Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms for photos, videos, and storytelling. The application also offers is Instagram Live or sharing photos and videos using Instagram stories.
Looking to boost your Instagram engagement on your account? Here are five tips to make it happen:
1. Schedule Instagram posts for when your audience is most active — According to recent Instagram research, in 2018 the majority of social media managers have said that lunch time, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. is the best time to post followed by evenings from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m (https://later.com/blog/best-time-to-post-on-instagram/). This is because more users on Instagram are posting during off-work hours rather than while on-duty. Another tip is to save important posts for weekdays. This is because Wednesdays and Thursdays are the the days that drive the most engagement on Instagram while Sundays drive the least engagement. Why? People are on their phones less during the weekends since they are busier and not thinking about work.
2.. Add a call-to-action to all your Instagram posts — A call-to-action is another extremely useful tool to increase engagement on Instagram posts. Adding a simple question about the weekend or what users think of the product will increase comments as well as make followers spend more time viewing the post. In fact, the more traffic increases on the post, the more likely it is to be picked as a feature on the top posts page for a hashtag or on the Instagram explore page.
3. Be more active on Instagram stories — Instagram stories are also helpful for increasing engagement on your Instagram page. Hashtags are useful to post on the photo or video that is being posted on an Instagram story to increase awareness and engagement around the brand. By posting to an Instagram story, which already generates less competition for views than your feed itself, you also get the chance to speak to a specific audience. The account/brand is more likely to featured on the Instagram explore page, which would greatly increase traffic to the your posts and page overall.
4. Use hashtags for 12.6% more engagement — As mentioned in the previous tip, hashtags are vital to increasing engagement on your account. The use of only one hashtag on a post has proved to increase engagement by 12.6% per post. Not only do hashtags increase traffic to the post and page, but they also are proven to increase likes on each post. It is important to note that 5-10 hashtags are acceptable per post, otherwise it could look like spam to any person that comes across the post.
5. Responding to your followers — Responding to your followers is a very important part of increasing engagement. By doing this, it lets the followers of your page know that you’re a real person, more active on the page, and not just a bot that creates automated responses (which Instagram has completely cracked down on). It is also encouraged to use first names when responding because it builds loyalty to followers through small gestures.
Overall, to grow your Instagram engagement the most important things you can do are to pay more attention to how often you post, the quality of your posts, engaging with your audience.
