11 insights on how to increase your engagement on instagram
Love more followers and engagement on your Instagram account? Here are 11 insights and tips to help you.
Today Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms for businesses and nonprofits. And for good reason – according to Thunderclap reviews by users it’s a versatile platform that allows you to share a wealth of creative content that promotes what you do and enables your followers to feel like they’re building a genuine connection with you.
Instagram has many tools that can help you to increase your following and engagement, including Instagram comments with your custom text, giving you organic reaction to your content, and helping you to reach your goals faster.
Obviously, engagement is one of the most valuable statistics that measures your impact on Instagram. Here are 11 insights that will help you to grow it over time.
1) Understand when you should post
Instagram has a range of content categories, and each of them requires a particular timing that best fits your target audience. So to understand when is the best time to upload your regular feed posts, stories, and other content, you have to analyze the behavior of your potential followers.
See when they are most active online and how much time, on average, they spend on the platform. Hitting the right time is a collaboration with the ranking algorithms of Instagram because the network is also keen to keep users engaged as long as possible to grow comments and likes.
And it’s not just finding the optimum time of day (or night) to post. You also need to pay attention to the frequency of your posts, too. Here are some suggestion on this for you:
- It’s enough to publish new feed posts around three times a week.
- Stories should be posted daily or once in two days at least.
- IGTV and Live – at least once a week.
- Reels – occasionally, but also not less than a couple of times a week.
2) Use Stories at the max
This form of content is believed to be the most interesting on the platform. Even though the idea of vanishing content was born outside Instagram, it has developed and became a powerful instrument for engagement on the platform. Instagram stories have a lot to offer for interacting with users:, inclduing:
- Polls
- Questions
- Countdowns
- Quizzes
- Yes/no
- Customized filters and stickers
You can also turn on a promotional post in this format and attract your target audience through Stories. Again, this is a very reasonable way to communicate with your viewers and keep them entertained.
3) Experiment
To keep your audience engaged and active, you need to introduce new types of content from time to time. Of course, consistency is essential, but having something new once in a while can freshen up your engagement rate.
Your followers will organically leave likes and comments under your posts. Also, this is an excellent addition to your content plan, even if the experiment itself isn’t successful because it’s a good topic for discussion in Stories or Lives.
Experimenting with content from time to time can pique the interest of your followers and make them more keen to check your page frequently, giving you a boost in your stats.
4) Aim for more saves
This is a relatively new function on Instagram, which is very highly appreciated among users because they can get back to the content they like later. For you as an entrepreneur, this is a chance to retain viewers who discover your posts.
Share valuable and interesting information or create inspiring posts that guarantee that users will revisit your profile at least once again. In addition, you can expand your engagement using carousel posts.
5) Make it personal
One of the reasons why people like social media is because they are able to connect with other people. And in bloggers, they seek resonance with your personality. So, the best strategy to increase your engagement rate is to share your personal experience and develop a unique style that can help you to stand out from the others in your niche.
Here are some ideas for you:
- Screen all the data you reveal in your posts through the lens of your experience.
- Exchange your opinions with your followers.
- Create conversations that concern your personality.
- Mind other people’s emotions and be tolerant in your speech.
You should also try to encourage your followers to discuss topics in the comments.
6) Mix up your feed with longer posts
Many marketers think that extended captions don’t do anything to attract followers and recommend avoiding them and concentrating on visuals. But as much as Instagram is a visual platform, people want to connect with the accounts they follow, and to do that they need to get to know you better. And for them to be able to get to know you better, you need to talk to them!
So mix up your feed with some longer text on posts. Share your personal or business philosophy and experiences, and keep people up to date on your latest news. Give them glimpses behind the scenes in your business and/or life. Develop a narrative that grows after time and keeps people coming back for the latest instalment – much like a soap opera does.
Done well, the occasional longer post will encourage people to return to your profile more regularly and spend longer on it – both of which Instagram likes.
Just make sure that what you post is interesting, useful or entertaining for your followers. Text that’s too ‘me, me, me’ will be off-putting, and contrived drama may attract curious followers, but is unlikely to do much for your brand or reputation, nor build a valuable following of people who may one day buy from you.
7) Confide in your audience (a tip for businesses)
Expanding on an element of this last tip further, taking your customers (and potential customers) behind the scenes in your business and sharing more of your personal journey is an important social media strategy for businesses.
The more personal connection people have with you, the more you’ll build the know, like trust factor… and win their loyalty (and business). And the great thing about this strategy is that it’s perfect for smaller businesses where the owner is often much closer to the day to day running of it.
You don’t need fancy equipment and big teams either – you can just shoot photos and videos on your phone and share the images and footage. In fact the less ‘produced’ behind the scenes content feels, the more authentic it’s considered and the more it’s believed as a result. (And therefore the more likely it is to work.) This method is also effective for nonprofits and charities.
8) Remember to entertain
Something else we’ve covered a little already is the need to entertain. People don’t HAVE to follow or engage with your account on social media. They do it because they want to. And they will want to if they’re getting something out of it.
So think of how you can make their lives easier or better. One way is to share content that is helpful to them. But even if you are doing this, you can’t afford to be boring. It’s important on every platform, but perhaps in Instagram it’s even more essential that you entertain people.
Make sure that your content isn’t too worthy and find clever and interesting ways to convey your messaging. Some people make funny videos or reels. Others use memes (a picture template that illustrates a particular situation, emotion, and reaction). There are a million ways you can use content to entertain your followers. Just make sure you put yourself in their shoes and think about what they’d like to see from you.
9) Use hashtags cleverly
One of the fundamental discoverability instruments on Instagram is hashtags. Users can search for them and even subscribe to them to discover new content on topics they like.
So make sure you use hashtags cleverly in your posts. To start, research which hashtags are bringing more attention to your content – and which hashtage could bring you more. Look the most applicable keywords and add them in each post you make.
A god rule of thumb is to mix up some popular hashtags (for volume but untargeted traffic – people are also much less likely to click through as the feed will be fast moving and your posts will quickly be lost in a sea of others) with some rarer ones (these will have less overall traffic, but it will be more targeted and your posts are more likely to get noticed and clicked on).
You can also create your own unique hashtags to add to your posts. You can have general brand or product hashtags, and even specific hashtags for individual campaigns and contests you create.
The key to success with hashtags is to continually test and analyse, and experiment with new ones you can add to your posts. With continual research, you will find ways to increase your reach and nail the SEO of Instagram.
10) Encourage people to share your content
Ever heard the expression ‘If you don’t ask you don’t get’? This is absolutely the case for social media platforms like Instagram. If you don’t ask people to share your posts, they might not. But actively request they do, and some people inevitably will.
And sharing is important on platforms like Instagram. It improves your engagement rate, and the more reposts you get, the better your discoverability potential to attract new observers to your profile will be.
Aside from actively asking people to share your posts, the easiest way to get your content out there is to create a contest and work with hashtags. Come up with valuable prizes for winners, and encourage participants in your contest to share your content. Contests like these are different to giveaways because users only must repost your content; they are not obliged to follow you or your sponsors.
Sharing is a good way to boost your rating and increase your chance to make your content appear in the Explore section, thus driving more views, likes, and shares exponentially.
11) Create more videos
Trends come and go on social media, but video remains the most popular and engaging format of content on any platform. And Instagram is no exception.
One reason video is so powerful is because videos on Instagram are looped. Along with regular feed posts, you can create video content for IGTV if you need length over a minute – in the regular feed, videos are limited to 60 seconds.
This approach allows you to create a more significant assortment of content and engage your audience in different ways. Technically, Stories can be considered video content, too, so make sure you keep creating engaging content for them.
On Instagram, it’s important to concentrate on the aesthetic aspect of your content, including video. You can watch online tutorials to understand how to shoot incredible videos with your smartphone, or if yuo have the budget and inclination, you can hire videographers who specialize in creating content for Instagram. As a result, you will gain even more followers that will leave comments, views, and likes.
How can you increase the engagement on your Instagram account?
In this article, we’ve shared 11 ideas to help you increase the level of engagement on your Instagram account. Of course, all these tips won’t work at once. Each strategy needs time to work and bring you the rewards you deserve from your efforts.
So be patient, and make sure you experiment, analyze your results and refine your strategy constantly. Be attentive and genuinely care about creating great content your followers will care about and want to engage with, and you’ll start seeing results in time.
