Gone are the days when Instagram was all about pretty pictures. With the growth of Instagram marketing, so many brands use this social media platform to grow their businesses. One of the most important metrics to them is the engagement rate. That’s why it’s important to know how to increase Instagram engagement.
With the competition between brands and businesses on Instagram to grab the attention of a larger group of audience, it’s getting harder each day to increase Instagram engagement. However, that’s not impossible if you have a great influencer marketing strategy. Accordingly, influencer marketing platforms can help you run such campaigns in the quickest way and see how your engagement rate increases.
Let’s begin with the explanation of Instagram engagement.
What is Instagram engagement?
Instagram insight has several metrics, and each can tell you how well your post is performing. Engagement is one of the most important metrics, especially when doing Instagram marketing.
Generally, the engagement rate means how well your viewers interact with your post. Therefore, it usually refers to the total number of likes, comments, views, saves, and shares.
This important metric shows that the key to having a strong and successful account is not just having a large group of audience. But it’s how they like your content and connect with you. Therefore, it’s crucial to have real followers, not fake ones.
As you can see, the more your followers interact with your content, the better your account will perform. Consequently, it’s essential to know how to increase Instagram engagement.
In the first step, let’s do some calculations because knowing the formula to measure Instagram engagement can help you discover what factors can affect this rate and how you can increase it.
How to measure Instagram engagement?
To increase Instagram engagement, you should first know your account’s engagement rate at the moment. You can measure Instagram engagement rate with different methods because different metrics can affect this rate, such as impressions, post views, reach, or followers. We will discuss the two most useful ways here.
Keep reading to learn how to calculate Instagram engagement.
Calculating Engagement Rate Based on Followers
If you choose to calculate your engagement rate based on followers, you should take the number of actions on one of your posts. Add up the number of likes, shares, saves, and comments on one of your posts. Then, divide it by your account’s total number of followers, and multiply the answer by 100. Here is the engagement rate formula:
Engagement Rate (%)= (Total interactions on a post/Followers) x 100
For example, if you have 10k followers and one of your posts receives 500 likes, 100 comments, 70 shares, and 30 saves, your engagement rate would be 7%.
Keep in mind that in this way, you cannot take into account how many of your followers actually saw the post.
To do that, you can try another metric of calculating the engagement rate.
Engagement rate based on impressions
For calculating your engagement rate based on impressions, replace your account’s number of followers in the formula mentioned above with the total number of impressions.
It’s a great way to evaluate the effectiveness of your content. In this way, you can see how many of those who saw your post interacted with it.
What is a good engagement rate on Instagram?
So far, we’ve learned to calculate Instagram engagement rate with different methods. Now, you need to know what is a good engagement rate to find out whether you should increase it. After calculating your current engagement rate, you should determine whether it is good or bad. Look at the following statistics to find out.
Social media experts believe that the engagement rate between 1% to %3 is generally good. It’s almost the average rate of an influencer’s account. However, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to increase Instagram engagement by 1%. But, less than this is low and you definitely need to try different methods to increase it.
You may wonder why this rate is so important that we bother ourselves doing all these calculations. Next, we explain the importance of engagement.
Why Does Instagram Engagement Matter?
Engagement is a critical factor in Instagram’s algorithm. It is a key indicator of how well your content is performing on the platform. The high engagement rate will help your content find its way to the Instagram Explore page, where it can be reached by more people.
Knowing your Instagram engagement rate and constantly measuring it will also help you boost Instagram engagement in so many ways:
- It shows you if your marketing strategies are useful.
- It shows you whether your followers like your content.
- It helps you to build a deeper connection with your followers.
Furthermore, enhancing Instagram engagement can help you achieve various goals, such as:
- Building a community on Instagram.
- Increasing brand awareness.
- Improving your ranking on Instagram algorithm.
How to Increase Instagram engagement?
More engagement has more benefits for your business. Therefore, no matter what the engagement rate of your Instagram account is, you can always try to make it better. Here, we provide you with 20 tactics you can take to increase Instagram engagement.
1. Get to know your audience:
Engagement is all about activating the audience. To get likes, comments, shares, or other actions, you should create content that your customers want to see, not something that you want them to see. So, get to know what your target audience likes to give them exactly what they want and create great content.
2. Post at the Right Time
Your audience is not online all day. So, you may only have a few golden hours to show your content to them. Find out when is the best time to post on Instagram to get the most engagement.
Undeniably, getting the right time is an integral part of sharing content. Instagram’s algorithm responds positively to posts that get quick engagement in their first hours. If people engage early with your content, there’s a better chance for your post to appear in more people’s feeds, which brings more and more engagement.
To find out the best time to post for your account, go to your Instagram account’s insight and see the days and times of day your posts are performing best.
3. Run Influencer Marketing Campaigns
With their large number of followers, influencers usually have a great engagement rate. Therefore, they can help your account get more engagement by tagging you on their posts and promoting your brand or product on their accounts.
Collaborating with influencers not only will increase your Instagram engagement but also lead to more sales. However, you should find the influencer that is right for your business, which sounds challenging to most businesses.
If you wonder how you can find an influencer that aligns with your business preferences, you are at the right place, Ainfluencer is here to help you.
Ainfluencer: The Best Influencer Marketing Platform
Finding influencers has never been easier! Ainfluencer is a 100% free influencer marketing platform that connects brands and influencers with a few clicks. As a brand, you can join Ainfluencer for free, and create an influencer marketing campaign. Then, search for influencers based on their categories, gender, location, language, number of followers, and hashtags they use. The result of this search will be a list of influencers who are right for your business.
Furthermore, if you have a limited budget for your influencer marketing, don’t worry! Because you can dedicate your budget while searching for influencers. Therefore, only the influencers with that price will be listed.
Check out the YouTube video below to see how you can use Ainfluencer to create a free marketplace campaign and attract thousands of influencers to your brand.
4. Use custom stickers and filters
Use Instagram’s custom stickers and filters in your posts and Stories.
Stickers such as questions, quizzes, polls, etc., encourage your followers to interact with your content.
Here is an example of a challenging question box. She first used the poll sticker in her Story and then shared it in a post for more interactions.
There are many other stickers to use. Don’t miss them.
5. Use strong captions
One of the greatest methods to increase Instagram engagement is to write a compelling caption that makes your followers pause, think, and even take an action, such as leaving comments or sharing your post. Convey a strong message through your caption and try to showcase your personality and story within the caption of your posts.
Here are some tips that can help you write a better caption:
- Place important words first.
- Ask questions.
- Add a Call to Action (CTA).
- Keep it short.
- Use relevant hashtags in your captions.
See how Nike is trying to engage people’s emotions by its strong caption.
6. Use Relevant Hashtags
If you want more views and engagement, you should find the best hashtags for your posts. Hashtags are great for Instagram engagement and gaining higher visibility. Using related hashtags to your brand or community helps your audience discover you quicker than the times you don’t use any hashtags.
You can use up to 30 hashtags per post, but be careful! Overusing or misusing hashtags may cause your account to get shadow-banned by Instagram. Therefore, it is recommended to use up to 10 hashtags per post.
Here are some tips about using hashtags to increase Instagram engagement:
- Do Your Research: Find trending hashtags and try to make content related to it. You can increase your chance of going viral by following social media trends. In this case, hashtag generators can help you find hashtags in your niche.
- Use a Mix of Popular and Relevant Hashtags: You should note that using hashtags that are not related to your content can have a negative impact on your engagement. No matter how popular a hashtag is, if it is not related to your content, it will fail.
- Avoid Making Hashtag Mistakes: Here are some critical rules: Don’t use hashtags that are too long, don’t use too many hashtags on a post, and don’t use hashtags that are banned.
7. Post consistently
Another practical way to increase engagement is having a consistent schedule for posting. Brands usually post once a day to keep their feed fresh. The more you post, the more chance your followers have to engage.
Unlike Twitter, Instagram does not have a scheduler on its own. So, to remain consistent, you need an Instagram scheduler.
The good news is that Instagram has a scheduler on its latest version. Therefore, you can create your content and schedule it at the time you want to post.
8. Share Stories daily
Part of your consistency is sharing Instagram stories, because nowadays people check stories more than posts. So, you can reshare your post to your stories to make more people see it.
Although Instagram story lasts for 24 hours, you can still save them in your profile’s Highlight part and even categorize them. Therefore, you can make the most out of your stories, too.
By sharing stories, a red circle appears around your profile photo in your followers’ feed, announcing to them that there is new content. Sharing stories is a perfect way to increase Instagram engagement because when you post Stories every day, you constantly remind your followers to check your profile.
You can use so many filters and stickers such as location, quiz, countdown, etc., in your stories.
9. Share carousel posts
Instagram allows you to share your content in many formats. One of them is a Carousel post. Studies show that carousels are the most engaging format of all post types.
Instagram Carousel post allows you to have multiple images or videos in a single post or story. In each Carousel post, you are able to share up to ten photos or videos.
So, if you haven’t tried Carousel posts yet, give it a try now and see how it will increase the Instagram engagement rate of your account.
10. Share Instagram Reels
From the first day that Instagram allowed sharing videos on its platform, more people got interested in creating short videos and sharing it with their followers.
People like watching short videos on Instagram, which are usually between 15 to 60 seconds. That’s why Instagram reels are so popular and bring more engagement to your account. Therefore, Instagram Reels are among the top features that can increase Instagram engagement.
Creating Instagram reels is easy, but it’s essential to learn more about Instagram Reels trends to make more engaging videos.
11. Go live
One of the most important Instagram engagement tips is to always use the latest features and options that Instagram releases, including Instagram live.
You should consider having regular live stream sessions as one of the best ways to engage with your audience on Instagram. It can be a great way to launch new products or share news and events happening at the moment.
You can also save your Live video as a post in your profile.
12. Collaborate with others
Using Instagram collabs means that you can co-author content with another Instagram user, and the post will appear on both of your profiles.
As you can share views, likes, and comments in this way, using Reels can be a great way to increase ig engagement.
13. Host a Giveaway Campaign
Giveaway posts bring you high Instagram engagement rates. You can run a contest and encourage followers to win your product or service by following your account, liking your posts, or tagging their friends.
Everyone loves free stuff. Make people excited to participate and get your giveaway product or service to increase your Instagram account’s interaction and build brand awareness at once. These giveaway examples and ideas can help you become more creative in this method.
Here is an example:
However, running a contest and choosing a winner can be hard and time-consuming. You can use one of the top giveaway picker apps to save time and easily run contests whenever you want.
14. Ask Questions
One of Instagram’s best practices to boost Instagram engagement is asking questions. People love to be heard, so encourage them to comment on your posts and break the ice with your audience by posing a question. You can also use the same method on your Stories and Live videos.
Look at the following post and its caption on Kyliecosmetics.
15. Respond to questions, comments, and DMs
The most important thing that can help you get more engagement is to interact with your followers. As mentioned, people like to be heard. So, if they leave a comment or send a direct message, they would like to get an answer. Therefore, be responsive to your audience to make them engage more with you.
To boost Instagram engagement, you need to show your followers that you care about them. You can also share their questions and answer them in your stories because that may be their question too.
Look how thoughtfully Popcornshed responded to its followers’ comments.
16. Create Valuable content
Instagram’s ‘save’ feature is one of the important things that can have an impact on your engagement rate. Therefore, you should create valuable content to make more people save that into their archive.
To increase Instagram engagement, offer value to your account and create something your audience wants to have in their collection. People usually save quotes, moving sentences, short tips or tricks, etc.
Don’t forget to ask your followers to save your post for later. It really matters.
Look how she asks you to do so in the following post:
17. Be Authentic
Try to be honest and authentic to gain credibility.
Be your authentic self and appear like an actual human being with emotions so that your audience can have a deeper connection with you and your content.
Take a look at this photo:
18. Use CTAs
You can lead your audience to take the action you want by using call to actions. You can increase Instagram engagement by asking your followers to write a comment for your or saving your post for later use.
Furthermore, CTA is not only for captions. You can add a button to your story and lead your followers to a landing page on your website. With this method, you can increase clicks on your website, which may end up in more sales.
CTAs appear below your post in different ways, such as ‘Learn More’ and ‘Buy now.’
You can also ask your audience to click the link in your Instagram bio.
19. Promote Your Post on Different Networks
Different social media platforms may have different audiences. Therefore, you can bring more audience to your Instagram by sharing your post on other platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter. You may not bring all your audience to Instagram, but even 1% of them can help you get more Instagram engagement.
20. Use Instagram Ads
Apart from influencer marketing, there are other ways to promote your posts on Instagram and get more engagement. An Instagram ad is a type of paid promotion that allows you to reach a larger and more targeted audience on the Instagram platform.
This ad can be a series of photos, stories, videos, which are shown on different areas such as the Explore page or between other posts on users’ home page.
Conclusion
Learning how to increase Instagram engagement is easy if you follow the mentioned rules and tips. It’s all about creating valuable content, understanding your audience, and being consistent. By implementing these strategies, you can build a loyal following. Remember to engage with your audience, use relevant hashtags, and post at the right time to maximize your reach. With these tips, you can take your Instagram game to the next level and grow your brand like never before.
Don’t forget to use free tools, such as Ainfluencer to find the best influencers for marketing your brand on social media. You should note that influencers can bring you more followers, who may like your brand and become your loyal customers.
Haven’t you started yet? Join Ainfluencer Today.
FAQs
There are different formats for posting on Instagram, such as Feed, story, Reels, and Carousel posts. Studies show that carousels and Instagram Reels are the most engaging format of all post types.
You should implement different methods and marketing strategies to Increase Instagram engagement. Here are some tips:1. Get to know your audience
2. Post when your audience is most engaged
3. Tag influencers
4. Use custom stickers and filters
5. Use strong captions
6. Be authentic
7. Post consistently
8. Share Stories daily
9. Share carousel posts
10. Share Instagram Reels
11. Go live
12. Collaborate with others
13. Do a Giveaway
14. Create topical content
15. Respond to questions, comments, and DMs
16. Create savable content
17. Use relevant hashtags
18. Include CTAs in your captions and stories.
You may post your content at the wrong time, when only a few people are online to see. It’s important to get the most engagement in the first hours after posting a content. Otherwise, Instagram may find it unappealing to your followers so won’t show that on top of the posts. Furthermore, there might be something wrong with your content. Try to change it to see what type of content is more interesting to your followers.
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