Marketing campaigns not using Instagram as part of their social media strategy are missing out on a huge opportunity. By not utilizing the power of Instagram you are losing a great deal of potential traffic and business. Social media websites are becoming more and more popular with each passing day. Recent studies have shown how an average Facebook user is now spending over fifty minutes a day on that one website. Instagram has been getting highly popular in the business circle due to its prowess of adding massive exposure to your business.

Easy To Use

Instagram has gained popularity owing to its simple to use features. It has the potential to get your name and links in the form of millions of potential customers very quickly. You must ensure to list your main website because your username will hyperlink to your profile page where your main website link is prominently displayed. Choose your username carefully because you cannot change it if you make a mistake. It pays to get the name as close to your business name as possible as it gets your brand recognized across all social media marketing platforms.

You can harness the power of this explosive social medium by paying attention to how it functions. You can let it search your Emails and Facebook for more and more followers for you. The Instagram rule is friends beget friends and like begets like. You either post an image or a ten-second video that relates to your business. Your one post can be sent to dozens of other pages instantly if you use the hashtags frequently throughout your post.

Well-Connected To Other Social Media Platforms

The Instagram platform offers the option of automatically sharing your post immediately to Facebook and Twitter as well. Here is where the power of social media can really explode your visibility and your business. By including a large number of hashtags within your post on Instagram, it will auto-posts to Facebook and Twitter with those hashtags as live links too. So your one post to Instagram goes to dozens of hashtag pages within Instagram and it does the same on Facebook too. The power of Instagram can explode your visibility in a very short time and should be incorporated in your marketing campaign immediately.

What is Instagram Engagement?

Your Instagram engagement rate stands for the sum of the likes and comments that you receive per post, divided by the number of followers that you have. You can gauge your reach correctly by analyzing the engagement rates. The engagement rates can throw light on how frequently your following interacts with your content and forces you to focus on important data. To grow your account, a good Instagram engagement rate is essential. Instagram engagement tips are not constant and are prone to fluctuate along with algorithm changes.

However, there are certain Instagram engagement tips that you can use to increase your Instagram engagement. This knowledge can help you grow your reach, gain new followers and build up your community in no time.

1. Daily Engagement with Similar Accounts in Your Industry is Vital

One of the first Instagram engagement tips is to engage with the content other accounts of your interest are posting. The more your engagement on Instagram, the more visibility your account commands and the more engaged are visitors on your profile. Hence it makes sense to invest your time in selecting accounts that might benefit you or your brand in the long run. Daily activity gets you exposure in front of the right audience.

2. Direct Engagement With Content Before And After You Post

Strike while the iron is hot. This applies to Instagram as well. Increase Instagram engagement straight away after posting implies its algorithm recognizes that post is something that is likely to be interesting to a lot of your followers. This brings your post higher up in the rung of your follower’s feeds.

Engaging with others’ posts shortly before and after your post also promises to increase the chances of people visiting your profile. This includes liking your most recent post within the first hour of posting, which considerably boosts the visibility of your posts on the platform. Comments and likes on your Instagram also draw users to your account even when you are not active.

3. Posting Content On IGTV

Instagram has worked really hard to make its video content popular as TikTok. The company somewhere gets successful as the users on IGTV is in million. So when you post your content in video form on IGTV it will reach out to more people and hence helps in increasing your engagement as well. You can upload videos from 60 seconds to 10 minutes.

4. Strategically Select Your Hashtags

Another most important Instagram engagement tips is to use long-tail hashtags are specific and detailed, which means they more accurately reflect the context of your post. There are similar tags all over Instagram, but the long-tailed ones have fewer associated costs. This means your content is more likely to be discovered and liked or commented on.

Unless you have a huge account with a sizeable following, your content will never be featured under ‘Top Posts’ on the hashtag search and we know no discoverability = low to no engagement! Make sure you mix both general and long-tail tags with a ratio of around 80:20.

5. Make Interesting Captions

Posts with catchy captions are another Instagram engagement tips and encourage users to spend more time on your post. The more time they spend on your post, the better it is as the current Instagram algorithm prioritizes content by engagement.

Your post gains context and personality when the caption is catchy. You can get versatile with your captions.  It can be a long, detailed one, narrating a story. Or it can be short and crisp. It can range from serious and thought-provoking to funny, whacky and light-hearted.

You can design your caption around Call to Action and ask a question to increase Instagram engagement. 

6. Post Photos of People

Studies show that posts with photos of faces get more likes. Posting photos of people is a sure-shot way to boost your engagement. Your brand can be about any product but when you weave people into your Instagram posting, you are going to have a winner in your hand.  You might share a post of the social media team you work with; you could share photos posted by your customers; photos of the people your brand serves, or just have models show off your products. 

The possibilities are endless. Sharing photos of faces will help you to humanize your brand, connect with your audience and, of course, boost your engagement.

7. Respond As Soon As Possible

Replying to comments goes a long way in keeping the conversation going.  It helps push your post to the top of your followers’ feeds. When more people post comments and reply to your comment, Instagram recognizes your post as a valuable piece of content that will probably also be interesting to others. You might get too busy and procrastinate and get tempted to put off replying, but don’t!  Send a quick and friendly comment to keep the fire burning.

You can draw other people into the conversation by tagging their account so that they get a notification that you have mentioned them. 

8. Figure Out Your Best Time To Post

Do you know when your best time to post is? The best time to post is basically the posting time that results in the most engagement on average for your account. You can do this by monitoring all your data. Or, you can use a social media analytics tool to do all the calculations for you.

If you have an Instagram business account then you can avail of Instagram Insights. It will show you where most of your audience is based and when and what time they are most active. This way you can time your posting according to the targeted place’s time zone and audience’s preferences. 

Make it a point to keep track of your engagement rate for every post, while paying attention to the day and time of posting, in your spreadsheet. Over time, you should start to notice patterns of engagement, and then you can figure out the best time to post.

9. Use Stories to Draw Attention to Your Post

You can use Instagram Stories to draw attention to new posts on your feed and increase Instagram engagement that way. You can drop some hints in your story that will create suspense and people will be drawn to check out your posts. 

Implementing all of these tactics will drive up your engagement rate, keep your audience interested, and attract new followers to your account.