The Smartest Strategies Top Influencers Use to Increase Instagram Engagement

Ever notice that Instagram is full of people getting engaged? 

No, we don’t mean all those super fancy “she said yes!” engagement photo shoots (although yeah, there are a LOT of those on Instagram.) We’re talking about that magical social media phenomenon called audience engagement. 

Put simply, engagement is all about how much your audience interacts with your posts. In data terms, that’s measured in things like number of likes, shares, reposts, comments, saves, and more. 

As an influencer, entrepreneur, creator, or small business, increasing your engagement should be your number 1 priority if you want to strengthen your relationships with your audience, score higher on Instagram’s algorithm so more people view your posts, and earn more revenue through partnerships or monetization.

Amidst all the social media platforms, when it comes to engagement, Instagram is the queen. Instagram overall has a jaw-dropping 4.21% engagement rate, which is 10 times higher than Facebook and more than 80 times higher than Twitter.  

You may be wondering… How do you measure up? To figure out your own engagement rate,  add up the number of likes and comments you get on a post, divided by your number of followers, and then multiply it by 100.  

It might not sound like much, but if you’re hitting a 1% engagement rate on Instagram, you’re doing pretty great. If you’re not there yet, or if you are but want to go even higher, check out some of the ideas we’ve compiled below. We’ve incorporated some real-life examples for you too along the way.  

1. Use Instagram Stories Stickers to Start Engaging Conversations

Instagram continues to roll out new features to make the platform more engaging than ever. Make sure you take advantage of them all — including their awesome enhancement to Instagram Stories, Stickers. In particular, the Question, Quiz, and Poll Stickers are a great way to add an interactive element to your Stories.  

Given that more than 500 million people are using Stories every day, there’s lots of reasons to maximize the engagement here. Use Stickers to engage your audience by asking your followers their opinion, or give them an opportunity to directly ask you a question that you’ll answer.

See It in Action: Adriene Mishler, of Yoga With Adriene fame, created a Q&A to help promote one of her new yoga initiatives. She then answered questions in a series of Stories posts and then compiled them in her Highlights.

2. Vary Up Your Video Content With All of Instagram’s Video Options

It’s all about videos these days, even on Instagram, which started out as a photo-only platform. Instagram has recognized that videos are their most popular and engaging form of content and now offers several different options for posting videos. The latest is Instagram Reels, Instagram’s answer in 2020 to the wild popularity of TikTok’s short vertical videos. 

You can increase your engagement not just by incorporating more video into your content overall, but also varying up the types of videos, including Instagram Stories, IGTV, Instagram Reels, and live video. (We’ll get more into going live later down below). 

See It in Action: Fitness influencer and trainer Steve Cook has been getting a ton of engagement on his Instagram Reels lately, such as his short video montage of his training regimen and some dance moves.

3. Write Longer Captions

The next little secret for increasing your Instagram engagement? Write more! 

We’re not saying drone on just for the sake of it. You’ve got to be entertaining, first and foremost. But it’s a simple truth: the longer your posts, the more potential time people are spending on your feed. While not directly related to your engagement rate, the amount of time someone spends on your post can influence how well it performs on Instagram’s algorithm. Longer posts are also more likely to be saved. 

Always remember, you’re marketing yourself as much as any idea or product.

Getting to a place where your audience soaks up your tales with gusto means you’re well and truly on your way to developing the kind of deeper connections with your audience that will turn a casual follower into a loyal fan. Just make sure you develop your writing and storytelling skills as you go.

See It in Action: Beauty entrepreneur and influencer Lauren Ireland engaged her followers and pulled in a lot of comments with a long caption about her struggles to find balance as a working mother in a hectic world. 

4. Analyze What Types of Posts and Content Are Already Working Well for You

Finding the perfect recipe for increasing your engagement can seem pretty daunting, especially when you start searching the internet for answers. When’s the ideal time to post? How many times should you post a day? What types of posts are most popular? 

You’ll find a lot of answers out there — but at the same time, it’s always going to vary a lot because it depends on your target audience and your topic area, among other factors. So, your best bet is to look closer to home: analyze the performance of your own posts. 

There are plenty of metrics you can use to examine the habits of your audience in Instagram Insights. At the basic level, Insights can help you determine when your audience are logging on, what they’re paying attention to, and on the flipside, what they’re ignoring. To some extent you want to improve your skills so that every little whim attracts a crowd. But realistically, it’s easier to do what the people want. Insights helps you determine what that is!

5. Be Smarter With Your Hashtags

Ah, the hashtag. Those four little lines — and the words that come after it — can play a big role in who views your posts. Boosting your engagement means you need to start upping your hashtag game, too. And we don’t mean just adding more hashtags. (Just because Instagram lets you add 30 hashtags doesn’t mean you should have 30.) We mean finding and using better hashtags. 

Not gonna lie: this is going to require some legwork. Whatever market, hobby, or creative space you’re operating in, you have to do some exploration. Observe which tags your community is using, making sure you’re looking at popular accounts and even your biggest competitors. In a way, you all rely on each other to maintain hashtags as a useful tool. 

Make sure you’re changing things up frequently, too. Instagram is always trying to nose out sketchy spam posts that use too many tags or too frequent use of the same tags. The very organized among you may want to set up a notes document, a spreadsheet, or even a calendar to help you manage when and how to use tags or to go out and find fresh ones.

See It in Action: Plant-based restaurant owner and influencer Rose Lee uses a range of hashtags to reach a wide audience of people looking for vegan meal ideas and even has her own unique hashtag for her brand.

6. Add Closed Captions and/or Subtitles to Your Videos

You might be shocked how many videos are watched with the volume off, especially when people are using mobile devices. You’re practically begging your audience to look elsewhere if you’re not using captioning. By adding subtitles or closed captions to your videos, you can engage and entertain more viewers. 

Instagram has been slower to roll out automatic captioning than many other social media platforms, so for now you’re going to have to take a few extra steps. (It’s worth pointing out that IGTV does have an auto-captioning feature.) Whether you look for one of the many captioning apps, upload through Facebook first (which does have auto-captioning), or create your own transcripts, the effort is sure to be worth it!

See It in Action: Fitness trainer and influencer Charlee Atkins used closed captions in her popular IGTV video on post-workout nutrition tips. 

7.  Host a Contest or a Giveaway

Contests and giveaways are pretty much guaranteed engagement-boosters on every social media platform, and Instagram is no exception. Contests on Instagram get more than 3 times more likes and 64 times more comments than standard posts. 

Who can resist the appeal of free stuff and winning something, right? There’s a reason why influencer-brand partnerships almost always involve a giveaway at some point. 

See It in Action: Canadian lifestyle and interior design influencer Stephen Covic partnered with a local furniture design company to offer a $500 gift certificate giveaway—significantly boosting his engagement in the process. 

8. Go Live to Interact Directly With Your Audience

Add another powerful layer to your engagement on Instagram by incorporating live videos into your content strategy too. An amazing 82% of people report that they’d rather see a live video from a brand over a standard post. Live online videos are the new TV — and Instagram has caught the trend with its Instagram Live feature. 

It’s easy to understand why audiences eat live videos up because it’s a way for them to connect directly with the influencer or brand they’re following. Host a live video to answer questions in real time, greet your audience by their name, and generally add a layer of intimacy, immediacy, and authenticity that you can’t get otherwise from the usually ultra-curated world of perfect Instagram posts. 

In the wake of the live-video Instagram has made live videos even more worth your time with their new Badges feature that allows creators to generate income from Badges that viewers purchase and then award to their favorite creators.  Score! 

TL;DR:

Boosting your Instagram engagement rate is key to growing your audience and your overall revenue. A number of strategies can help you out here though, including varying up the types of videos you post and accessorizing them with features like Stories Stickers and closed captions. Write longer post captions and master the art of the hashtag, while turning a keen eye on your own posts to find out what’s working best for your audience. Finally, don’t neglect the power of a fun contest or giveaway or a live Q&A session to boost your engagement, too.

Are you ready to build stronger connections with your audience and more?

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