11 Tips To Increase Instagram Engagement
Your business must have a strong presence on Instagram in this day and age. As one of the most popular social media platforms, it's where you can reach a large audience in an unexpected, creative way. So how can you go about creating engaging content on Instagram? To help you grow your following and build a community around your brand, we've come up with 11 tips for improving your Instagram engagement:
Create a clear caption and have a call to action
Now that you've gotten used to the basics of Instagram let's take a look at how you can increase engagement.
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Create a clear caption and include a call to action. A great caption is clear, concise, and engaging. While it might seem like an easy task to come up with captions for your photos (describe what happened in the picture), here are some tips to help make sure they're engaging:
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Use emojis! It may sound silly, but adding emojis in your captions can make them stand out from others on your page. This will also help attract people who love emojis more than words! See this post on how many emojis are best per caption: https://blog.agorapulse.com/how-many-emoji...
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Take advantage of Instagram stories by using polls or stickers so people can interact with each other before even commenting on posts! You could also use these tools to gather feedback on new products or services before launching them publicly (see example).
Use hashtags in your Instagram posts.
Hashtags are a great way to increase engagement on Instagram. They're also helpful in expanding your reach, getting discovered by new people, reaching new communities, etc.
Here are some tips on how you can use hashtags effectively:
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Use no more than 5-7 hashtags per post. Adding too many will make it look spammy and result in your post being deleted or reported as spam by other users. It's also not advised to put all of them at the end of the caption; this could make you lose some followers who don't want their feed filled with irrelevant posts (and they probably aren't following you to get more content like that).
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Choose relevant ones based on your audience's interests (and try not to overuse any particular one). You can find good ones using BuzzSumo or another tool like HashtagifyMe (which helps you understand what content gets shared most often within a specific topic), or simply ask them directly about what topics interest them most!
Engage with your community
A way to engage with your community is by commenting on other people's posts. Suppose they're posting about something you have an opinion on or something related to your niche, like a travel blogger commenting on another travel blogger's picture of a waterfall. In that case, you should definitely give them some love!
If you take the time to leave a comment and show someone that their content is appreciated, it's likely that they'll return the favor by stopping by one of your posts. And if not? Well, at least now you know who isn't interested in interacting with your brand!
Another great way to interact with people is through hashtags. Hashtags are keywords used in social media which allow users (including yourself) find others who are posting about similar topics as well as search for specific information about those topics. For example: A user who wants to learn more about how Instagram works may use the hashtag #howtoinstagram because he knows there will be other users sharing their knowledge of how best utilize this platform. Tap into these conversations by using relevant terms so others can see what kind of content interests them most!
Use emojis and stickers to engage with your audience
In addition to the sheer number of people that use Instagram, there's another reason why you should be focusing on engagement: it helps you build a community. When you engage with your audience, they feel like you actually care about them and their opinions. And when someone feels like they know and trust you, they're more likely to buy from you or recommend your product or service to others.
The best way to do this is by using emojis in captions, stickers in stories (or both!), and highlight covers.
Emojis are great because they're easy-to-interpret visual cues that let your followers know how you feel — without having to read a sentence or two worth of text! This will encourage them to engage back with their own emojis as well.Stickers also work really well because they can be funny or informative while still being cute enough not to turn off anyone who doesn't want too much "stuff" (aka: no words) on their feed.We recommend including stickers whenever possible: asking questions about what products people would like next time; requesting feedback on previous posts; highlighting something specific from the post; etc.Highlight covers are like stickers for Instagram Stories—you can use them anywhere within the story content itself (not just at the top) and even add text over top if desired! The only downside here is that these tend not as customizable as regular ones; however...Templates! They're awesome because they give users an easy way into creating branded content without having any design skills whatsoever! Just choose which template
Share behind-the-scenes content on Instagram to humanize your brand
There’s no better way to add some personality to your brand than through behind-the-scenes content. It gives followers an inside look at what goes on behind the scenes, and it humanizes your brand, making it seem more real and trustworthy.
It also helps people feel like they’re a part of your community, which is important if you want them to stay engaged with your brand for the long term. Hashtags are a great way to do this; create one that’s unique (and not already taken), and make sure everyone participating in the contest uses it! This will help make sure that anyone who stumbles across it knows where it came from so they can check out what else you have going on in the future!
Leverage the power of Instagram Stories Highlights and Instagram Stories Stickers
Instagram Stories Highlights and Instagram Stories Stickers are a great way to increase engagement. Highlights allow you to save your stories to your profile for future viewing, while stickers allow users to add interactive overlays their stories.
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Create polls that require a tap of the screen to vote!
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Ask questions that require an answer!
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Leverage the power of Instagram Stories Highlights and Instagram Stories Stickers by creating polls that require a tap of the screen to vote, or asking questions that require an answer! These two functions will make it easy for people who view your story later on through highlights or stickers (or just when scrolling through their feed) be engaged with what you're doing in real time.
Increase your Instagram engagement using polls and questions
The best way to increase Instagram engagement is by asking your audience questions and getting them involved with your content.
You can ask a question with a poll, which will give you more specific feedback on what they think of what you’re posting. You can also simply ask questions without using a poll, but an open ended question will allow you to get the most creative responses from your audience.
Polls are great because they allow you to get quick feedback on ideas or products that are still in development. You can gauge interest and see what people would be willing to purchase from your page before investing time or money into creating it!
Try going live on Instagram to increase engagement
Go live on Instagram.
This is a great way to engage your followers, especially if you have something new or exclusive to share with them. Try going live at least once a week so they can see what's going on in your life, and this will make them want to come back for more.
One of the best ways to use live video is when you're breaking news. For example, if you have an announcement such as a product launch or an event coming up, then go live and give out all the details about it! You can also use it when there's something exciting happening in real time—for example, if there’s an earthquake happening right now somewhere in the world that might affect people here too (and by ‘here’ I mean wherever YOU are!). Think about how people will react when they hear that news: they'll probably want answers right away! So this would be another good opportunity for using live video because viewers can ask questions directly from their feed while watching yours unfold before their very eyes."
Tag other users and brands in your posts
When you are posting a photo on Instagram, tag other accounts that are relevant to your photo. This will help increase engagement with those accounts and give you greater visibility. If you tag a location in your post, it will show up on the map view of that location in Instagram Stories and users can click through to find out more about it.
You can tag people using the @ symbol before their username. For example @someone_cool_to_tag
When commenting on someone else’s post, use the same format as above: @someone_cool_to_comment
Post at the right times for engagement on Instagram
Posting to Instagram at the right times can help you get more engagement and followers. The optimal hours for posting to Instagram are between 2 pm and 3 pm on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Avoid posting on Mondays because this is the day with the lowest engagement rate. You should also avoid posting to Instagram on Sundays because it’s a slow day for many businesses as well as users who may be away from their phones or computers due to family commitments.
Consider paid advertising on Instagram for additional engagement opportunities
If you want to take your Instagram marketing to the next level, consider running ads on Instagram. Ads are an excellent way to build engagement on your posts, drive traffic to your website and grow followers. The best way to get started is simply by running a test campaign. Once you’ve established what works for you and what doesn’t work for you (and why), then it’s time for the real deal: paid advertising on Instagram!
You can use ads for driving traffic back to your website or getting more likes/followers/engagement on your posts but most importantly - both! You can also use them as part of an overall strategy for growing your brand awareness among new audiences who may not have discovered it yet through organic means like posting photos/videos on their own time schedule rather than via self-serving ads which would be seen by everyone regardless if they were interested in seeing them or not."
Conclusion
All in all, Instagram is a great place to build your audience and create unique content. It’s also a perfect platform to expand your business and make connections with people around the world. And it’s never too late to start! Even if you’re just getting started, you can still improve your engagement rate by following some of these tips above (and don’t forget about our special bonus tip!). Good luck, and we hope this post has been helpful!