Always seeking a thousand likes, comments, and shares on your Instagram posts? Then this one’s for you.
From social media marketers to influencers, Instagram engagement is pretty much the goal of the day for everyone, and rightly so. About 13% of the world’s population is on Instagram, and this figure is growing by 4.21% .
One proven way of growing and maintaining followers on Instagram is by boosting engagement levels which in turn contribute to growing your business.
What Is an Instagram Engagement Rate?
Engagement Rate is a metric that tells you how actively involved your audience is with your content. Therefore, engagement rate is often used to analyze the efficacy of brand campaigns.
In simple terms, your Instagram engagement rate is the number of engagement actions (likes, comments, shares) divided by the total number of followers.
For example, if you receive 100 likes and 15 comments on a post and have 3200 followers, your Instagram engagement rate will be –
[(100+15)/3200] x 100 = 3.6%
It is good to know that according to Rival IQ’s social media industry benchmarking report, the average engagement rate across all industries in 2021 was 0.98%.
8 Ways to Help You Increase Instagram Engagement
Want to know how to boost engagement on Instagram in 2022? Check out these 8 ideas:
- Use All the Instagram Features
Instagram aims to encourage diverse and exciting content with new tools like stories, carousel photos and videos, reels, IGTV, polls, ads, and highlights.
The audience (and the Instagram algorithm) seems to enjoy a mix of different content formats, thus increasing the overall engagement.
You must try out the latest features including adding your sticker to create a public thread on Instagram, badges, adding links on stories, collab option, and many more.
- Post Meaningful Content
It takes well-thought-out content to grab eyeballs on Instagram rather than just stunning imagery and catchy captions. And there are a variety of ways to do so – BTS moments, takeovers, contests, tutorials, memes, and many more!
Create evocative content that sparks the interest of your audience. For example, Chloe Ting, a famous fitness vlogger, shares engaging content through the before and after pictures of people who try her workout routines.
- Host an Alluring Giveaway
Who doesn’t love getting free stuff?
You should definitely include an exciting giveaway in your social media marketing campaign to increase Instagram engagement. But make it authentic and relevant to the value of your products or services. It will not only help you get likes and shares from your existing audience but also reach your target audience.
“#christmasgiveaway” trends hot on Instagram every December where big brands like Starbucks, Sephora, e.l.f, etc. host exciting holiday giveaways.
- Bring In the Influencers
The pro tip for the question ‘how to get better Instagram engagement’ is influencers. In fact, according to the influencer marketing benchmark report 2021, micro-influencers had the highest engagement rate of 3.86% on Instagram. That is because they have targeted and loyal communities and can help establish the brand with the right audience.
Timex’s #TakeTime influencer marketing campaign proved this by working with 22 influencers whose posts spiked the engagement rate to 7.5%.
- Incorporate Appropriate Hashtags
People use hashtags to find the content that interests them on Instagram. It is essentially a reach tactic, but greater reach is followed by improved engagement levels, right?
There are various tools available online to find out hashtags that are relevant to your brand. You can also check the hashtags your competition is using or create your own branded hashtag for a campaign.
- Include a Call to Action, Always
Ask yourself – what is it that you want your audience to do after consuming the content that you created for them? That is exactly what the CTA in your post should consist of.
A few tactics to increase Instagram engagement include following up your caption with a genuine question, providing a link to a website or product page, asking the users to re-share the post, etc.
- Post Consistently
If you want your audience to keep coming back to engage with your content, then you have to post regularly. This will make them believe that you are passionate about what you do and hence, they will get into a habit of engaging with your content.
Use a social media calendar to plan a schedule ahead of time. Another trick is to post at a time when most of your followers are likely to be browsing their feed to skyrocket your engagement levels quickly.
- Leverage Geotags
Do you own a restaurant or store and want local people to know about it? Then take advantage of geotags to make your posts and stories easily discoverable. You can also engage with posts and stories by other people in your vicinity to increase engagement.
Social marketers live for the days when they can truly say, “our engagement is peaking!” But you’ve got to know that marketing success takes time, effort, and sometimes a little bit of luck. The above 8 tips on how to boost engagement on Instagram are sure to drive traffic to your social media account. So, are you ready for likes, comments, and shares to flow in?
Author Bio:
Isha Tandon works as a Digital Content Strategist for Orientbell Limited, a leading tile manufacturer in India. Isha’s knack for understanding audiences helps her create value-driven content for her readers that not only educates and informs but is engaging and interesting to read as well. She creates lifestyle pieces that focus on interior design products, trends and processes. She loves to travel to historic places with rich architecture.
Hi Isha and Chantal, I’m torn about what to do for a giveaway and so afraid of breaking any giveaway rules. I think consistency is key and using stories and reels are very helpful to increase engagement. Thanks for the tips!
Hello, I’m just getting started on instagram. Thanks for the tips! Any specific tools you can point out that will help find relevant hashtags?