For nonprofits and brands, Instagram is considered to be one of the most comfortable platforms to use for growth. It has complications, but the prospected result can be astonishing. Maintaining a blog on this platform is tricky, but if you know the right clues, people will easily deliver you real ig likes after they browse your profile. And what are these clues, you may wonder? A significant part of your activity online has to be targeted to increasing the level of engagement on your profile. The better is the engagement rate, the better result you get.
What Is Engagement Anyway?
The term stands as a description of any user’s activity upon your content. Engagement is a very important metric to monitor because it basically shows the interest in your production. Unlike hearts or followers counter, this characteristic of your blog is rather useful for building a strategy. Knowing what the preferred type of posting is, you can adjust the whole existing plan and apply minor changes as you go. For Instagram, in the list of engagement indicators can be included:
- Comments
- Likes
- Saves
- Tagging
- Reactions to Stories
- Replies to Stories
These are basic characteristics that complete your engagement. Of course, users can interact with your content by their will, but your task is to encourage them to do so. Thus, the most logical question to ask next is – what are the methods for doing that? Luckily, in this article are gathered 7 effective tips to increase the rate of engagement on your Instagram.
1. Manage The Timing
Today people are connected to their mobile devices very closely, and some may think that timing is not important now, because users are present on the platform longer. Partially, this statement is true – the average duration of time spent lurking on social media apps has increased. But it remains periodic. To boost your engagement rate, your posts have to hit the viewers in their active browsing periods, rather than just be there, waiting to be noticed. Uploading posts without correlation to activity periods means your content will die in the depth of the feed. The math is simple – think when people use social media at most? There are major spots to stick to:
- Waking hours – many people are checking their socials right after waking up and doing the morning routine.
- When the working day hits the middle, it’s time to relax a bit and see who else is eating their lunch now.
Late-night – this practice is not very healthy, but lots of users are scrolling through their feeds before they go to sleep.
2. Throw In Calls-to-Action
CTA is a secure method to encourage more activity on your profile. Remind users that due to the algorithms of Instagram, they simply must hit the like, comment on your posts, and react to your Stories. If they neglect doing so, the mechanisms of IG consider your content as less interesting and useful, thus your posts can be “hidden” in the feed even if they are fresh.
Don’t be afraid that it’s too bald. It’s how the internet works – you ask people to do things as your support, and given that you provide high-quality content, they will gladly do what you ask.
3. Squeeze The Potential Out Of Stories
Since the launch in 2016, Stories on Instagram are proven to be the most engaging content. It’s a personal connection between you and your followers, so you should use it as much as possible. You may add some calls-to-action there as well.
However, keep your Stories in balance. Posting too much is unprofessional, spammy, and really useless practice. If you flood the feed of your followers too much, they will think you are obtrusive and just stop watching your news. So you have to monitor the reaction to Stories carefully. If you see a consistently positive result, it is worth trying and increases your number of daily uploads. But if after an effective period comes a decrease of the rating – you are probably overdoing it.
4. Post Videos
Aside from Stories, this is the most-loved content on Instagram. Videos on IG have a time limit of 1 minute, but it only makes it more interesting to users. For longer content, the platform offers IGTV, but in fact, the 1 minute long films have taken over the user’s attention.
Even if you are not sure you want to become a video blogger, this practice is worth trying. You can start with participation video challenges and create inspirational films.
5. Use Stickers
Stickers are additional options provided in the format of Stories. And those are sure engagement boosters for you. The features Instagram offers to use in Stories are:
- With this sticker, commonly known as “AMA – Ask Me Anything”, users can as a question, and then you answer it through Stories as well.
- This option allows you to post a question and multiple-choice answers for users. Good for playing games and contests. After the user leaves a vote, they will see if the result is right, although sometimes bloggers and brands use it as a feedback collector, and there is no right and wrong.
- Here you offer your viewer a choice from two options, and as they tap the answer they want, the percent counter appears. They are often used for monitoring the preferences of the audience.
This feature will, well, count the time down to a certain event that you planned.
6. Experiment With Your Content
Sometimes users lose interest in your posts because they are bored and know your routine too well. To boost and maintain your engagement rate, you should not only post consistently what you always posted but shake the ground from time to time.
Putting in something fresh always works well for you, as people will inevitably come to check out your new ideas. And if you ask their opinion, you will get an additional bonus – feedback and new ideas for further experimenting. However, this strategy works well only when you already have an established audience, big fanbase.
If you are just at the beginning of your blogging journey, come back to this point later, when you have enough users to leave feedback.
7. Create Content Worth Saving
With the feature of saving, your engagement rate has another metric to keep count of. When users save your content, it means they will return to it later, thus increasing your rating. Seek for something valuable and useful to post, and also make sure it resonates with the audience preferences, and here you go – save by save, your engagement will grow.
Note – saveable content is also the one users like to share with friends and family, so your chances to improve your engagement are doubled.
Conclusion
To boost the level of engagement, you have many tasks to fulfill. However, for anything you do on Instagram, the most valuable and important thing is that you are passionate about the topic of your blog. When you share things with you viewer in a sincere and genuine way, your followers will be eager to interact with your content, and you will not suffer from an overwhelming work routine – you will just spend time doing what you know best!