In the current digital landscape, Instagram has become a potent tool for brands and businesses to build relationships with their target audience.

However, growing and managing an account requires time and know-how, which is why it’s beneficial to embrace your role as an Instagram manager who prioritizes the implementation of Instagram growth strategies and handles account management functions.

Whether increasing brand awareness or boosting Engagement, you can help drive results.

What’s Instagram Engagement?

Instagram engagement includes all forms of user interaction, from likes, comments, shares, mentions, click-throughs, DMs, accounts engaged, saves, and branded hashtags.

The engagement rate, or interaction rate, shows how many people interact with the content you’ve shared.

To track your Instagram performance, you’d need to monitor Instagram metrics such as:

• Impressions: How many times your content is being seen
• Reach: How many people see your content
• Engagements per follower: Engagement with your content relative to your follower count
• Follower Growth: Whether your follower count is either steadily increasing or declining
• Comments received: how engaging your content is
• Most engaged hashtags: Measures hashtag performance
• Referral traffic: Instagram’s impact on your website traffic
• Instagram Stories metrics: How popular and engaging your Stories are

Although having a high reach rate looks impressive, what matters most is how engaging your posts are. When you consistently see high Instagram engagement rates, you know your content engages your target audience. If your engagement rate is lower than you’d like, use it as a springboard to improve your Instagram strategy.

A high engagement rate helps get your content prioritized by the Instagram algorithm. Since the algorithm was programmed to make the user experience with the platform as seamless and pleasant as possible, information about Instagram content (Reels, Stories, feed posts) and its users is analyzed to serve the right content to the right people.

The more people engage or interact with your post, the higher your visibility. And when your content is more visible, you’ll be able to reach more people who are interested in your brand or company.

9 Ways How Instagram Managers Can Boost Engagement

Any Instagram manager is always on the lookout for effective ways to interact with their target audience.

That said, we rounded up some of the best practices for boosting engagement on Instagram.

1. Use An Instagram Engagement Calculator

An Instagram engagement calculator makes it easy to know precisely just how engaged users and followers are on the platform. Basically, this tool analyzes your most recent posts and adds the average likes and comments before dividing it by your follower count.

An engagement rate between 1% to 3% is considered average, while a rate higher than 3% is considered high – this means your audience is engaged and reacts to your content a lot. Any rate below 1%, however, means that people aren’t really interested in your content.

Knowing your engagement rate benefits your brand because you can increase your account visibility, build your brand community, and establish credibility or authority.

1. Know Your Target Audience

Most of the time, marketers target the wrong audience. If the content is brilliant but doesn’t really connect with the target audience, then everything ends up pointless.

That said, it’s critical for an Instagram manager to align the Instagram marketing strategy to the needs and values of the intended audience.

To find your target audience, start with building buyer personas. Rely on the information about the brand’s personas, who each have different needs and motivations based on their unique pain points.

Next, look into the Instagram audience of your competitor/s. Check what kind of followers they have and the kinds of posts they publish.

Maximize social listening to better understand your audience. Pinpoint conversations in your industry and around topics related to your brand or niche. You can also use Instagram polls to research your target audience.

1. Create Visually-Appealing Content

Instagram is primarily a visual medium, so to thrive, visual content should stand out, whether these be photos, videos, carousel posts, illustrations, infographics, animations, or memes. To ensure aesthetic visual content, here are some tried-and-true tips:

• Establish a brand color palette and stick to it
• Be particular with choosing the “cover image” of your video or Reel
• Incorporate text into your visuals
• Only use high-quality photos and videos
• Add your logo wherever appropriate
• Know size images to spec (don’t ignore aspect ratio)
• Start the first few seconds of your videos with a hook
• Maximize free tools and resources in content creation
• Include alt-text descriptions, subtitles, and captions

Finally, keep up with the visual trends and be socially responsible. Be mindful of representation in the light of diversity. Bring as many perspectives as you can through your posts.

1. Write Captions For Storytelling

Along with visually appealing content, it’s equally important to nail the caption. The best approach is to embrace storytelling in caption writing. Any good story fosters an emotional connection with your target audience.

Begin by knowing your business story by heart. What makes your business unique? Write with your brand values in mind.

The next thing to do is to develop a story flow by asking the following questions:

• Who are you writing to/for? (target audience)
• What is your core message?
• What is the objective of your content? (awareness, sales, loyalty, etc.)
• What is your call to action (CTA)?

1. Use Your Branded Hashtag

To spread the word, find content, collect user-generated content (UGC), and create a community around your business, use branded hashtags. These hashtags amplify your brand message to help you reach a bigger audience.

A branded hashtag is also unique to the business. Keep your brand hashtag short and simple. It should be easy to spell, too, so followers can easily remember it.

Use humor and embrace wit in creating a hashtag that leaves a lasting impression. Make the hashtag memorable, too. Use a catchy phrase or familiar words with a creative twist.

1. Ask Prompting Questions In Your Captions

Asking prompting questions on Instagram is a great way to boost engagement. Any Instagram manager should know how to encourage followers to interact with the content.

You can ask open-ended questions, recommendations, this-or-that questions, or create polls. You can also quiz your followers with trivia questions or ask them an unpopular opinion.

Another creative thing to do is to do a “feelings” check-in. Ask your followers how they’re doing at that very moment.

You can also ask questions that allow them to share some advice or personal stories. Including prompting questions creates an authentic conversation with your followers.

1. Respond Actively To Comments & DMs

One feature that Instagram managers can use to connect with Instagram followers is through Direct Messages — Instagram’s private messaging service.

Responding actively to messages and comments builds strong relationships and can generate more sales.

Through DMs you can send clickable links to your website, which is something that standard feeds and comments don’t support. Communicating through DMs also builds rapport with your target audience because you can be more personal.

Private conversations allow personalization of the user experience. You can also provide more information on the products, services, or content followers are interested in. In the same way, you can also address customer service questions.

1. Host Giveaways & Contests

Running an Instagram giveaway or contest is a fun way to give back to your community and in turn, reel in more followers into customers.

To begin, start with a post that asks your audience to complete a task to enter into the contest to win a prize.

The tasks you can ask your followers to:

• Like, comment, and follow your account
• Tag a friend
• Share a photo (user-generated content) onto their feed using a branded hashtag or tagging your account

The point is these giveaways and contests are effective when you’re introducing a new product or ramping up conversions.

1. Collaborate With Influencers In Your Niche

You can reach a large audience when collaborating with influencers in your niche. An Instagram collaboration between a brand and an influencer means the brand incentivizes an influencer to create content for them.

The content can either be a recommendation, a product review, a promotion, or a mention.

More specific examples of these types of posts include:

• Image posts
• Instagram video
• Instagram Story
• Reels
• Instagram LIVE
• Instagram LIVE Shopping

Since influencers are trusted by their followers, they can help you increase engagement and convert your target audience into loyal and paying customers. However, as an Instagram manager, choosing the influencer is critical.

Be sure that the Instagrammer matches your brand value and target audience. Analyze the quality of their profile and their audience.

Instagram collaboration is a good opportunity to try out creative and innovative ideas while reaching a new group of people.

As an Instagram manager, make sure that the agreement between the brand and the influencer leads to growth and learning through collaboration.

Maximize The Platform

As an Instagram manager, realize that the road to success in engagement is a constantly growing journey.

Ultimately, to maximize the platform, be laser-focused on providing value to your target audience.

So no matter how the platform evolves, you’ll still be able to increase your engagement rates.

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