Whether you’re chasing that influencer dream, or getting a small business off the ground, social media is your friend. Here’s how to get more engagement on Instagram quickly and easily!

When people first turn their minds to social media success, they imagine an astronomical number of followers. You haven’t made it until your username is blue tick adorned and there’s a number in the millions next to your follower count.

Wrong.

Of course, more followers means more potential impressions. More impressions could lead to more interactions, whether that’s sales or link clicks. The thing is, though, there’s no point having loads of followers if none of them are engaging with you or your content.

What Is Engagement?

Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri explained the Instagram algorithm last year, letting users know how best to boost their presence on the platform. Prior to this, Instagram had confirmed the engagement metrics that matter most.

  • Comments
  • Likes
  • Reshares
  • Views

Since confirming this, it’s also widely agreed that Saves go a long way in propelling someone’s content.

Engagement rates convey how much someone’s audience on Instagram is interacting with the content they share. If you’re an aspiring influencer, your engagement rate is what brands will look at before deciding whether to work with you. That’s because there’s no point them investing in someone who will be sharing something that falls on deaf ears, or erm… blind eyes?

You can roughly work out your engagement rate by calculating your average likes and dividing it by your number of followers. Doing this over a monthly period is best. You can use third party tools and social media trackers to work this out for you, as well as track all sorts of metrics. If you’re not a fan of maths, or feel like your Instagram analytics knowledge is wanting, this may be a good route for you.

Why Does Engagement Matter?

Engagement lets you (and potential brand partners) know whether the content you’re sharing is hitting the right spots. It then gives you a solid idea of what sort of content your audience will want to keep seeing, and what they’re not so hot on.

Not just for informing your social media strategy, engagement is also fondly smiled upon by the algorithm gods. If you can get more engagement on Instagram, your posts are likely to be discovered by fresh eyes.

How to Get More Engagement

We’ve talked plenty about what exactly constitutes engagement, and why it’s important. Now, let’s look at how you can get more of the lovely stuff on your Instagram.

Pick Your Moment

When sharing anything on Instagram, it’s wise to think about the best times to post on there. You can head into your Insights to see what times and days your audience are most active. Once you’ve done this, you can then schedule content to be shared at those times.

This gives your content a higher chance of being seen, and therefore engaged with.

Get Reel

Instagram is so much more than sharing one static image at a time. In order to compete with social media and video sharing behemoth, TikTok, Instagram introduced Reels. This is the platform’s answer to short-form video.

Adam Mosseri has explained that Instagram is favouring Reels content over all else right now. Creating great Reels is a sure fire way to boost your engagement levels. Make use of all the features on offer, such as captions, filters, and music. The more exciting and eye-catching, the better!

Ride the Carousel

What’s more entertaining; standing still, or spinning round and round on a carousel? It’s the carousel, isn’t it?

Rather than sharing one image and a long caption with all the information, make it a carousel post. Instagram favours carousel posts over singular ones, and they’re fantastic for getting people to stick with your content. You can share multiple images, or you could use it to share text-based information. They’re a much more fun way to get your point across, and Instagram will love you for it.

Show Your Face

Human beings respond instinctively to the faces of other humans. When we’re mindlessly scrolling through photos of lunches, cats, and homewares, a face is far more likely to stop us in our tracks.

If you share your face, whether it’s an image or video, your audience will be much more inclined to take a closer look at what your post is about. This could then lead to them liking it, commenting on it, or even saving it.

Ask Questions

Whether your caption is short or long, minimal or packed with detail, you should be asking questions. More specifically, you should ask your questions right at the end.

Putting a question at the end of your caption encourages your audience to answer it in the comments. This is a way more effective approach than asking it right at the top. Give it a try!

Hashtags Help

This one is more to do with boosting your reach. But, in doing so, you will get more engagement on Instagram. Adding thoughtful hashtags to your content will ensure the content you’re posting reaches the right people – the people who are most likely to enjoy and react to what you’re sharing.

Avoid just using vague hashtags, like “music” or “beach”. Instead, get specific and niche, for example, “British indie music” or “Brighton beach day”. Also hopping onto current hashtag trends will mean you cash in, engagement-wise, on whatever is particularly popular at the time.

Return the Favour

Rather than posting content and waiting for the engagement to come to you, go out and get it! Or rather, give it.

Liking and commenting on content from people you follow is a great way to engage your audience. Getting involved in your Instagram community is a hugely effective way to draw people over to your profile, and get them engaging with your own content.