what action to take and how to take it.
This can be as simple as two words such as “Order Now”, “Buy Now”, “Get Quote”, “Subscribe Now”, “Contact Us”, it can be in simple text with a hyperlink or clickable button.
Remember a call to action can be longer than a sentence.
CTAs can be placed in posts, captions, videos, stories, bio.
Making use of call-to-actions will help encourage engagement and get followers to your website and other platforms.
Promote your Instagram account to other social platforms
More social exposure on your Instagram posts means there will be more interaction and followers to your Instagram page.
Here are a few tips:
- Post videos to Instagram and promote those videos to other platforms
- Post Instagram contests on other platforms. (Followers will be forced to follow you on Instagram to participate in your contests).
- Be sure to add your Instagram account link to the about section on other platforms as there is usually room for multiple links.
Unfortunately, as Instagram algorithms change, it may be hard to maintain.
None the less, keep improving!
There are a tons of ways to increase your Instagram engagement, when creating your Instagram strategy, be sure to use these tips!