Instagram engagement rate: why and how to increase it?
The Instagram engagement rate is one of the keys to the social network’s algorithm. It’s important to increase your engagement rate on the platform to boost your visibility. Influence4You will explain why and how to increase it.
Why is engagement on Instagram important?
We can’t say it enough: Instagram is above all a social network! The key is the connection between Internet users: sharing, exchange, emotion, and therefore engagement.
The more engagement your profile receives on Instagram, the more Instagram’s algorithm is going to remember that your profile generates interest. Your profile will be considered interesting by the social network and it’ll be presented to other users on the Explore page and suggested in searches.
There’s no need to obsess over followers. It’s better to have very few followers and a really engaged community than a lot of followers who never interact with your posts.
So what’s a good engagement rate on Instagram?
The average engagement rate on Instagram is 2.84% and varies by follower count. Here are the stats for healthy, normal engagement on Instagram.
- Nano influencers (less than 5K subscribers): 5.6%
- Micro influencers (between 5K and 100K): 2.29%
- Macro influencers (between 100K and 1M): 2.05%
- Celebrities (over 1M): 1.97%
This means that if you have 10,000 followers, you should have an average of about 229 interactions with each post on the social network. An interaction is a like, comment, share or bookmark. Very often, nano influencers and those with a very small community will generate an engagement rate of up to 10%! These are great results, showing that your content is rich, that your community is active and paying attention to you.
Brands use tools to measure the engagement rates of the influencers they hire, and if you want to forge partnerships and thus monetize your Instagram account you’ll really need a high engagement rate. It’s this initial engagement that will also allow you to build a healthy, engaged audience and grow your community as you post.
How do you increase your engagement rate on Instagram?
Be original
Your photos and your content must be original (no previously seen photos, photos from image banks … etc.) and must elicit emotion! It’s best to include a call to action for each post. For example, you can include a call for comments on your post, ask an open question, try to start a conversation … etc. The idea is to retain the user and make them want to interact with your post without swiping to the next one.
In a world where content is so rich and varied, yours must make a difference. Stand out from the crowd.
Talk about your specialty, your passion. Become an expert in a sector, so your voice will count among all the others and you’ll have a real added value allowing you to prevail over time but also to increase both your number of followers on Instagram and your engagement rate at the same time.
Exploit all the content possibilities on Instagram
Instagram offers a world of possibilities between posts, reels and stories. Did you know that the latter accumulate over 400 million views per day worldwide? The fact that they are fleeting can push the user to not want to miss anything and to check out each of the stories of the people they follow. Don’t hesitate to make lots of stories, they have a much higher engagement rate!
Be present and active on the platform
Don’t give in to the temptation of automation tools offered by many websites. Spend some time interacting with the community on Instagram yourself. Your own, but also those who might like your profile or your product.
Don’t hesitate to create a typical profile of a user who might follow you and do some research. Do you offer makeup tutorials? Why not search for profiles interested in beauty, skincare, makeup. You could, for example, find out what these people are doing, like their photos, interact with them.
It’s a good idea to ask your community which posts they prefer. Ask them what their favorite content is or what they’d like to see more of. Take for example the make-up artist Andrea Ali.
In one of her posts, she directly asks her community whether they’d prefer to see more makeup tutorials, product reviews or makeup tips. The post received over 800 comments, from a very active community.
Regarding your already established community, it’s also very important to encourage interaction, by creating posts with open questions, leaving room for discussion, exchange, comments, etc. You’ll also need to know your audience. Who are your most loyal subscribers? Those who like your posts almost all the time, those who send you messages very often or leave comments almost every time. Feel free to take a moment and check out their profiles, so you can perhaps understand who they are and what they like.
The Instagram algorithm will then understand that you generate engagement, that people are communicating with you, that your account is active, that you’re sharing. You’ll naturally be promoted in searches and on the platform, and you’ll develop your business organically.
Be consistent
You’ve got to post regularly! Why’s that? Because if you disappear for several weeks, Instagram’s algorithm will have completely forgotten you. Even your followers will not see your posts anymore. It’ll then be very difficult to get back to your previous level and generate engagement.
If you’re worried about not having time to post regularly, don’t hesitate to use tools to plan all your posts in advance, like Preview or Hootsuite. There are a lot of tools to make your life easier on social networks which we’ve talked about it in our article ’10 tools for influencers’.
Post at times when your audience is likely to see you
To generate maximum engagement, it’s essential to post at times when your audience and social media users in general are most connected. This way, the content will appear on their news feed, or in the Explore section. Posting at a very inopportune moment will generate very little interaction as your post may be lost among many others. Influence4You reveals all you need to know about the best times to post on Instagram here.
Hold contests
Do you already partner with brands as an influencer? Excellent! Then it’s time to organize a contest! This is arguably one of the most successful ways to not only engage your community on Instagram, but also gain more followers through shares and the effective use of hashtags.
Choose a very simple system if possible that allows you to boost engagement like through liking the post, following the account, tagging someone in the comments to have more chances to win … the possibilities are endless and the results clear as social media users are always looking for free products. You can easily promote your contest by sponsoring your post or sharing it on other social networks.
An example of a contest that was met with huge success is that of the French blogger Noholita who organized a contest event with 5 other bloggers to win Louis Vuitton bags worth a total of 20,000 euros. Her contest post was commented on by more than 70,000 people and she gained a lot of followers. Obviously this is an exceptional contest, but contests work in most cases even with smaller prizes.
Tip: Don’t forget to post the results of the contest on your account and congratulate the winner. Social media users need to be able to follow up and know the result of the contest in a transparent way.
Get informed
Stay informed of all the trends on social networks. Be aware of potential challenges or popular posts so you can take part, respond and boost engagement as well. Follow other influencers in your field, see what engages their community and get inspired!
Don’t hesitate to read all of Influence4You’s articles to stay informed and get valuable tips to develop your audience, your engagement and your account.
