10 Creative Ways to Boost Engagement on Instagram
Get popular, get re(e)al! Instagram offers terrific potential in building and humanizing your brand, improving its reach, and hitting the right chord with its customer albeit fan base. Digital presence on social media platforms, however, calls for authenticity, creativity, and audience engagement. cache in on Insta popularity and brand building by adhering to these creative ways to boost Insta(nt) engagement.
Why is engagement crucial?
Mere user following does not mean that your brand has penetrated into your audience’s ethos. It needs to resonate and make an emotional connection to become likeable and saleable to your user. Comments, Likes, Shares, Interactions, Direct Messages, Stories/Reels views are important yardsticks to determine high engagement. Insta Algorithm too decides what content to pop for your user depending on this engagement.
Higher engagement >> Visibility in users’ feeds >> Enhanced engagement!
A vicious circle you definitely want to be a part of! Let’s see how.
1. Understand user nerve
Identify the ideal clientele for your brand. Getting into their minds to understand what they like and dislike, what their hobbies are, what their lifestyle entails can be key points in defining the target user. Instagram Audience Insights gives you geographical (location) and demographical (age, gender etc.) data to comprehend your audience. You can also use social listening tools to track your brand or product mentions. This will help expand your reach, improve visibility and get more real-time organic user base.
2. Captions and Hashtags
Impressive captions catch the customer eye. Once you have his/her attention, use hashtags and emojis to make the post fun to read and relatable. Hashtags help categorize your posts so that you appear in searches when specific topics are explored. Use them judiciously so that the relevant audience is tapped. Without hashtags, your content won’t figure in your followers’ feeds. Load your post further with CTA prompts like ‘Swipe right’, ‘Tap this link in our bio’, ‘Share your thoughts’ etc. for engaging the customer.
3. Interactive storytelling, Stickers
An impactful storytelling like the journey of your brand, impressive visuals from your office area, a client case study or strategies employed that paved the way for the growth of your company etc. are interesting to read about and connect with your audience. You can use the following stickers to further enhance engagement –
Quiz
Quiz stickers let you indulge in fun and frolic. When the audience is given a chance to express their views at the mere click of a button, they participate!
Poll
Poll stickers let you know user preferences and help you align your posts as per popular demand. It also helps you better understand your user and tweak your products accordingly.
Music
Music stickers because who doesn’t like to get in tune once in a while! Get creative by matching the right song to the right mood and you are good to go!
4. Interesting Reels
Make crisp, entertaining videos to boost visibility and user engagement. Some ideas could be customer testimonials, before-and-after stories, interactive how-to segments, behind-the-scenes sneak peeks etc. However, keep in mind that product selling shouldn’t be the motto behind these reels. Audience engagement should be the primary focus area. Slowly but surely, your business will end up earning both.
5. Carousel posts
These are highly engaging posts which prompt the user to explore the slides to unveil the full story. All the more essential to make these super creative, informative and entertaining, all at the same time. Mix in videos to make these posts more interactive. You can run brand stories, caption contests, product reviews etc. in carousel formats and build brand image over time.
6. Memes
‘In today’s times, you are truly successful if a meme is based on you!’ That being the penultimate goal for your brand, your Insta account can certainly get quirky with hilarious memes, once in a while. Posting a perfect product vertical at all times can bring in drudgery. Break it with funny memes that followers will like, share, comment on or even re-post!
7. Post solid content consistently
Once the funny bone quotient is tapped regularly, the macro-level Content Development remains the King! Post content that adds value for your users. Collate unique, informative content that simultaneously becomes a pleasurable and high-value read for the user. Incorporate eye-catching infographics or charts and graphs that make data grasping, easy. Get creative with technical posts to avoid dry reads and keep the audience engaged till the end of the post. A CTA helps you assess this user engagement and helps you build a target audience profile. You can eventually gauge the prototype who is likely to become a buyer.
8. Collaboration with industry influencers
Have a healthy mélange of inward and an outward approach. While constantly analyzing your own Insta gimmicks, pay attention to other accounts too. Observe the tactics that similar brands are employing and understand their follower base. Try and tap the biggest fish in the sea – the industry influencers!
Try and collaborate with industry influencers and get featured in their posts. This catapults your audience reach in no time. Co-create content with them for a stronger partnership to benefit from their loyal fan base.
9. Instagram live feeds
Instagram is all about talking to your followers, like literally! Show up with a live feed as live streams are extremely popular amongst loyal users. This is a more immersive interaction and makes your followers feel more engaged. Viewers can ask queries, pop-in ideas, share opinions and give a critique on your product verticals. Some ideas for Insta live –
- FAQ sessions
- Talk with industry experts
- Sneak peek into a product about to be launched
- Existing industry trends
- Grievance redressals
