Posted by Do you ever wonder, what is the secret of being successful on Instagram?
It’s nothing but the higher engagement rate that most of the Instagrammers want to achieve. Getting a gigantic engagement rate on your Instagram account can be a bit challenging as it varies every time with the change in the Instagram algorithm. However, if you’re ready to give it your all, then this isn’t something hard to achieve.
Some easy gambits can make this errand approachable for you. In this blog, I am going to offer you a mixed bag of 8 ways to increase your Instagram engagement rate. Hence, without further ado, let’s dive in!
- Reach Out To Similar Instagram Accounts As Of Your Niche
Engaging with other parallel niche accounts is foremost when you want your Instagram presence to get more engagement. It is an engagement-for-engagement loop. That’s the mantra to get people’s attention towards your Instagram account. The more you interact with the content of other users, the more likely they will return the favour for you.
So, before publishing any Instagram post, take out time to get aware of what other Instagrammers are creating and what’s working for them. By doing this, you will come to know about the latest trends on the platform, which are also an essential aspect of achieving Instagram success.
When it comes to Instagram engagement, quality is more important than quantity. So, don’t engage with random accounts just for the sake of it. Look for accounts that contribute quality content and engage with them.
For instance, if your Instagram account is all about Fashion, then interact with Instagrammers who work for the same profession as their followers will perhaps like what you’re doing. And if your Instagram space is about cooking, then engage with Instagram accounts working for this specific field. It will explicitly make you come across people who are passionate about cooking and related to it.
In case you want to reach out to more potential kindred Instagram accounts, you can follow these methods-
- Go through the recommendations provided by Instagram for your account and then, tap on the search icon. There you can type your niche and find out the considerable Instagram accounts that you can follow.
- Make use of relatable keywords to find matching Instagram accounts. It’s best to search by using common words that people use in their Instagram bio. Enter them in the search bar and select “People”. Always remember to choose such keywords that can get you the most associated search results.
- When it comes to doing the research work, then what can help you better than the hashtags. They keep all the relevant posts under one roof. Therefore, search for associated hashtags according to your business niche. By entering them in the search bar, you will get redirected towards the whole list of relevant Instagram accounts.
- Try to engage with your competitors’ followers. Go to your business peers profiles and hit on their follower’s list. Check out which type of people are following them. It will help you to assess what more you can do to attract those users.
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Engage With Instagram Accounts Right Before And After Posting
How many of you check Likes, Shares, And Comment trait of your Instagram post right after posting? I do!
If you want to get higher engagement on your Instagram posts within a short duration of time then, you need to work hard so that Instagram recognizes your content as something relevant and appealing to people in a jiffy. To make this happen, I am sharing a brilliant tip with you guys.
Engaging with other Instagram posts soon right before and after publishing content can work wonders to raise the engagement rate. It fosters the chances of people reaching out to your Instagram profile and liking your posts within a few hours of posting. As a result, your Instagram landscape will increase to another dimension. Besides all this, it also generates a hike in your follower’s count. So, it is a win-win in so many ways.
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Start Using Long-Tail Hashtags All Across (Or Mix Them Up)
Long-tail hashtags are quite precise and detailed. So they help Instagram posts to get easily discovered amongst people in general. Whereas, in the case of short-tail hashtags, a large number of Instagram posts blended with them, that makes your content struggle a lot to come across more people.
For example, suppose you have seen Instagram post of one micro-influencer named Jomar Alexis. You want to share it with your followers as well. Now, you can either make use of hashtag #Fashionblogger that already has thousands of relevant Instagram posts or #jomaralexis that hardly have some associated posts. So, the latter one is best to use for your Instagram post to get more comments, in short, better engagement.
I always recommend using the long-tail hashtags, at least till you create a significant dominance on Instagram. The reason is, new posts get added in highly discoverable hashtags within every minute that makes your Instagram post go down and down. But, with long-tail hashtags, your Instagram post gets more time to hold a grip and possibly reach under top posts of that hashtag.
In the case of hashtags with millions of relevant content, your Instagram post never likely to come under the top ones. So, it will never be able to come across more people. Less discoverability means less engagement.
If you still want to make use of general hashtags, then always combine them with the long-tail ones. Less common tags should be in the ratio of 80:20 with the long-tail keywords.
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Craft Captivating Captions For Your Instagram Posts
Instagram posts with captions get more attention of people to the ones without captions. It is so because they entertain people and compel them to take actions such as like, comment and share, which are the influential factors for getting a higher engagement rate.
A captivating caption always gets written according to the context, persona, and nature of the Instagram post. It can be lengthy like storytelling or sweet, short, and to the point. It very much depends on how you want to portray things out. You can also write captions in a way to affect people emotionally. Apart from these, light-hearted, funny, witty, and hilar captions are also the best to get noticed.
So the bottom line is, no matter what type of caption you’re writing, it should go with the essence of your Instagram post. Unless it is not making your content look misplaced. To understand it better, have a look at the below example.
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Prefer Posting More Photos Of People
Do you know that photos with faces get 38% more likes on Instagram than the ones without them?
So, always try to post photos with faces. Posting pictures of a person is a solid move to increase the barometer of engagement. Irrespective of what your business is about, you can entwine your Instagram posts with a human touch by following this very strategy.
If you are having a business, then you can share photographs of your employees. You can also share the pictures posted by your customers, photos of people with your brand, or models posing with your products. The options are never-ending. Implementing this technique will help you to connect with the viewers quickly, and ultimately boost-up engagement.
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Reply To Comments As Early As Possible
Replying to comments is one of the most important steps you can follow to stimulate your Instagram engagement. It motivates users to take part in conversations happening around the specific post. But putting comments every time can also be very intimidating if you have various tasks to do. Especially when you have an Instagram account with millions of followers.
In such a scenario, you can make use of automation tools like Gramboard to automate comments. It is an all-in-one software that can automate all the daily Instagram tasks such as Likes, Follow, Comment, Unfollow, and much more.
Moreover, if you want to ignite more conversations and fuel up the comment section of your Instagram post. Then you can also tag people who are competent to participate in the discussion. So that whenever you mention them, they get a notification.
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Find Out Your Best Time To Post On Instagram
Do you know the time when most of the people interact with your Instagram posts? Don’t know! So, it’s high time you should do this.
The best time for you to post on Instagram is when most of the users are available to engage with your content. You can figure this out manually by experimenting posting at different times of the day and creating spreadsheets to organize all the data regarding it.
However, to execute this professionally, you can make use of analytical tools like Crowdfire. It caters social media users with a plethora of automation attributes. By using it, you can schedule your Instagram posts in advance and also find out the best time to publish on your account by going through its recommendation.
In case you have an Instagram business profile, then you are eligible to access Instagram Insights. You only have to go to the analytics tab (given in the top right corner of the screen), select “Audience”. Then, you will get to see where most of your audience is from, which will assist you to know when you should post in the first place. Suppose, if you have a maximum fan base from the US, then you have to post according to their time.
It will be more helpful if you go for scheduling your Instagram posts rather than posting at random times in a day. As a result, you will get to know the exact time when your Instagram posts receive maximum engagement.
Well, the more you research, the more likely you will gauge the best performing hours of your posts, and the better your engagement rate will become.
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Redirect Users To Your Posts Via Instagram Stories
How can one misses out Instagram stories when it comes to generating higher engagement rates?
Instagram story is undoubtedly one of the most used features of this platform. People loved to use it for sharing the special moments of their lives excitingly. It also gives the best opportunity to create buzz around the Instagram posts that ultimately leads to better engagement.
In order to use this feature, you just have to hit on arrow sign, available below the post in your feed. It will direct you to the option “create a story with this post”. By tapping it, you can head towards a new story tab where you can add filters, tags, copy, and a lot more.
While creating a story, must include clues and captions to develop curiosity amongst users. Play with words to create suspense regarding this and don’t give all the information about your content in the story. It will help to drive traffic in the post or page where you want to redirect your viewers.
Conclusion
Although getting an enormous engagement is not an easy job, but there is nothing that cannot be achieved with hard work, determination, and obviously a few smart tips. So, make use of the above-mentioned tactics and get more engagement on your Instagram account than ever before. Please don’t forget to leave a comment below about your take-on on this very topic.
This is a guest post by Sumit Ghosh. Renowned performance marketer, user acquisition expert, and a product fanatic from Bangalore. He is a prominent speaker in masterminds and events in the performance marketing space. Sumit is the Founder of Socioboard, which owns products like Poweradspy, Socinator, Gramboard, DominatorHouse, and mobile apps in social media automation space which have millions of users.