When it comes to marketing, it’s important to connect with your audience and have your audience connect with you!
Instagram marketing is all about connecting with your target audience — you connect by engaging with them. Why? Because without engaging on Instagram, you’re essentially talking to an empty room.
Engagement on Instagram is deeper than the number of followers you have, since what you should measure is how your audience engages with your content, your posts. It is an essential tool you need to grow your brand or business on Instagram.
Moreover, engagements let you know how your audience interacts and reacts to the content you shared. So, the more your audience can relate to your content, the higher engagement you will have! A good indication of how well your social media strategy is paying off.
What else is Instagram engagement good for? It’s an essential tool for Instagram’s algorithm. Every time you reload your feed, the algorithm does its job by putting the posts you’re most likely to interact with on the top. So, every post from accounts or tags you usually engage with is the one most likely to be on top of your feed. In essence, the more engagement you get, the more likely your followers get to see you on their feed!
And, that’s how essential Instagram engagements are.
Individuals and brands measure Instagram engagement with the help of Instagram Insights.
The engagement metrics of Instagram include likes, comments, shares, saves, DMs, link clicks or swipe-ups, mentions, hashtag usage, and interactions with Story stickers. So, how will you make use of all these? How can you improve your Instagram engagement with your audience?
That’s easy. Use these powerful tips to help you improve your Instagram engagement!
How to Improve Instagram Engagement
Engagement is all about connecting with your audience, so there is no step-by-step guide for increasing engagement rates. But, these tips that I will give you can definitely guide and teach you how to gauge your audience’s interests. So, what are the 6 tips?
Table of Contents
Post Consistently
This one’s a no-brainer. In order to get more followers to see posts, an Instagram user needs to constantly strengthen the connection with their followers.
How are you going to tell your audience know who you are? How will you let them know that you exist? That your services exist? That your product exists? Easy, post consistently.
And, this is backed by the Instagram algorithm, as it supports and loves the most active users on the platform. Active by means of having daily feed posts, daily stories, and the like being engaged with. Posting your content frequently will certainly get your content in front of many other people.
But, you have to keep in mind that more does not necessarily mean that it’s better. It’s better to have one post a day on your Instagram and not more than three, especially if you are receiving less engagement when you post more often.
Share Valuable Content
Sure, posting consistently, will get your posts seen by your most loyal followers. But you have to post content that is valuable to a wider audience. And, that is the holy grail for your brand or business.
People are always engaged on Instagram, you just have to tap into their attention by providing valuable content that you think they needed to see. Post content that makes them feel like they can relate with you, and something that will improve their lives.
If you’re a brand. Don’t just post your product or service. Post something valuable or interesting about your industry. Read more about this in The Ultimate Dos and Don’ts of Instagram Marketing.
Include Call to Actions (CTAs) in Your Captions
Your valuable content will not receive as many comments if you don’t use the magic of call to action! Encourage your audience the chance to have back-and-forth interactions with you.
For example;
- Tag a friend!
- Drop a “❤️” if you agree!
- How did your new year’s celebration go?
- What’s your favorite holiday destination?
- Something relevant about the post!
People love answering questions! What can you do? Have questions at the end of your caption to encourage your audience to comment. Other than the reason that people love answering questions, it also breaks the ice with your audience as they get the chance to really engage with your posts.
Engage with your Audience
Aside from posting valuable content for your audience, what else can you do to engage with them? Well, make use of Instagram’s interactive stickers in your Stories.
Sticker polls, questions, quizzes, and sliding scales are all interactive stickers in Instagram Stories that can encourage your followers to interact with your content!
What’s nice about Instagram Stickers is that it only takes a second to vote in a poll, slide through that sliding scale, type in your question, and the like! Those short-lived actions bring forth connection and engagement between you, your audience, and your content.
Use Relevant Hashtags
Choosing relevant and specific hashtags for your Instagram posts can help you appear at the top of the hashtag feeds.
If you select hashtags that are too general and popular, your post will be competing with millions of others. Instead, pick the perfect hashtag for connecting with your target audience by combining popular and industry-specific hashtags with less than 200k posts!
The number of hashtags you use in your posts is also important to know. Instagram allows for up to 30 hashtags, but having too many of those tags risk your account being untargeted and looking unprofessional. So, you should keep that in mind!
Strategize on Statistics
Analyzing your content statistics with Instagram Insights allows you to determine what resonates with your audience the most. And, to increase your Instagram engagement rate.
You can start planning your additional content in the style that got the most interaction. For instance, if user-generated content has higher interaction than other posts, you might consider sharing more user-generated content. If your reels received more engagements and reach, you might want to post more reels!
Connecting with your audience is the best way to improve your engagement. And, there are many methods, tips, steps, guides that can help you have higher engagements.
Take the time to know who your audience is and follow these tips to improve your engagement on Instagram!
