How to Boost Audience Engagement on Instagram

When it comes to what defines engagement on Instagram, it’s how an user interacts with your page. Be it in the form of likes, comments, shares, follows.

The best way to boost your page presence and have your page be more easily discoverable is to increase your page engagement on Instagram.

We've described the process into several steps. Those are:

1. Be Consistent with Your Brand Voice and Tone

Developing brand recognition with consumers requires consistency and repetition. If your personality or messaging appear to change frequently, it’s harder for audiences to know exactly what you’re all about. As a result, your efforts are likely to fall flat, and lose out to a better-branded option (whether or not they can match your product quality).

You want to be consistent with the type of feed you present to your audience since that is what got them to follow you in the first place. Knowing your Instagram content strategy allows you to keep the same consistent message and tone of voice. Consistency with Instagram is what increases your engagement rate.

2. Stick to a Schedule and Post Consistently

The Instagram algorithm has gotten trickier in recent years. An Instagram user’s feed isn't categorized by time of posting but rather, with posts by the pages they're more likely to interact. If your follower starts to engage more with posts by other profiles than yours, your posts show up less on their feed.

By posting continually and consistently, you have a higher chance of getting your followers to engage with your posts. Also look into Instagram insights to understand your audience demographics and the best posting times for optimal engagement.

3. Engage with Your Followers 

When your followers engage with you - be it through likes, comments, or sharing your post - be sure to return the love. Try to reply to every comment you get or at the very least, ‘heart’ their comments. If they post anything about your brand or product, tag you, or share your posts on their Instagram stories, comment on it.

Cosmetics brand @lushcosmetics on Instagram replies to most comments. See how they do it:

‍

‍

Doing this gets them to feel like they share a closer relationship with you, almost as if you’re a friend. This human touch is what gets them to fall even more in love with your brand. And with every post published after that, they’re more likely to engage even more!

4. Connect with The Right Group of Audience

Many people think that a high follower count is everything. 

Instead, a follower base who is genuinely interested in your posts and shows that interest through engagement is- even if it’s small!

Let’s look at one of the most popular online fashion stores globally - Fashion Nova. Their target audience is young women who love fashion and apparel. With the help of the right strategy, content, tone, they’ve amassed 19.4 million followers, and a large portion of this is their target audience.

And one of the best ways to gain those followers organically is through hashtags which we'll discuss next.

‍

5. Use The Right Hashtags

Why are you on Instagram?

You're there because you want to be seen and connect with more people outside your network; find followers who are truly invested in the content you create and become loyal brand advocates or paying customers.

Hashtags help you do that. By using the right number of hashtags at the right place on Instagram, you can increase the organic reach for your posts and profile.

But that shouldn’t just be a random hashtag related to your niche. To know which hashtags you should use on Instagram, sign up for Hashtag Expert.

It's the best Instagram hashtag search tool because it not only carefully curates hashtags for Instagram but also estimates how those hashtags will rank you based on your current likes and engagement.

Be sure to have a look and change up the hashtag groups to see which works best for your page. Find good quality hashtags that you can capitalize on - the most popular ones in your niche/category.

Connect your Creator or Business account and allow the app to generate personalized hashtags optimized for your profile.

If you’re new to hashtag research, check out the Hashtag Expert app guide.

Instagram engagement is tricky, especially when you’re just getting started on the app. It’s one of those places where you just need to get started, experiment a bit before you land on the right Instagram strategy that works for you.