So when we talk about increasing engagement on Instagram, the algorithm, like this big question mark and ghost always pops up. So we can't control the algorithm. And as an entrepreneur, building your business on social media, it's always going to be there and it's always going to be changing.
NURTURING OUR AUDIENCE:
So in order for people to buy from you, they have to know, like and trust you. They have to know you exist. You have to get visible in front of them. And then they have to like and trust you, which is going to be a lot more of that intimate experience and part of being on Instagram that's, you know, going down in the DMs and, you know, talking to you in the comments on your posts or really diving into your juicy content.
So engagement is super, super important and going to be the heart and a main daily function that you're going to want to do in order to grow your business.so let's start with your current audience, the people who are already sitting in front of you. A lot of people ignore the people sitting in front of you because we think we just want more and more and more and new leads in front of us. But a lot of times we're not doing adequate engagement for the people in front of us.
REPLY TO EVERY COMMENT:
The first thing that you can do is reply to every comment. So when you have a post that posts, I would go ahead and wait anywhere from 1 to 24 hours and make sure that you are replying to everyone that takes the time to comment to you. These people are some of the most active people that are actually reading and taking the time to comment something to you. So we want to make sure and reciprocate that back.
Going off of that, another thing that we can do is actually engage with the people that comment on our posts as well as the people that watch our stories. So these people are some of your hottest warm leads that we want to make sure that we are taking that extra step to get in front of and start more of a conversation with. So when I say engage with, what I'm referring to is heading to their account and reciprocating it via liking some of their photos, leaving some genuine comments, maybe swiping up and starting a conversation on their stories or even popping into their DMs.
FIND NEW FOLLOWERS:
Another thing you can do is find your new followers and go ahead and engage with them. So same things when I say engage or what I just mentioned there. But you get notifications every time that you get new followers.
So one little quick note here is I don't necessarily recommend sending a mass generic message about, thank you so much for following me, because to be honest, in 2021, that's been like overdone at this point. But take the time. You're not going to able to do it to every new follower, but take the time to see who that person is, do a little research onto their account and send them something genuine.
POST POLLS AND DIFFERENT ENGAGEMENT STICKERS:
Another way that you can get your current audience more engaged is to post polls and different engagement stickers on your story. So there are so many different ways to utilize your stories in so many different engagement stickers.
But in general, in order to increase your engagement, make sure that you're using these. For example, you could post a poll on your story. And not only will people actually be clicking on it to boost your engagement, but also we could take it a step further and actually DM the people that respond to that story or that poll in order to start a conversation. Now DMing people is one thing that the algorithm looks for in order to determine the relationship and likability of your content and you as an account.
So this is going to naturally boost those specific people to be able to see your stuff more and tell the Instagram algorithm that you have quality content and quality conversations with people. Which leads me to the last way for you to engage with your current audience, which actually is DMs. So like I was saying, a big part of the algorithm is based on relationships.
CONTACT WITH PEOPLE:
It wants to show you content and show your audience content that you like, And it wants to show you people that you like and that they like And so part of how the space is, if you are not only liking a photo or commenting on a photo, but if you're having a conversation with someone in the DMs, that's almost like the highest quality flag that you can give the algorithm too. Like, Hey, me and this person have things in common. We like talking to each other.
We want to see each other's content more. So what you can do is be very intentional about this. And if you want other people to see your content, ideal client followers that you've found, then guess what? Instead of just hoping that they continue to see your stuff, make the initiative, start the DM conversations with them. And I promise you, the more that you DM each other, the more they're going to pop up on the top of your feed and you're going to pop up on the top of theirs.
ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES:
Engagement strategies, which is focused on building a new audience and getting in front of new people. So one engagement strategy that we can use is engaging on niche hashtags within your industry. So, for example, I'm a business coach, so I might go to some business coach hashtags and I might be scrolling through there to look for new people in order to get in front of and then I will engage with those people's accounts.
Again, this can involve liking, commenting, sending them a DM or swiping up on their stories. Just make sure that whatever you do, you're actually spending the time to do quality over quantity.Another little hack for you, and this one is probably one of my favorites, is to go to other people within your industry or they could be even bigger names within your industry and look at the people who are commenting on their most recent photos.
Because, again, people who comment are the most warm, active followers. So if you're looking for new people, we also want active people to be new people following us. So you might go to someone else in your industry that you see as a leader. Look at their recent ones, look at the commenters on their recent posts and use that as a list of people to engage with yourself.
TAG STORY'S TO PEOPLE:
The third way to get in front of new audiences is to tag people in your stories. Now, please, before anyone goes and does this, do not tag random people in your stories. That is a quick way to get blocked or banned or have someone mad at you. What I mean by this is tag people that you know and that it wouldn't be weird for you to tag in your story.
So I might have my friend and maybe we hopped on a call together or maybe she had a post that I really liked and I might tag her my stories. And what that does is now it shows my audience her content. So it's getting in front of others. And hopefully I'm going to have other people do the same for me when we tag each other in their stories. And naturally, I'm now getting in front of a new trusted audience.
REELS:
The next way to increase engagement on your account is reels. I'm sure you were waiting for this one. But reels are the new hot thing on Instagram. They've been around for a while now and they are sticking around. And whether you love him or hate him, reels are huge in helping you gain reach in front of new audiences and also boosting your engagement.
So if you're curious about reels, Now, I've got two more strategies for you. So the second to last one is to create shareable content.
your content really is at the heart and soul of all of these engagement strategies. We do simply want people to like and comment on our content. But if your content is not quality, all of these engagement strategies you're doing to bring people back to your account- the plant's falling in. So all these engagement strategies that you're doing to bring people back to your account is not going to be worth anything if the content we are creating isn't resonating with them and it's not quality.
So before I even go into this tactic, I want you to make sure that you're really putting good effort and doing your market research to create quality content. And if you're looking for some more inspiration and ideas to create really quality content, you can right here where I talk about all of my top ways for you to come up with content ideas. Now, my actual tip for you here is to create shareable and savable content.
These two actions also signal the Instagram algorithm that you've created quality content and it's going to instruct it to show it to more people, just like likes and comments. So the best thing about creating shareable content in particular is that if people are sharing it, just like tagging in Instagram stories, you're now getting in front of new audiences, as well as signalling to boost your engagement.
HASTAGS:
So make sure that you're using hashtags in your posts, because while this might not be an action that you're having to do every single day, hashtags are still a very relevant and great strategy to increase visibility. And the more that your hashtags are targeted and start to resonate and start to rank you within those hashtags, the more engagement you're going to get, the more visibility and people are going to see your posts and it continues to fuel this positive cycle.
Now, before I get to my bonus tip for you, I wanted to tell you the five things that, no matter what from all of these strategies, are going to be key to all of this creating the results that you want it to make. So no matter what you do, if you just do all of these strategies for one day, it's not going to create the results that you want to actually grow your account and your reach.
Because we don't just want anyone to follow us. We don't just want to engage for the sake of engaging. We're business owners. We want ideal client followers to be following us, seeing our content and working through that sales process to reach a point of sale.
SPECIFIC OR NICHE:
If I'm a business coach and I start engaging on e-commerce hashtags and finding e-commerce people in order to follow, well, I don't necessarily serve e-commerce based businesses. So even if that boosts my engagement a little bit, it's not going to increase into sales.
So that's really one little lesson for you here, is don't get wrapped up in the engagement in the numbers and the metrics. They do matter to a certain point. But at the end of the day, our goal is sales. So we want to make sure that all the actions that we're doing are very, very focused on sales and leading to your offers in your industry and your niche.
GOOD QUALITY CONTENT:
I already talked about this a little bit before, but all these engagement tactics aren't actually going to do anything if they come back to your profile and there's no good quality content there to speak to them and hook them in and get them to know, like and trust you.
And the last here for you is to be intentional. So, again, like I was saying before, we want to be intentional with who we're engaging with, with how we're engaging, with making sure that we're representing our business and really reaching out to build relationships with people via all of these strategies and get visible via all these strategies.
LITTLE BONUS TIP:
Little bonus tip for you that is one of the simplest engagement strategies and doesn't require you to necessarily do anything new and crazy is to engage, which could be any of the things that we've mentioned. But engage when your post posts.
So the reason this is so great is because when you engage, when your post posts, you're starting to boost all of that engagement and getting people to click on your profile and respond to you back. So there's this reciprocity happening and all of a sudden your post posts and you've got all this activity on your account, which is then going to boost your post to start to be seen to more people.
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