Instagram has been on the decline lately when it comes to engagement. Many users have complained about the algorithm changes, which seem to be resulting in lower levels of interaction across the board.
While this may be a temporary dip as Instagram figures out the bugs, dips in engagement can hurt your bottom line. This can be frustrating for businesses and brands who rely on social media marketing to reach their current & potential customers.
What Is Engagement?
Engagement on Instagram refers to the number of likes, comments and shares (or reposts) a post receives. Engagement is one of the key factors in determining your posts’ reach, so it’s important to understand what engagement means for both users and businesses alike.
In this blog post, we will give you some tips on how to boost your engagement levels and continue growing your account organically!
1. Interactive Stories
Instagram Stories have many features built in to help you engage daily with your following. Let’s break them down & how to optimize them.
Polls: Engage your followers with polls in your Stories. Ask them questions about their favorite product or service, what they like most about following you on social media etc… This is a great way to get feedback from people who may not otherwise comment/like posts because they don’t feel comfortable doing so publicly (or aren’t sure how to).
Sliders: Basically the same as the poll feature but you’re asking one question & asking them their opinion on a scale, rather than a this or that.
Questions: Another great way to engage your followers is by asking them questions. This could be something simple like “What’s your favorite thing about summer?” or more in-depth like “How do you feel about the current algorithm changes on Instagram?”.
Quizzes: Quizes are a fun way to engage your followers and learn more about them. You can create quizzes related to your brand or industry, or even just something general like “Which Disney Princess are you?”.
Create Yours Sticker: If you’re feeling creative, you can create a prompt for your audience to use in their own Stories. This is a great way to get creative & give your followers and interactive way to engage with you.
2. Engage Your Community Before Posting
Before posting a new piece of content, take the time to warm up your audience. Engagement is a huge part of Instagram’s algorithm, and the more you can get people interested in your account before posting something new content, the higher chance they’ll like/comment on it.
This doesn’t mean spamming them with questions or posts. Engage them by asking open-ended questions that require thought & creativity from their end – such as “What are some ways you’re going to stay positive this week?” or “If there was one thing about yourself that could change what would be?”
These types of prompts encourage users to think outside themselves for answers so their responses will have more depth than just answering a simple yes/no question.
I would put this into action by replying to any recent comments on my posts, going to my followers accounts to return the love on their recent posts, & spending time engaging in stories.
3. Introduce The 'Add To Favourites' CTA
The algorithm change brought a new way to sort our feeds. Giving out followers more control over what they see on Instagram. Since you’re already using Call To Action’s in your post, why not incorporate having your audience “Adding Your To Their Favourites Feed” so they never miss a post from you?
This can be as simple as adding a CTA button to your post that says “Add To Favourites” with a link to your account. This way, even if someone misses one of your posts in their main feed, they can still see it by navigating to your profile and clicking on the “Favourites” tab.
4. Review Your Value Proposition & Content
What value are you providing your audience? Is your content all about you, or are you giving them a reason to follow you that will benefit them?
This is a great time to take a step back and review your value proposition. Is the content you’re posting valuable? Engaging? Useful? If not, it might be time to re-evaluate how you’re creating & sharing content with your audience so that they can see what makes following YOU worth their while!
If you want people stay engaged on Instagram long term then provide them with something useful or entertaining in return for their attention – this could mean anything from providing tips/tricks related to your industry all the way down too making sure photographs look good enough where viewers will want more than just one scroll through of images at any given moment.
5. Remove Ghost/Spam/Inactive Followers
Go through your followers & remove any spam accounts, accounts that may not be your ideal customer avatar, or accounts that don’t actively engage with you.
This will help to boost your Engagement Rate, because the higher percentage of engaged followers you have, the more Instagram will favour your account.
You can also use a tool like SocialBlade to measure your Engagement Rate and see where you stand amongst other businesses in your industry. This is a great way to track whether or not you’re making progress and whether or not your current strategies are working.
This does involve accepting a short term dip in followers. However having a more engaged audience will bring in the right type of followers to replace the ones you’ve lost in your clean up.
6. Wait It Out
Instagram has introduced so many new features lately that it’s bound to have some bugs it’s still trying to figure it out. Don’t get down on yourself if your posts are currently preforming the way they usually would.
Engagement rates can fluctuate based on so many factors and it’s important to remember that these changes aren’t permanent.
If you’re still struggling to make sense of the algorithm change, use this time as an opportunity for experimentation! Don’t be afraid to try new things with your content or post more frequently if needed (just don’t overdo it). Engagement is all about finding what works best for you and your audience.
Engagement Is Essential To Instagram Growth
Engagement is essential for building a relationship with your audience so that you can continue growing on Instagram! By applying some of the strategies above, overtime you’ll notice an increase in engagement.
The key to creating high-quality content on Instagram is knowing how the platform works & listening to your followers, so make sure to ask them what they want to see for you & continue to provide value based content that gives them a reason to come back.
I hope you found these tips helpful! If you have any questions or would like more information about Engagement Tactics please feel free to contact me here.
Happy Engaging!
