How to Increase Instagram Engagement Organically

Instagram is still one of the leading visual social media networks out there.

And, it can be such a huge source of growth if you know how to leverage your audience.

However, the challenge isn’t just getting enough followers, it’s also getting those followers to engage.

In this guide, we’ll dive into how to increase Instagram engagement organically.

It’s All About the Value You Bring

Are you posting for the sake of posting?

Or are you doing this to help enrich people’s lives?

Think about that for a minute.

On social media platforms like Instagram, it pays to be mindful about what you post.

Let’s look at a quick example.

Sometimes you want to post about a company achievement, and while that’s great and all, you need to have a purpose for the post. Is it just you trying to get your ego in the way and show off or are you really doing this to inspire other people?

You want to be in a position to add value every step of the way.

Notice how the most popular influencers always elicit a response from their crowd?

It’s because with each post, you know they’re providing content that not only resonates with their audience but also inspires them to take action.

It could be glam shots that contribute to art, achievements that motivate or even little glimpses into everyday life that help humble people who follow you.

All of this adds value.

Here’s the B2B Instagram guide for growth hackers!

Post According to Your Audience

If you’re posting value then you’ve got one-half of the engagement equation down.

What’s next is that you need to make sure that it’s what your audience wants.

If you were a fashion blogger and you started posting tips on how to use LinkedIn, would your audience be engaged?

Maybe, a little bit, perhaps.

But, it won’t be your niche and it most likely would not perform well.

This is why you need to determine your ideal customer profile before you get yourself in trouble.

Active Users Get More Engagements

Building a steady stream of engagement is highly dependent on how active you are on the platform.

No matter how good your posts are, your followers won’t want to stay engaged with you if you’re not delivering consistently on value.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you should post daily, but you should at least aim for two posts a week to get the ball rolling.

You’ll find that it is easier to build an audience this way as people are attracted to activity on the platform.

You Need a CTA

Do you want people to do something about your post?

Then, tell – or ask – them what to do.

That’s exactly what a CTA does.

It could be anything from telling them to like the post or share it with their friends, or engagement building such as, “Tell us what you think!”

Now, this is not something that you constantly want to do on Instagram, but it’s something that you can do every now and then.

The reason it works is the fact that people need opinions, and your job as a growth hacker is to encourage them to voice out their opinions so everyone shares value with each other.

Get Them to Comment!

It doesn’t have to be anything long, it could be something as simple as an emoji.

Plus, the easier the task you’re getting them to do, the more likely it is they’ll want to do it.

Engage With Your Audience

Your immediate audience – followers – will form a bulk of the engagement that you get on Instagram, and that’s why it is critical that you’re always engaged in active conversions with them.

The main way you can interact with them is through tagging or comments on your post.

You want to make sure that you reply to as many comments as possible, especially comments that can keep the conversation running.

But, there are times when you can draw a line.

If you’ve got thousands of comments about your post, or if you find that the comments are rude, you don’t necessarily have to engage.

However, you still have the duty to engage with people whose comments add value to what you’re doing.

Capitalize on Omnichannel and Multidimensional Marketing

Your entire marketing strategy should be capitalizing on multiple channels to push toward growth. This means you need a unified message regardless of where you’re putting your message out.

A prospect could check out your offer on LinkedIn, see your visuals on Instagram, and then later close the deal on your website.

This makes the process seamless and at the same time gets you more engagements.

You can also easily promote your other channels making everything link together!

Post at The Right Time

Another factor that is going to affect the number of initial engagements that you get is the timing.

And, there are a lot of factors at play.

First of all, you want to take a look at the general times to post on Instagram. There are your usual guidelines like weekends get a lot of traffic and don’t post in the middle of the night, but more than that you want to take it a step further and take a look at your ideal customer profiles.

You’ll see that depending on the demographic that you’re aiming for, there will be subtle differences in their app usage.

You then blend these details with the different timezones you’re trying to cater to. If you live on the west coast, you will have to adjust to customers that live on the east and so on.

The first few hours of your post are critical, on any social media platform, they determine how your post is going to do in the long run because there is some engagement velocity involved.

The more a post is engaged in the beginning the higher the likelihood that it will garner attention moving forward.

When’s the best time to post on Instagram? Take a look at our guide here.

Tag People

Always tag people.

You can tag them in the post itself.

Say, if you have a top fan that you want to recognize or if you’re trying to get them to reply to a comment.

However, don’t just stop there

Get people to start tagging each other whenever possible.

This increase the surface area of your reach.

You want to do this by adding a little social pressure, encouragement to share value with a friend or providing an incentive through a CTA.

User-Generated Content Works

Do you want to really involve your audience?

Then, get them to participate using user-generated content.

You can start a poll, contest, or encourage submissions and repost the graphics that your audience submits to you.

The result is an audience that participates and is more likely to engage in the future because you chose to include them in what you’re doing.

This is also a useful technique to use if you’re running out of content ideas because it involves getting people to create the content for you.

Takeaways on How to Increase Instagram Engagement Organically

Getting people to engage isn’t something you can automate.

Even if you could, it wouldn’t do much to improve your campaigns.

What you need to do is create organic campaigns that take advantage of real connections.

This helps you create a following that’s sustainable and builds momentum in the long run.

That’s the aim of every growth hacker.