Engagement on Instagram is a hot topic! With all the fake accounts and people buying followers, it’s no surprise that people are looking for a better way to measure success than just number. It’s also no surprise then, that we have written about this topic so many times (like this post about the basics of engagement and why it’s important, or this post on building an engaged audience!). Today, we’re giving you actionable steps that you can take to improve your engagement from day to day. 

Start your caption with a question

It’s getting trickier and trickier to get people involved on your posts. In the last year or two, Instagram reduced the number of lines you can see in the preview of a caption, so now you’re only really left with 1 short sentence to grab people’s attention and hopefully get them involved. 

Here we got the ball rolling in our caption by starting with a question right off the bat!

Asking a question right off the bat is one of the simplest ways to be sure that you get some responses in the comments which is a great way to improve your engagement. Thinks about it! Which of these posts would you be more inclined to respond to: “Sunny day!” or “What are your favourite spots to hang out on a sunny day?!”- probably the second, right?

Stay online for at least half an hour after you post to answer comments

Right after you post, try to stick around for at least half an hour. Instagram favours the first 20-30 minutes after a post goes up and the performance is often heavily impacted by the level of interaction in this time. 

Stick around after you post to answer comments on your post!

It’s important to be available for this time to answer any comments to encourage more responses from your followers, which in turn will encourage Instagram’s algorithm to boost your post!

Leave comments on your followers posts after you post

While you’re hanging around for the extra half hour after you post, spend the time that you aren’t responding to your own comments leaving some comments on some other people’s posts! Go through your feed and leave some valuable comments.

Visit some other pages and drop some comments to attract people to your page!

This will alert people, who might be inclined to take a look at your profile. They’ll see that you have a recent post and be more likely to leave a comment since you left them a comment! 

You can even do this on non-follower pages, which can be a nice way to grow an active following. Just be sure that you’re leaving authentic and valuable comments – “great pic!” isn’t very personal. 

Looking for some more help to figure out this social media thing? Take a look at our Social Media Management packages to get some extra help!