10 Powerful Tips to Increase Your Instagram Engagement
Whether you’re an influencer, content creator or business owner, many will argue that your engagement rate can be more powerful than your follower count. Having a high engagement rate is key to partnering with brands and also showing that your audience really resonates with you. They care about what you have to post and trust in what you have to say.
But first, what is engagement?
It’s essentially your audience's involvement with your content. The level of their interest in and interaction with your posts are indicated in how they interact with your posts.
This includes likes, comments, saves, shares and Instagram Stories views, swipe ups and even DMs.
You can find many engagement calculators online too to determine your “engagement rate”, but keep in mind this only takes into account likes and comments on posts.
Today I’m sharing 10 ways you can level-up your Instagram strategy and increase your Instagram engagement.
1. Be consistent
Being consistent shows the level of commitment to your followers and brand. A good way to build a loyal following on Instagram and keep people entertained is posting regularly. There's nothing more attractive than someone who is truly invested in their content and passionate about what they do. And if you think about it, there's nothing less inspiring than an account that only bothers to post something new once every two months. Why would a follower stay loyal to that account if the owner cannot?
By posting consistently, your followers will get into the habit of engaging with your content on a regular basis. This will help you build a loyal relationship with them that will ultimately boost their engagement with you.
Don’t stress if you can’t post everyday – it’s not an attainable goal for everyone. Many people get confused between frequency and consistency. Consistency is posting on a regular (aka: consistent) schedule. Frequency, on the other hand, is posting repeatedly during a period of time. In this case, it’s much more important to be consistent so your audience knows how often to expect content from you. Be realistic with yourself and determine how many times a week you can post, and stick with it.
2. Post at your peak times
A simple tip, but nevertheless an important one. Are you making sure to post within your peak times? The first 30 minutes after posting on Instagram is important enough to affect the outcome of your post's ranking on the explore/hashtag pages and also determine how many more accounts Instagram will show it to. This is why it’s crucial to post your content at the time when your audience is most active.
If you’re a creator/business account, you can simply find your most active times by going to your Insights > Audience > scrolling to the bottom.
3. Show up on Stories everyday
Stories are so important to your engagement. This is where you’ll develop your relationship with your followers. Take them behind-the-scenes, share your everyday life, interact with each other, show your face & create conversations.
The poll, question, countdown, emoji slider and quiz stickers are all great tools to help encourage audience interactions and increase your engagement rate!
4. Create more reels & video content
In 2021, video has dominated Instagram after the app’s announcement that it would shift to video content. When you think about it, video naturally encourages better relationships with audiences and higher engagement rates. Just look at TikTok influencers, within a year, many are now considered celebrities with their own TV Shows. And it was all achieved through short-form video posts.
Now the introduction of Instagram Reels has changed the game for many and really levelled out the playing field. Have you noticed your engagement goes up after posting an Instagram Reel? When I post Reels, my story views, likes, comments, shares and DMs all drastically increase. And I’m not the only one. Hootsuite actually performed an experiment which confirmed your overall engagement rate does increase when posting Reels consistently.
5. Write long-form captions
Not only do long captions allow you to better connect with your audience, but you’re more likely to get them to engage if your caption encourages them to like, share, save and comment. Try adding value and use your captions to provide mini blog-style ‘how to’ guides. Be sure to break up the caption into short paragraphs and include dot points to help followers stay focused.
It’s also a great place to open up to your audience, share your story and be more vulnerable.
Always be sure to ask a question towards the end of your caption to encourage your followers to share their opinion or answer in the comments. It could be something as simple as “what are your thoughts on this?” or “how was your weekend?”.
6. Post carousels
Carousels (Instagram posts with multiple images) are a great way to build engagement. On average, they get 3.1x more engagement than regular posts and globally, they have the highest average engagement rate of all types of Instagram posts.
Carousels increase engagement and time spent on the post simply because there's more to consume. It's also fairly common for carousel posts to appear in the feed more than once with a different slide displaying each time.
Next time you’re posting, think about whether you can add more value and turn it into a carousel! For instance, as a fashion post, you can include detail shots and some aesthetic photos of the location. “Photo dumps” are also very popular right now and usually include casual selfies mixed in with pictures of food, sunsets, and candid shots to give you an overall “vibe.” Images included in a dump post are often unremarkable or unworthy of their own solo posts — which is exactly why we love them.
7. Engage back with your audience
Engagement is a two-way street! Take the time to like or respond to comments and DMs. Acknowledging your commenters and messages by participating in conversations makes followers feel seen and heard, and excited to chat with you again in the future.
8. Be clear on your niche
Being confident in your niche will help you create more meaningful content that your audience will love. This means staying within your content pillars. Don’t just post for the sake of posting, be sure what you are posting is going to offer value to your audience.
For instance, you might be a fitness influencer and you’re posting a selfie with your aunt from a birthday party. Although you think it’s a nice photo, it doesn’t align with your niche and won’t benefit your audience.
9. Utilise all of Instagram’s features
Single image posts on the Instagram feed are only the beginning. The best Instagram profiles post a variety of content formats to keep their audience engaged. Instagram also rewards accounts which utilise all of their features!
This includes photo and video feed posts, carousels, Stories, IGTV, Reels, Lives and Guides.
10. Less perfection, more authenticity
Authenticity on Instagram is all about being true to your brand voice and not being afraid to speak openly about the topics you care about. The power of authenticity on Instagram is massive. And when you commit to it, you have the opportunity to grow your Instagram account into a community of engaged followers.
One of the best ways to show more authenticity on Instagram is by opening up with your audience. Whether that’s talking about the struggles of owning a business or your step-by-step skincare routine, when you’re honest and open with your audience, your followers sense it.
