If you are new to social media management, especially Instagram marketing, and having a little trouble understanding what engagement is? Don’t worry, you have come to the right place.
On Instagram, engagement rate is the measurement of how successful a brand or a company is. When you are running an Instagram business account, your first goal is to get many followers, quickly and keep them engaged.
If you are just starting on Instagram, you should know that tricks like using bots or buying followers are no longer useful. You could increase your followers base initially and win the competition for “who has the most followers on Instagram” with these tricks, but ultimately these tricks won’t be of any use for your brand.
Why? Because only high-quality content can help you beat the Instagram algorithm. Having a fake subscribers base is not going to help your Instagram strategy. Only real followers who are interested in your brand and frequently interact with your Instagram posts will help you build a strong brand.
So, let’s define what the Instagram engagement rate is and how you can increase it with a lot less effort and for free.
What is the Instagram engagement rate?
First of all, don’t confuse engagement with an engagement rate which measures the number of users interacting with your content. Engagement simply means the actions taken: comments, likes, saves.
So, engagement rate = engagement / (numbers of followers you have at a specific time * 100)
We hope that you can understand that the engagement rate is an interesting metric to measure the interaction your content earns. You can also use Instagram Insights, a feature available to business account users, to check overall trends and content performance.
You’ll be able to see what delights and displease your users, so you can change your strategy accordingly. A higher engagement rate is social proof that your community loves your content.
Let’s see how you can increase your Instagram engagement rate for free.
The ultimate checklist to increase the Instagram engagement rate
1. Your Instagram marketing strategy should be thoughtful:
By this, we mean that you need well-established digital marketing goals. Aiming for more subscribers is good but think about how you are going to link it to your business strategy? Do you want to boost your sales, increase brand awareness, or maybe boost your website traffic?
2. Write captivating Instagram captions
Your posts should be visually appealing, and so do your captions to drive engagement. An impactful caption will help rank better with the Instagram algorithm. If you are writing a long one, you should use important words first to make your users want to click “more” to view the entire caption.
If you have difficulty writing one, you can Google “captions for Instagram” to get ideas related to your brand.
Check out this example by Nike that encourages the audience to post an answer.
Follow social media influencer accounts related to your business
It’s better to tag relevant Instagram influencers in your posts. Though you can follow whoever you want, relevant influencers will become part of your information network. When your content matches an influencer’s interest, they are more likely to engage with your posts.
Unlike Instagram ads that usually don’t deliver due to targeting and audience selection issues, influencers are organic and trusted. You can even get them to talk about your brand and attract their followers to your posts.
We hope you’ve already understood the influencer definition: someone with the superpowers to encourage your potential users/customers to try out your product by recommending these on their Instagram stories or posts.
Check out this example of the Fyre Festival. Though this event was a disaster, Its Instagram follower engagement skyrocketed due to celebrity endorsements.
Mention your Instagram account in other communications
Ensure your other social media channels, newsletters, and email contain a link to your Instagram account. It won’t even take up much space as you can use an Instagram icon and link it to your account.
If you are working on a new campaign, including a few impactful Instagram posts in your email can help you gain followers for free. You can even mention your account on brochures, posters, business cards, and packaging slips to increase the engagement rate.
Include Instagram posts in your blog articles
Have you seen a LinkedIn post embedded in a website blog? These posts are clickable and users land directly on the corresponding LinkedIn posts by clicking on them.
You can do the same for Instagram posts. For instance, you could include an infographic, chart, or an image detailing a significant characteristic of your product/service.
For instance, check out this post:
You could share any interest on your blog and use the option of embedding an Instagram post to catch a few new followers.
Engagement rate is the best measure to check the success of your content
Comments, shares, saves, likes, mentions, link clicks, and call-to-action clicks – all these are important for a digital marketer or social media manager to check how appealing their content is. Not surprisingly, good content will produce a higher engagement rate.
While maintaining the quality of your Instagram content is up to you, we hope you will use these ideas to attract more followers to your page. This will ultimately reflect in your long-term brand strategy: increasing sales, driving website traffic, or communicating the essence of your brand.
Do you have the experience to share? Go ahead, and express it on Instagram.
