Introduction
Did you know that more than 140 million Brazilians are present on digital media? That figure represents around 60% of the population. So, how about getting to know the best practices for increasing your engagement on Instagram?
Today Instagram has become one of the most widely used social networks, including by many companies. The secret of this social network is engagement, the best metric for obtaining good results organically.
Instagram has enormous engagement potential, around 10 times that of Facebook and up to 84 times more than Twitter! With the growth of this network, actions and interactions on the app have increased, causing positive results for various types of businesses.
But what is engagement anyway?
Engagement is the most important metric within Instagram today, it works as a thermometer that determines whether your publications and posts are interesting and generate followers' involvement with your content.
Without engagement, posts lose visibility and delivery, and all the effort to produce content can be in vain.
But there are ways to improve this interaction and we'll show you how.
What are the types of engagement?
We've listed the possible engagements on Instagram:
- Likes, comments, saves and shares on feed posts;
- Time spent in the timeline stopping at posts in the feed - the more time spent on a post, the more Instagram understands that content to be of value, because people are consuming what has been posted.
- Sending messages in direct.
- Responses and interactions in stories - how to react, answer quizzes, polls, send questions.
- Send stories and perform actions such as holding the screen to view or "dragging up" and browsing the content.
And how to increase engagement?
First of all, always use the profile in "business" mode to access metrics, analyze the best days and times for your posts and really understand who your target audience is. These metrics are available in the Information" tab tab, where you can extract data related to your audience's interaction.
Establish dialog and connection with your audience! People want to be part of the brand, to feel a sense of belonging. Be genuine and genuinely interested in your customers. Use Instagram to create needs, be a reference, dialog with your audience, gain market insights, increase your brand's visibility and evolve your digital reach.
Be willing to deliver and receive responses from your users. Share content that is aligned with your company's objectives and values. Offer valuable content that stimulate interaction and comments, ask your followers questions, encourage tagging of friends, for example.
Customer experience is key, so share positive feedback and pay attention to possible complaints about your product. Don't forget to keep up the frequency of your posts.
Example "in practice": For fashion e-commerces some content that can be worked on: looks for each type of occasion, doing fitting rooms with the pieces, talking about the history of the brand and collaborators, doing a battle of products and styles in the stories' polls, sharing customers wearing the brand's looks, showing the day-to-day of the brand, production process, care of the pieces.
Test Formats to find out what increases your Engagement
Use the tools that Instagram makes available to stimulate interaction between users, such as question boxes, quizzes and polls. IGTV and Reels are also new positions that have excellent delivery and reach.
Use all formats to distribute your content to different users and to understand what brings the best results for your account. Once you've found the best positioning combinations, you'll be much more assertive in your publications.
Don't forget to reply comments on posts, especially in the first few minutes after publication to improve your engagement and show connection with your audience... But don't limit yourself to the feed, reply to messages coming from direct to keep your audience active and informed.
Reposting posts that customers have bookmarked is a good way to connect with customers and acts as social proof, bringing credibility to your product or service.
Produce content in carousel format, they are great allies for Instagram engagement, because the more time the user spends in the timeline stopped on a post, Instagram sees it as a valuable post.
Longer captions in the feed and longer texts in stories help increase time on profile and consequently engagement. When a user holds down the screen to pause the 15 seconds of stories, they are showing more interest in the content.
Add location to photos and videos in the feed are good ways to increase the visibility of content, including using location tags or stickers in stories. Posts with a geotag get up to 79% more engagement than those without.
Tips:
Reels and IGTV are great for sharing stories, tutorials, tips, showing the product.
Lives can be great for product launches and interviews.
Stories are great for sharing behind the scenes, new products and how to use them, broadcasting events, communicating coupons and discounts and sharing the brand in action on a daily basis, interacting with customers and extracting information through polls and question boxes.
In the feed you should share your product, customer experience, create your brand personality and production process.
Creating a brand hashtag is an excellent way to encourage customers to use it and feel part of the brand's universe.
What not to do?
Avoid using unofficial automation apps, they go against Instagram's guidelines, Instagram can penalize your profile and compromise your engagement.
Also be careful with hashtags! Use hashtags from your industry but don't overdo it and be careful because some hashtags can get you banned from the platform... #sextou is a hashtag that can get you banned, for example.
Platform management
There are various platforms to make it easier for you to manage and analyze Instagram and other social networks. Platforms such as Mlabs e Etuswhich allow you to program and schedule posts and extract reports.
There are also several platforms for market analysis and digital growth, such as Social Blade. To facilitate the selection of brand ambassadors, there are digital influencer search engines such as Up Fluence e Influency.me.
Conclusion
Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social networks in the world and is gaining more and more users and visibility. Engagement is the most important metric on this platform and there are many ways to use Instagram to your brand's advantage.
Instagram is the perfect platform for establishing a dialog and connection with your audience. The app offers many tools and formats for distributing content and stimulating interaction between users.
Make your audience part of your brand, be genuinely interested in your customers and provide valuable content in line with your company's objectives and values. Keep posting frequently and be attentive to user feedback and messages.
But don't limit yourself to just one social media, there are several platforms where you can share the same content, but adapting the language. Just make sure that your target audience is present on that network.
By following these tips, you'll be ready to increase your engagement and bring your audience closer together!
