13.1 Instagram Engagement

Are you planning on running an Instagram account for your brand? Or you already did and have been working on it for quite some time now but haven't reached the goal just yet? We know this effort could be a challenging one. That’s why this guide is made to help your brand’s content get discovered by more people.

Just like most social media platforms, Instagram shows its users the posts that do well organically. The tips that will be given here are strategies that you can adjust to your social media marketing strategies to lead your content path to the right target audience at the right time, in the right way. 

With roughly 1 billion monthly active users and 500 million daily active users, Instagram has become an important tool and platform for brand awareness and sales. About 8-% of Instagram users follow a brand account. Let’s make sure that it is your brand that they follow! 

• Adding Links to Instagram Story Highlights

 You know that you can put one link on your bio, but there is another way to put more links without a third party web. As you know, you can add story highlights to your profile right below your bio. If you have multiple pages that you want to link out to, you may direct people to certain story highlights for them to gain access and take action. You can link specific pages on your website or products, podcast episodes, videos, or current promotions using story highlights.

• Comment & Respond

Start commenting on influencers’ photos. Who knows, people will visit your profile and it will result in the increase of the traffic to your page and gain more posts impression. Moreover, if your comment gets a lot of Insta-love, it will appear for the people who view that post. 

You also need to engage with those who left comments on your posts. This will count as organic engagement, just like what Instagram favors. Then Instagram will show more of your posts if you have comments and respond to it within the first hour of posting. 

• Share the Story Love 

When a user adds a story that mentioned your brand, add it to your story (repost). Show your appreciation. You can capitalize on the free mention. “How do I know if I was mentioned?” a notification will appear when your account is tagged in someone else’s story, usually it goes to your Direct Message. Simply you can just click on the notification and click “Add This To Your Story”. Before adding the story, you can customize it by adding GIFs, stickers, text, or even music. 

• Find The Right Time 

Why don’t you try posting at different times of the day as a test. Each brand’s audience has their own unique points, so you can start with benchmarks for Instagram use, then get even more tailored by experimenting and creating an individualized posting schedule for your followers.

There’s an app called Preview that you can try to measure your engagement and take note of the time when your audience is most active. You can also find some results from research done about the Instagram post engagement and learn from it.

• Discover New Audiences with Hashtags

 Use hashtags in Stories to find new audiences. You can shrink them and make them unobtrusive while still attracting people and possibly appearing on the Explore page.

After you’ve tried adding hashtags in your Stories, you can analyze their reach in “Insights” and see how many people discovered your page from a given story. 70% of Instagram hashtags are branded, so don’t miss out on an opportunity to get your brand out there!

• Use Stories to Promote Posts

Use Stories to let followers know when you have a new post. 400 million users watch Instagram Stories every day. With users consistently watching Instagram Stories, you have a captive audience to direct to your amazing content on your page. Try using GIFs or stickers to draw attention to your post announcements, or use the simple “Text” tool in Stories. You can publish your post directly to Stories by clicking “Share” on your post (the little paper air- plane) and clicking “Add post to your story.”

• Location, Location, Location

Tag your location in photos and Stories and use local hashtags. Posts that include a location tag see 79% more engagement than those without! To find popular local hashtags, try exploring the area’s local accounts like the city’s tourism account to see which hashtags they use. Lots of areas have local accounts and communities for Instagrammers or “IGers” - tag them! 

• Take a Shortcut

Write pre-filled comments to quickly reply to questions. Every social media manager knows what it’s like to type out the same response to common questions on your brand’s account. Maybe you have a list in Notes that you copy and paste from or if you’re super hacky, you’ve added shortcuts on your iPhone. Instagram actually added a feature so you can do this right from the app. Go to “Options,” scroll down to “Business Settings” and click “Quick Replies.”