Instagram is a great place for businesses to post content and make their audience aware of new products and services. It’s also a great place to interact and engage with their audience but starting engagement and improving it are two different things entirely.
There are several ways to increase and improve the engagement your company keeps with its customer base. Instagram comes equipped with many different analytical and technical assessments which can be studied and used to garner a greater audience and keep your current customers satisfied and ready to buy. Here are six ways to improve engagement metrics on Instagram.
- Change up your content types and formats
- Create an aesthetically pleasing and consistent profile
- Always tell a connective and intimate story
Find Out What Content Works for You
One of the cool things about Instagram as a platform is the many different ways you can post content. For example, you can post content in the form of single-image posts, carousel posts, IGTV, Instagram Reel, and Instagram Stories. With so many different types and formats to post in, you should never settle on just one or assume what your customers want to see.
Take some time to experiment and mix up the layouts you post in. Diversifying content types will clearly illustrate which of your customers prefer which method of communication, but it’s impossible to know this without first trying to post in different types of formats. Each type of format will also highlight different components of an experience or product as well.
Set a Schedule
Some companies find themselves overwhelmed with the amount of time and energy it takes to post to their social media accounts. Many companies solve this issue by hiring a social media manager, but even these employees can cross wires and post inconsistently, which will not improve your engagement or Instagram presence. One simple fix to this problem is to set a schedule and know exactly what you’re posting and when.
Different times of the day and week usually produce different results in terms of engagement and interaction. For example, the weekend is often the best time to post announcements and give your customer base something to look forward to during the week. Instagram has a variety of analytics which will tell you exactly when your posts are receiving attention, so make sure to check them out when deciding your schedule.
Aim For Aesthetic Consistency
Instagram, more so than any other social media platform, is a visual platform. Your company will quickly find, or has found, that posting images and videos will usually garner the most attention and interaction with fans. This is great because people are primed to experience visuals more than ever, but there’s also an important component to consider.
Your company should do everything in its power to post consistent images which create a holistic feeling within the viewer. Many brands are focused on using a consistent and predetermined color palate when they post because it helps create and bolster brand unity while also being pleasing to look at. This type of visual brand synergy goes a long way on Instagram and other social media sites.
Elongate Your Captions
It’s easy to think of Instagram captions as short, sweet, and to the point. This is sometimes the best route to go, but analytics and research has shown that engagement is actually improved by writing longer and more detailed captions on your Instagram posts. It can be contradictory to think about, but audiences and customers want a story with their posts, which means your captions should be longer and create a narrative.
Customers spend a longer time on posts with longer captions, leading to increased engagement on the site and a greater chance of others seeing your posts. You can experiment with the exact lengths of your posts, but don’t be afraid to make them longer and bolder than usual. It’s been discovered that the optimal number of words for an Instagram post is around sixty-five to seventy, far more than previously thought.
Always Tell a Story
In the same vein, your Instagram account shouldn’t exist just to sell customers on your products and tell them about features and services you provide. The goal of any Instagram account is to tell stories and inspire customers and followers. This can be achieved with a mixture of text, pictures, and video, and varying up the type of posts you make in addition to the format of such posts.
People today are starved for connection and intimacy, and your brand can fill that void in their lives through storytelling and posts which connect on a personal or emotional level. When customers connect with your posts, they’re much more likely to buy from your company and recommend both your brand and your Instagram account to others in their lives.
Measure and Track
Finally, all of this advice is worthless if you don’t measure and track your results. There are many ways to measure and track your content, as Instagram offers companies a number of analytical tools. You can gauge which type of format, type, and length of posts are engaging customers most effectively and gear your account toward producing more of these types of posts.
You can also determine how effective user-generated content is for your account and encourage your customers to post more of their own thoughts on your account. Watch and record your observations for weeks to a month at a time to determine what works best for your brand.