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Boosting Instagram Engagement
When it comes to social media, Instagram is arguably one of the top platforms for engagement. It is so easy to share posts, interact with your followers and use tools such as Reels and Stories to boost your brands presence. If you’re an influencer, entrepreneur or running a small business, Instagram is also a great place for promoting your products and/or services. You can narrow down your target audience and market to them directly, or reach out to potential sponsors and partners for specific campaigns.
The key to a successful Instagram campaign is engagement. Are people interacting with you? Are they liking your posts and sharing them? How many DMs are you receiving daily? All of these factors help to determine your overall engagement rate. The higher the rate, the greater your reach will be, and thus improving the overall popularity of your brand.
There are a number of ways to boost engagement on Instagram, including these 6 easy ways:
1. Post eye-catching video content
According to research, people spend 88% more of their time on a website that has video content. In general, video content drives way more engagement than graphics. So, if you want to make it big on Instagram, video is the way to go. Instagram Reels allow you to make short, bite-sized videos for sharing. Use this feature to advertise your products and services or post video posters that entice people to check out your brand. If you’re not sure how to create a video poster, check out one of the many websites featuring Instagram templates that allow you to customize and share to your account.
Depending on what industry you’re in, you can also use Reels to create fun, behind-the-scenes videos or other creative content.
2. Interact with your audience
Instagram interactions require you to put in the effort. It can be time-consuming, but if you do it right, pretty soon you’ll quickly increase the number of people commenting on your posts and popping up in your DMs. Here are a few ways to actively interact with your audience on Instagram:
- Reply to comments on your posts
- Ask questions in your post captions
- Use interactive Story features like polls, questions, and stickers
- Reply to DMs as quickly as possible, while maintaining a friendly tone
It can quickly become exhausting trying to do it all, so instead, set aside a chunk of time to interact with your audience. Start by adding a one-hour time slot three times a week to your schedule.
3. Post consistently
This is a very important tip. Regardless of how good your marketing efforts are, if you’re not posting consistently, your engagement will drop off. After all, people don’t want to follow or interact with a page that feels deserted.
A good way to ensure you’re posting consistently is to set a schedule. If you have multiple active social media accounts, decide a time to post on each. You can even repurpose the same content for different platforms. This way, you’ll have fewer ideas to come up with, while maintaining frequency.
4. Go live every once in a while
Another thing that boosts engagement is personalization. Give your followers a chance to get to know the person behind the page. Don’t be afraid to get personal! A good way to make this happen is to go live every week. Let people know you’ll be going live at a particular time. In your live video, you can answer questions, share your thoughts or invite someone on for a conversation.
5. Always end with a call to action
Don’t leave your followers hanging. Whether you’re sharing a Post, Story, or a Reel, add a call to action to the end of all of your content. The more people that click on the links you share, the greater the likelihood of exposure and sales increase. You can even add a call to action in your captions or via Stories by asking people to swipe up.
6. Be as authentic as possible
People are more likely to follow and interact with you if they don’t feel like they’re constantly being marketed to. It is important to not always be selling. In order to build customer loyalty and trust, consider switching things up by posting other content. For example, you could share a relatable meme that encourages people to comment and share or a quote of the day. Make it a fun and interactive page that everyone will want to follow.
Conclusion
Hubspot and Mention recently published an extensive study on how to get better engagement on Instagram. They looked at the number of hashtags to include and time to post. Get the full report here or check out my recap on Facebook.
