How to Increase Instagram Engagement: 6 Tips That Actually Work

Instagram can be a daunting platform to tackle, especially when it comes to increasing engagement. You’re posting content, liking images, spending hours on end on the app, all while trying to successfully juggle your work life, your sanity, somewhat of a social life (sending out the generic DM heart counts as a human interaction right?), and wondering how anyone finds the time to cover their basic needs like doing laundry, picking up groceries, or clocking in those 8-10 hours of sleep that almost every doctor is recommending. Anyone managing all of the above must magically have more hours in their day or a fantastic personal assistant/psychiatrist.

You’re putting so much effort in, however, your likes are not increasing and engagement is seemingly at a standstill. Frustration takes over and you start contemplating ways to get more likes. Google has become your best friend, and as you dive into a rabbit hole of instant-like platforms and Instagram help articles, you’re ambushed by options and you lose your better sense of judgment.

Let me start by saying, do not, I repeat, DO NOT purchase likes. This is a sure way to completely stall out your account and while you’ll get instant gratification by seeing those numbers go up within minutes, the long-term effects are way worse and could potentially get your account into major trouble.

So now your back to square one and thinking, honestly what else can I do? Becky has so many more likes than me and my content is way better! You may be right, maybe your content is way better than Becky’s. However, there’s also the possibility that Becky is doing something that you’re not.

After years of trial and error, we’ve curated a pretty solid engagement strategy including 6 tips that will be sure to increase your Instagram engagement without the need to participate in activities that are not kosher for your account and/or costing you your hard earned dollars. Yes, it will take some time, effort and patience, but trust us, once you get the ball rolling, it will turn the app into a fun project where you can visualize your progress and reap the benefits!

1. Post Regularly

First and foremost, if you’re not an active member of Instagram, which means posting quality content consistently, it’s going to be difficult to keep people interested or engaged. You have .02 seconds to draw in a viewer’s attention to your photo. No one is going to stop to look at your content if it’s not pretty and/or the edits are whack.

Instagram is an aesthetics driven app, and people are intrigued by nice looking content. Moreover, if you aren’t posting regularly, there is literally nothing new to see, so traffic will not be driven to your account, hence, why it’s a good practice to upload content daily.

Ideally, aim for at least one post per day and if you have the content to do two posts, go for it! Furthermore, keep tabs on what performs well. Most of the time, if a certain type of post gets a lot of action, a similar post will do just the same. For example, if you’re a travel photographer and your followers are responding well to images from the beach, continue on sprinkling beach shots throughout your feed. As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But that being said, don’t be afraid to try out new things as long as it makes sense with your feed.

Utilize apps like Preview or Plann to get a head start on future content, which will make your life that much easier. This will allow you to visualize your posts in advance, making sure your gallery flows and is as a whole ascetically pleasing to the eye. Planning posts in advance will also alleviate some of the stress of posting regularly!

2. Make Friends

In theory, Instagram is all about connecting! It is a social app after all, so if you want to gain engagement, well, you’re going to have to engage! If you don’t talk to people, they aren’t going to want to talk to you. Introduce yourself to new followers. Open up dialogue. Connect with real people. Keep in touch with the followers you already have. The users that are taking the time to interact with you and your content are already interested in your posts, so keep it that way!

Additionally, follow accounts back that follow you if you like what they’re sharing. Join Pods. Be a part of the community you are aiming to be a part of. And most importantly, reply to people’s comments. This is a big one! People have taken time out of their day to acknowledge your existence, the least you can do is send them an emoji back to let them know you noticed them noticing you. The more you interact and connect with individuals, the more your posts will show up at the top of people’s feeds, gaining you more traction and likes!

3. Popular Times

Would you plan a grand viewing of your new art gallery on a day when no one is in town? Or schedule a world premiere of your new movie on a Tuesday at 11am when most people are at work? Then why in the world would you post something to Instagram at a time when your followers aren’t active? You’re ultimately just making more work for yourself as you’ll need to personally drive the traffic to your account at a later time.

While you’re organizing your month of content, have a look at the times your audience is most active. Maybe it’s 2pm, maybe it’s 5am. Whenever it is, this is when you’ll want to post any new content as it’s your optimal window of opportunity to attract the most eyes to your post. In other words, this is when the majority of your followers are on the app scrolling through their feeds.

If you are running a business account, make sure you’re using the best time feature in Instagram’s analytics, or if you have a personal account, Iconosquare provides great feedback on optimal times to post.

4. Hashtags

Utilize hashtagging! This is the ultimate free exposure tip, and you can use a whopping 30 of them! This will allow new people to discover your account and even associate you to the community you’re working to be a part of. Now, don’t go using just any ordinary hashtag – you’ll have to do some research here.

Look on accounts that are similar to yours and see which hashtags they’re using. Note the ones that are relevant to you or have posts with a good amount of engagement. Once you make a list, enter them into the explore page and from there Instagram will suggest additional hashtags based upon the hashtags you’re currently searching. Lucky for you, Instagram has made hashtag discovery fairly easy at this point.

You’ll also want to do some soul searching in this portion of the strategy and really understand what direction you’d like to go in with your account. Don’t use generic hashtags that are oversaturated as your image will simply disappear into the abyss of 12 million images, never to be seen again. Instead, go one step further and use hashtags where posts are being added daily, yet not so many where there’s a new post every 10 seconds. The more descriptive the hashtag, the better. For example, #californiaweddings would be better than #weddings as it is more precise with less competition, making the chances of your post being discover a lot higher.

Lastly, do not use the same exact group of hashtags over and over again. See what’s working best and swap around the hashtags you’re using. It’ll involve some trial and error, but as you discover and implement new hashtags, new accounts will continue to discover you.

Learn more: The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Hashtags

5. Story Time

Instagram wants you to use the app’s features, so use them! Update your followers with stories. Make it fun and intriguing. When you have a new post, notify your followers on your story. This will attract more attention to your post, especially to people who may not necessarily see your posts on the top of their feed but watch your stories. Over time, the more people visit your page through your story, the more your posts will begin to organically pop-up on their feed.

6. Captions

Last but not least, make your content compelling with well written captions. Along with having content that is pleasing to the eye, you’ll also want to captivate your audience and hold their attention. These things go hand in hand, and if you have a caption that draws people in or at least makes them laugh, this will motivate more people to connect with you. Try out different techniques to get people involved and make it relatable. Maybe add an interesting stat, or ask people a question. Have them tag friends or somehow invite them to comment. Get creative!

Ultimately, everything takes work, and if you want to improve your Instagram’s exposure and engagement, which is completely necessary for any brand or business in 2018, you’re going to need to put the time and effort into it, just like anything else worth working for.