One of the questions I get asked a lot in my workshops and when training clients is for tips to improve Instagram engagement. One of the biggest problems is we can be so focused on growing our business, we sometimes forget that the main purpose of social media is to be social. People want to be there to learn about and connect with other people that they ultimately find interesting. They follow businesses because they want to learn more about you, or for you to educate them or help them in some way. So you need to connect and create content that helps them get this from your business.
Social is Social
Social media is not a billboard, if you want a billboard rent a billboard, if you want to be on social then you need to be prepared to chat. Reply to all your comments and messages and make time regularly to engage on other people’s posts, ideally daily. I always like to return comments to anyone who leaves a comment on my posts, I spend time commenting on others either clients or in my niche.
Encourage People to Engage in Your Captions and Content
This might sound simple, but do you create content that encourages people to comment? Do you ask questions in your content or captions or incite discussion? Next time you go to post think how you can tweak even just your caption a little to encourage people to answer a question or share their opinion.
Be Consistent
I will never stop saying this one. The key to success in pretty much anything is consistency. If you are posting for 5 days one week and none the next week, firstly it doesn’t help the algorithm but it also stops you from consistently appearing in people’s feeds and making them aware of who you are and what you do. I’ve had people pop up in my feed after an absence and thought who are you and why did I start following you? Be consistent and show up for your followers.
Use Your Stories
Stories are genuinely really powerful. They are a way to build relationships, let people get to know you and feel connected. They are the only place you can add links on Instagram for selling too, I use them to sell and also to get people to sign up for my email list. I chat to people, reply to their stories, chat about my day. Show behind-the-scenes snippets, how I am upskilling myself and what is going on in my business, but also
Collaborate
Collaborate with other businesses, the new collaboration tool on Instagram is great and gets your content onto your feed and the feed of the person you are collaborating with, potentially doubling your audience. Can you collaborate with someone with a similar audience – for example a wedding photographer, with a wedding make-up artist, or a digital marketer with a website designer. Placed where you have adjacent audiences. Can you collaborate on a reel, or go-live and offer tips to help your followers?
Give Them a Why
Give people a why, a reason for following you that isn’t just buying from you. Can you educate, can you entertain, can you inspire? Think about the people you are always to comment on when you are social media, what compels you to do so? It’s usually because you loved the content, what can you learn from this and utilise it for your business?
What can you change?
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