How To Build Engagement On Instagram

A good Instagram engagement rate is essential to growing your account, and so it’s unsurprising that this is the number one goal for many Instagrammers and social media marketers.

Unfortunately, Instagram engagement is prone to fluctuate along with algorithm changes, and it can be difficult to maintain, never mind improve! But there are ways you can skyrocket your post and hit explore back to back.

Let's take you on some tips to achieving this.

1. Engage with similar accounts in your industry or niche every day

Before you post your next photo on Instagram, take some time to engage with the content other accounts are posting: specifically, accounts similar to yours which are part of your niche.

The basic rule of Instagram is that engagement feeds engagement. By interacting with other users on the platform, you’re increasing your chance of being seen. The more you engage, the more visible your account becomes, and the more engagement you’ll get from visitors to your profile.

But, the quality of engagement on Instagram is just as important as the quantity, which is why you should invest your time selecting specific accounts to engage with.

For example, if you run an Instagram account for a fashion brand, engage with content from fashion label accounts, fashion and beauty influencers, fashion inspiration accounts, and so on. If you’re managing the Instagram of a social media marketing company, engage with posts from social media thought leaders and social media marketing blogs.

This way, you’re putting yourself out there in front of the right audience, who will have some interest in your content and hopefully, whatever it is you’re selling or promoting.

2. Engage with content directly before and after you post

You want to get as much engagement on your post as possible within the first hour of posting. A lot of engagement straight away means the Instagram algorithm recognizes that post is something that is likely to be interesting to a lot of your followers, causing the post to appear higher up in more of your followers feeds.

But how do you generate enough Instagram engagement within such a short time span?

Engage with other posts shortly before and after you post something to your own feed!

This will increase the chance of people visiting your profile, liking your most recent post within the first hour of posting, and thus boosting your posts visibility on the platform. Of course, your comments and likes aren’t going anywhere and should also continue to draw users to your account well after you’ve left them, so it’s a win-win.

3. Use strategically selected hashtags (and mix them up across your posts)

Hashtags are specific and detailed, which means they more accurately reflect the context of your post.

Say you post a photo of a postmodern building that caught your eye on Instagram. You could use the hashtag #architecture, which has 86,491,936 associated posts, or you could use #postmodernarchitecture, which has 8,739 associated posts.

They are pretty similar tags, but the latter (the long-tail) has way fewer associated posts, which means your content is more likely to be discovered and liked or commented on.

4. Reply to comments as soon as possible

Replying to comments is vital to keep that conversation going and help push your post to the top of more of your followers’ feeds. As people respond to you more and more, Instagram recognizes your post as a valuable piece of content that will probably also be interesting to others. So, tempting though it can be when you have a million tasks at hand to put off replying to comments – don’t! Reply straight away with a quick and friendly comment to keep the ball rolling (before you forget).

Top tip: Take the opportunity to draw other people into the conversation where you can, tagging their account so that they get a notification you’ve mentioned them. For example, if someone comments about an event you organized to let you know how great it was, you can introduce any partners who helped, such as members of your team, the venue, or the catering company who provided all the delicious nibbles.

5. Write better captions

Instagram posts with captions generate more engagement and encourage users to spend more time looking at your post, which is believed to be an advantage with the current algorithm as it prioritizes content by engagement.

A good caption will give your photo context, express personality, and engage your audience. You can approach your caption in a number of different ways: it can be a long, detailed caption that tells a story. It can be a short and to the point caption that enhances the photo, and provides a ‘take’ on the image or additional context. It can be serious and thought-provoking or funny and light-hearted.