7 Brilliant Tactics to Boost Valuable Instagram Engagement

There are some Instagram accounts that always have many comments immediately after they post.  How do they manage to drive so much Instagram engagement?  In every case, the account is following best practices for encouraging and facilitating engagement on Instagram.

These methods of increasing Instagram engagement can be executed by any business in any industry and are very powerful when combined as part of your digital strategy.

7 Proven Practices to Increase Engagement on Instagram

1. Welcome New Instagram Followers

When someone follows you, comment on a post or two of theirs. You don’t need to say, “Thanks for following me!” Just leave genuine comments on their post.

At first, this isn’t difficult, but when you get 50+ followers a day, you may need to adjust your strategy, get help, or cease altogether. However, until you reach that level of growth, do the work.

2. Engage within Your Instagram Niche

To win on social media, you must be social.  This next engagement practice comes from @GaryVee who firmly believes in the “$1.80 IG Strategy.”  The best part of this tactic is that it is very simple, and is only a two-step process.

Step One

Pick ten of the best hashtags identified in your research (go back to our post “Success Leaves Clues“).

Step Two

Drop a comment on the top nine posts in each Instagram hashtag.

Remember, good comments are: genuine, helpful, or entertaining.  Be mindful as people will either follow you or ignore you based on the value your comments provide.

PRO TIP:

If you find any unanswered questions that you can answer, do your best to provide a complete answer to the question.  This is how you establish credibility in your niche.  People asking questions show a deeper level of interest, do not overlook this.

3. Facilitate Instagram Community Engagement

Mention accounts that are doing something right as a means to provide value to your audience.  For example, in this post, I mentioned both Gary V & the Preview App because they are great examples of the message we are conveying.

4. Prompt Comments by Ask Questions

To get comments on posts, you have to ask for it.  Even when starting out, ask questions within your posts without fear of getting no response.  When we made our first IG post, we had zero followers.  We thought we would get no response.  However, we were fortunate to get a response from @meetedgar as they came across our content due to our hashtags.  You have to train your audience to engage with your content.

PRO TIP:

Ask something that can easily be answered in 1-2 words.  Why?  Asking a question that is easy to answer is more likely to elicit a response than asking questions that require people to really think about their response.

5. Respond to All Comments

Engagement induces more engagement. Take care to respond with genuine comments to reinforce training your audience to engage.  We suggest you respond to Instagram comments with an @mention to strengthen your relationship with that user and encourage more comments.

PRO TIP:

Use people’s names in the response.  It makes your communication appear more warm and personal.

Exception to the Rule:  Spam comments from questionable accounts do not require a response.  Obviously generic comments like, “great pic! Follow me back!” or “awesome photo. let’s connect” are to be either reported, ignored, or called out for being spam.  I like to report the profile, as well as report the comment to safeguard the IG community.

6. Be Genuine in Your Own Instagram Engagement

Any time you comment or respond, be stay authentic.  Generic comments make you seem like a bot, and everyone hates it.  Worse, IG will flag your account as spammy.

There are many ways to boost brand love and connect with consumers emotionally without sacrificing core business brand values.  Brands that operate one way offline but have a completely different online persona can come off as having a “multiple personality disorder” that erodes at your credibility.

7. Include a Call to Action

Aka CTA – Tell your audience what to do.  Tell them to click the link in your bio, swipe up for an email list, download a resource, sign up for email, tag a friend, etc.  If you don’t give people direction, they will not take any action and you may have lost a potential follower, customer, etc.

There is no such thing as a successful digital marketing campaign without a successful CTA.

Followers, conversions, revenue, business, and profit depend on calls to action.  The CTA is foundational to the success of any online marketing initiative.

Which of these have you been doing? What one are you going to start implementing this week?

If you have any questions, please leave a comment!

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