It’s always nice to see a new follower on your list but, if you really want to monetise your Instagram account, it’s your engagement you should be focusing on. You’ve probably seen celebrities, brands and influencers post an image and receive thousands of likes and hundreds of comments within minutes. So, how can you increase your Instagram engagement to get the same?
When considering engagement on Instagram, many people will just think of likes and comments, but there are actually a number of features that can be used to engage with your account.
- Likes and Comments
- Post Saves
- Shares
- Story Views & Interactions
- IGTV Views & Interactions
- Messages
There’s no big secret to growing an amazingly engaged Instagram following, but you’ve got to be willing to put in the work. The good news is, you can start to increase your engagement rate in just 15 minutes a day.
Prep Your Account
First things first, what does your profile look like? If you landed on someone’s profile, and didn’t like what you saw, you wouldn’t bother hitting the follow button. The same goes for other people landing on your profile.
- Write an engaging bio
- Make sure you use a high quality profile photo
- Use your website link effectively
Now consider your current followers. Many people think that buying followers will make them appear popular or influential, but this can actually hurt your account massively. While it might be nice to see a large number on your followers list, inactive or ghost accounts will lower your engagement. You can use apps such as Unfollow to find and remove these accounts.
Finally, if you don’t already have a business account, you might want to switch to one. This will allow you to see your insights, including audience engagement and the best times for you to post.
Your Content
First things first – who does your content appeal to? You might love to look at photos of your toddler being mischievous, or your dog riding a skateboard, but will your target audience enjoy this? If you really want to increase your Instagram engagement, you need to be posting for other people; not just yourself.
You can use your Instagram insights to find out the best times of day, and days of the week, for you to post. You will be able to see when your followers are online, so you can post when they’re most likely to engage. When your post gets high engagement within the first hour of posting, the Instagram algorithm will favour it.
Engagement
If you want to increase your engagement, you need to make sure that you’re seen by the right people. If you want to grow your account quickly, you’re going to want to spend at least an hour a day on this. However, it can be done in just 10-15 minutes.
First of all, you need to find the users you really want to connect with. Who is your ideal customer/client/business partner? You can find them in several different ways – hashtag searches, location searches and similar accounts. Take a look at the accounts that interact with larger profiles similar to your own. These are the type of people you want to engage with.
Here’s what you’re going to do:
- Follow – only follow accounts that you are genuinely interested in. The follow/unfollow method won’t get you anywhere in the long run
- Like photos – when you find a user that you want to connect with, go to their profile and like three to five of their photos
- Comment – leave meaningful comments, that relate to the content, and are at least four words long
- View and interact with stories – see a poll on a story? Vote. Rating slider? Go for it!
Be careful with your activity on Instagram. If you like too many photos, or follow too many users at once, you’ll be blocked from carrying out that action for a specified length of time. Not ideal when you’re trying to grow your account.
Check Your Engagement Rate
If you want to know whether you’re succeeding with growing your Instagram engagement, you should check your rate before and after you start working on it. You can use a number of online calculators to find your engagement rate. They take into account your number of followers, averages likes and average comments.
If you’re looking for a great calculator, try Phlanx. Just enter your username and you’re good to go.
Average Engagement Rates
1k – 5k Followers – 5.60%
5k – 20k Followers – 2.43%
20k – 100k Followers – 2.15%
100k – 1m Followers – 2.05%
1m + Followers – 1.97%