10 Quick Ways To Improve Your Instagram Engagement

Blog, Small Business, Social

Improve your instagram with these tips

Social media marketing is a part of digital marketing that feels overwhelming to small businesses. We totally understand and will give you some tips to make it a lot easier for you to help you build up your Instagram strategy Promise!

Social media is a huge part of being a business owner. It’s where businesses build audiences, nurture relationships, and hope for ROI (Return of Investment).

As a small business owner, you may have done research on Google looking for articles and resources like this one in hopes of mastering one platform or another.

I bet one conclusion that you came to was that it is hard to stay on top of all the new features and developments – especially when they keep changing things around every week! It can seem confusing and frustrating. Let’s try to help you streamline and make some easy action steps that you can take right now.

1. First, choose a social network

Before we get into social media strategies and provide you with some tips, you will first need to choose a social network best suited for your brand.

In this article, we will focus on Instagram, but your brand might find other networks that are more suited for the content you produce. We will talk more about that later and help you build a better strategy.

Not all platforms are made for all businesses. Meaning, that you might have great success on one and not the others. It is important to look at your industry and competitors and see where they hang out.

A good example is that restaurants often spend more time on Facebook and Instagram than on Youtube, but an educational platform such as a non-profit might thrive on Youtube more than any other platform.

So take a moment and think about what platform might be best for you and your brand. Look around at other similar successful brands or people in your same niche and see what they are up to!

Also, it is important to use a platform to its maximum potential. When looking at Instagram, remember that you can post normal static posts, reels, lives, stories, and highlights. This gives you so many opportunities to digital market your brand and finds ways that work best for you and your business.

I bet one conclusion that you came to was that it is hard to stay on top of all the new features and developments – especially when they keep changing things around every week! It can seem confusing and frustrating. Let’s try to help you streamline and make some easy action steps that you can take right now.

Take-aways & questions

  • Not all platforms are made for all businesses.
  • Find out what niche brands like yours use.
  • Where are my competitors getting the most traffic?
  • Use a platform to maximum potential.
  • What type of media am I looking to share?
  • What platform can I take time to learn from?

2. Optimize your instagram bio (aka instagram profile)

Your bio is the first thing people see when they click on your profile, so use it to tell people what you do and why they should follow you. Make sure that your biography is eye-catching.

You can also use your bio to tell people how to engage with you, what they can expect from you, and even some quick thoughts on why it would be worth their time to follow you. It is a prime Instagram marketing spot on your profile. It is static and gives people a place to return to.

Instagram profile image for Rise Visible.

Quick tips & take-away

Have a profile picture that makes sense to your brand.
SEO optimize your profile name. (title or descriptor below your profile photo.)
Pick the proper Category. (choose business catagory that best alligns with you.)
Let people know what you do.
Let people know how you can help them.
Create a call to action.
Link to your site, free stuff, or a hub like Linktr.ee.
Find out what time they are posting.

3. Figure out your target audience

When you’re choosing your audience, it’s important to find one that’s relevant to your brand. If you’re a clothing company, for example, targeting people who like hiking isn’t going to be very helpful.

In the same way, if you’re selling kitchen appliances and trying to target those that aren’t interested in cooking appliances will result in low engagement and very few sales.

If you don’t know your target market, this is a place where you can start your research for more than just Instagram or social media in general. Knowing this is one of the most important things that you can do for your business. If you don’t know who to market to – you are marketing to dead air.

4. Work to build a strong relationship with your audience

As a business owner, you want to build a strong relationship with your audience and keep them engaged in what you have to offer.

Instagram helps you build up your social media marketing game and is one of the easiest ways to do this because it allows users to share photos and videos in a more engaging way. Videos can help you get twice as much engagement as photos do!

One place to start a building relationships is with captions. When people read the text on your photo, they’re more likely to respond positively because they feel like they are part of the conversation around it.

So don’t be afraid! Write down what’s happening in your photo or tell readers about something new that’s coming soon from your business; just make sure everything is relevant and authentic before posting anything up there for all of the hungry eyes out here looking for some great content!

5. Share videos on instagram (get twice as much engagement as photos do)

As we mentioned before, videos get more engagement than photos do. You and I both know that we have doom scrolled through numerous reels, TikToks, or Youtube videos for pure enjoyment and relaxation.

It feels good to just zone out and have a little fun. This is what many users do, so fill their feed with your videos for them to enjoy.

If you’re looking for ways to increase your engagement on Instagram, videos are the way to go. According to research from Simply Measured, photos get only 2–3 percent of engagement from users as compared with 10–12 percent for videos.

This makes sense—videos have a larger emotional impact and are more likely to be shared than photos and therefore more likely to get more likes.

Additionally, they’re better at keeping people’s attention. They take longer than images do before users are distracted by something else on their feed or want to scroll down further into their feeds (where the next set of images appears).

In addition to increasing your overall engagement rate, videos also allow you more opportunities for interaction with your followers because it gives them something new. They don’t just passively watch but actively engage in watching videos that were created specifically by YOU!

6. Post instagram stories consistently

Instagram stories are a great way to connect with your audience. Stories are a good way to share behind-the-scenes content, exclusive content, and timely special offers. It is also a great place for sneak peeks!

The best part? You don’t have to wait until you’ve captured enough photos or video clips to create one; once you’ve recorded it, you can just post it right away!

Remember that photos and videos you share to your story disappear from your Instagram feed after 24 hours unless you add them as a highlight. Keep in mind that you can also save photos and videos from your story or share your story to Feed.

Take some time out of each day to check out other people’s stories! You never know what great tips your might have for improving engagement on your posts or stories.

Example Story Idea: Share your favorite moments from an event or shoot by using Instagram stories as a highlight reel. You can even include audio clips in your story.

8. Yes, hashtags are still relevant

Make sure to use relevant tags on your Instagram posts to get better engagement. Hashtags alone could have a whole blog article written on them since there are so many various ways to hashtag, how many to use and strategies to try.

One thing to remember is that just because something works for someone else, it might not work for you. So it is best to trial and error things to see what gets the best results.

Also use branded hashtags, meaning use hashtags that are specific to your brand only. Perhaps it is your brand name, tagline, or something very specific to your brand.

Using hashtags on Instagram is a great way to engage your audience and increase your organic reach. But using the wrong ones can hurt your engagement. So make sure you are intentional with your hash tag use and choices. If used correctly this method can work wonders!

Hashtagging bonus tips:

  • Use hashtags relevant to your post.
  • Use short hashtags – not too many words strung together.
  • Don’t use too many hashtags or too little.
  • Avoid banned hashtags and spammy hashtags.
  • Include hashtags on Instagram Stories.

Top instagram hashtags

These are the top 20 hashtags on instagram:

#love (1.835B)
#instagood (1.150B)
#fashion (812.7M)
#photooftheday (797.3M)
#beautiful (661.0M)
#art (649.9M)
#photography (583.1M)
#happy (578.8M)
#picoftheday (570.8M)
#cute (569.1M)
#follow (560.9M)
#tbt (536.4M)
#followme (528.5M)
#nature (525.7M)
#like4like (515.6M)
#travel (497.3M)
#instagram (482.6M)
#style (472.3M)
#repost (471.4M)
#summer (454.2M)

9. Creating guest posts

Guest posts can be a great way to get your name out there. They’re a great opportunity to show off your personality and make an interesting, engaging post that will help you stand out from the pack.

Also, you can ask others to guest post on your page. Either way, it is a great way to build connections and relationships with others on the Instagram app.

Plus, guest posting isn’t just about exposure—it can also be used as an opportunity to get more traffic back to your website or business page on another site.

As long as it’s something relevant, guest posting is one of my favorite ways of getting my name out there without having to commit too much time or energy.

10. Share user-generated content

We all have come across content that is amazing, relevant, and share-worthy. So share it! Make sure that you credit the original creator by either tagging or mentioning or both.

If you want to build a community around your brand, one of the best ways to do so is by sharing relevant, useful content from other people in your industry.

Share content from other accounts on Instagram that align with yours is a great way to share amazing content by other creators which helps them get more visibility – it is a win-win!

People are more likely to stick around and engage with your page if they feel like they’re part of a community. You can even add a few words of praise or encouragement for the person who originally posted it—it’s an easy way to give them credit for their hard work!

Bonus tip: run instagram giveaways and contests

Giving away a free product or service is one of the best ways to build your audience on Instagram. Remember you can also post multiple photos to showcase the giveaway.

Why? Because when people win something, they’ll want to share it with their friends. And sharing content is one of the most important things you can do if you want to grow your audience on Instagram.

Bonus tip 2: engage with your instagram followers

We put this in the position of a bonus tip because it is something that so many of us who use social media do not want to do. Most of us want to post and then walk away and not worry about our Instagram content. Social media strategy can be hard and take a lot of time – but it is worth it if you are consistent and take the time to engage with your audience.

We may be left hoping to get interaction, yet, that will never work. You have to engage with your audience and other accounts.

You can start by responding to comments and questions. This can be time-consuming if you have a lot of followers who post comments or ask questions in their captions, but it will increase your engagement rate by A LOT!

If someone uses this feature, it means they want to interact with you. They see you as an authority figure and want to learn from your expertise.

Bonus tip 3: use instagram ads to grow your reach & audience

Use Instagram ads to grow your reach and boost engagement. There are more than 200 million business accounts on Instagram. Wow! This is still growing today.

Instagram offers numerous types of Instagram ads for you to utilize so you can create the perfect ad for your marketing goals. Plus there are various types of posts that you can turn into ads. You can learn more about Instagram advertising here.

Bonus tip 4: aesthetic instagram highlight covers (35+ examples)

Lastly, we stumbled upon a very informative and exciting article from Mobile Monkey with tips to up your Instagram Highlight Cover game!

Highlight Covers are also called tap-worthy Instagram Story Covers. These are the cover images on your Instagram profile that encourage your visitors to tap and explore your chosen and curated featured highlights. Get some great examples and inspiration from this Mobile Monkey article: How to Create Aesthetic Instagram Highlight Covers That Win Followers (+ 35 Examples!).

Start your instagram growth today

With all these tips I am sure there is a least one if not more than one that you could easily implement into your daily marketing routine and boost your social media marketing strategy.

If you want more Instagram tips, we suggest this article by Socianis, The Complete Guide to Instagram Marketing and How You Can Grow Your Follower Base.

 

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