Get That Instagram Engagement Boost in 2021 With These Simple Tips!
Even if you run a fully set up Instagram Business Page with follower numbers in the 10s of thousands or have just set one up with a couple of followers, you will understand how powerful Instagram for Business can be in building your brand and cultivating an online community.
Suppose you are neither of the above and are sitting on the fence about starting an Instagram Account for your business. In that case, Instagram has over one billion users each month - its more than likely that a proportion of these is your target audience!
In this week's blog, we will go over some tips on boosting your engagement and getting your posts and business out to more people.
Firstly, What is Instagram Engagement?
Instagram engagement is when someone interacts with your page with genuine interest and care.
Engagement can come in some of the following forms:
Comments
Likes
Shares
Saves
Mentions
DMS
By users doing the above with your content and account, it shows Instagram that users are interested in your content, which gets their algorithm to show your post to more people (and so on).
But what is 'Good' Engagement? This depends on your aim, and what you want to measure, if you are looking for likes or impressions, can affect your engagement rate.
To give you a benchmark, most Social Media Experts agree that a healthy engagement rate is between 1% to 5%.
Let's get onto the tips to get your engagement up closer to that 5%...
Your Audience
Before looking into different content, you should start with your Audience.
If you have an established Instagram/Facebook Business page, you can gain access to vast amounts of data on your current followers - you can see what they like and then can curate and create content around this.
If you don't have an established social profile, you can look at your current customers, what type of people are they? If you run a cycling store, you can have confidence in assuming that your target customers are interested in Cycling, so reposting and posting content around this will more likely attract the type of person you want as a customer.
Competitors
After getting to know your Audience, getting to know your competitors on Social Media can significantly gain that initial research in finding out what your potential Audience will relate to.
If you have some competitors established on Social Media and achieve a fair amount of comments/likes, look at the type of stuff they are posting and how they interact. Take the findings of this and see how you could implement something similar, I am not saying to copy them word for word but take inspiration and adapt your strategy.
Content
Content is probably the most crucial aspect of generating engagement. If you have followed the two tips above, you should now better understand what type of content will relate and perform with your Audience.
With the considerable amount of online tools available now, you don't need to have vast graphic design experience to give your content that little extra. As an example, Canva has hundreds of free templates that are editable to reflect your brand, giving your company a more professional look.
It is worth remembering; Video content can be a great tool in generating engagement (and viewing time). For more on that, view our blog on how to get started on video content here.
Audience generated content
Use your Audience for your content. This opens up the conversation with your Audience and lets your Audience know that you are listening and engaging.
Let's go back to the cycling store example if a customer tags you in a lovely image of a weekend ride with the bike they bought from you. You can turn this into the content of your own, giving out the organic and non-sales approach, whilst also encouraging other customers to share their own.
Captions
Following on content, let's talk captions.
Instagram allow captions up to 2,200 characters in length, use up that space to give context, insight and show off your brand's personality.
This is one aspect that many businesses on Instagram don't take advantage of as they feel their Audience won't take an interest in.
That might be true for a portion of your Audience; however, for the ones that sit and read through it, this boosts their time spent on your post, which is vital for the Instagram Algorithm.
You can also ask thought-provoking questions in your caption, which can increase the comments and, therefore, engagement.
Be Consistent
The more posting you do, the more chance you have for your followers to engage with your content. However, posting ten times on Monday one week but twice the following week could be hampering your efforts more than benefiting.
The ten posts going up all in one day will be competing against each other. I would recommend setting up a schedule for posting, around times/days when your followers are most active (Instagram Insights for this) and sticking to this. This keeps your profile busy with engagement coming in consistently throughout the week instead of bursts.
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If implemented, here are a few tips to see a nice boost to your Instagram Engagement and set the foundations to grow your account.
Some other points to note:
Stories can be a great way of engaging with your Audience, especially by using stickers such as Questions and polls.
Hashtags, these can be a great tool in getting new users to view your content.
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As always, for more information on how Mac Marketing can help with your Social Media Strategy, get in contact below!
mac@mac-marketing.com