If you are using Instagram for business, and you already know it’s more than just a place to save your cutest product photos. It’s an effective tool for building your brand and cultivating an online audience. With more than one billion people using Instagram every month, it’s a platform with significant ROI potential. But, in order to get the benefits, you need more than just an audience: you do also need engagement.
You need comments, shares, likes, and other actions to demonstrate that your content is resonating with those who see it. Importantly, engagement is only valuable when it is genuine — when it comes from real people who genuinely care. But the question here arises is how to grow engagement on Instagram account in 2022.
You won’t find any advice here on how to join an “engagement group” or “engagement pod,” or how to buy likes or anything of the sort. The truth is, that doesn’t work. (We should be aware! We attempted it!). The truth is that there is no shortcut to high-quality engagement. What you put into social media is what you get out of it.
So you put in the effort to write a great post, spark a conversation, and connect authentically with your followers. The advantages will undoubtedly follow. Continue to read for tried-and-true strategies to make an impression on your Instagram audience and to build strong, long-term engagement organically.
How To Grow Engagement On Instagram Account in 2022
What exactly do you mean by when you say “Instagram Engagement”?
Engagement is more than just the number of views or followers you have. It’s all about having a track that how your audience interacts with your content. On Instagram, engagement is measured using a variety of metrics, including:
- Comments \Shares
- Likes \Saves
- Growth and followers
- Mentioned (tagged or untagged)
- Personalized hashtags
- Click-throughs
- DMs
Check out our full list of social media metrics and how to track them right here. These kinds of actions show that people aren’t just seeing your content. They’re genuinely interested in what you’re saying.
Why are we concerned about Engagement?
First and foremost, it indicates that your content is having an effect on your audience. (They adore you, they adore you!) Second, high engagement is an important factor in Instagram’s algorithm. The greater the engagement, the more likely the content will be promoted in the newsfeed, attracting more eyes and attention.
How to Calculate Instagram Engagement
Your engagement rate is equal to the amount of interaction social content receives in relation to the number of followers or reach you have. That is, what percentage of those who saw your post actually interacted with it? There are several approaches to arrive at that figure. An engagement rate can be calculated by using impressions, posts, reach, and followers. It all is depending on your social media objectives.
You’ll need access to the previously mentioned metrics. To collect that juicy, juicy data, you can use Instagram’s Insights tool, Hootsuite analytics, RAV.AI, or any of these other great Instagram analytics AI-based services. Once you’ve gathered your data, use one of these Instagram engagement calculators to crunch the numbers and determine your engagement rate. Would you like to learn how to measure engagement on other social media platforms? Here’s how to track social engagement on Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat.
What is an Appropriate Instagram Engagement rate?
Instagram is mum on what constitutes a “good” engagement rate. However, most social media marketing experts agree that strong engagement ranges between 1% and 5%. In addition, many social media teams reported a 4.59 percent average Instagram engagement rate in 2020. As of 2021, the following are the global average Instagram engagement rates for business accounts:
- 0.82 percent of Instagram posts are of this type.
- 0.81 percent of Instagram photo posts
- 0.61 percent of posts are video.
- 1.01 percent of carousel posts; Carousels are known as the most engaging type of Instagram post on average, as discussed in Tip 4 below.
Infographic depicting average Instagram rates
Your Instagram engagement rate can also be affected by the number of followers you have. As of 2021, the following are the average engagement rates per number of followers of Instagram business accounts:
- 1.18 percent have fewer than 10,000 followers.
- 0.94 percent of those with 10,000 to 100,000 followers
- 0.74 percent is greater than 100,000 percent.
Generally, the more followers you have, the less engagement you will receive.
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Follower Engagement rates on Instagram
Are you curious about the levels of engagement on other social networks? More performance benchmarking data can be found in RAV. AI Blogs.
Useful Tips for increasing Instagram Engagement
1. Get to know your Audience
It’s difficult to create great content if you don’t know who you’re creating it for. The demographics related to your target audience will influence the type of content you post, your brand voice, and even the days and times which you are publishing. For example, the offbeat indie clothing label Fashion Brand Company caters to people with a strong sense of humor, which is reflected in both its product offerings and the tone of its posts. Check out the guide to conducting audience research for more information on identifying your target audience.
2. Go for Authenticity
On social media, being genuine and relatable is preferable to being flawlessly polished. Share content that may go beyond your slick marketing campaign to introduce your brand’s real people and experiences.
This could include sharing behind-the-scenes footage in an Instagram story, writing a caption with a cheeky sense of humor, or accepting responsibility for any mistakes. This meme shared by A Practical Wedding received thousands of shares and comments from viewers who found the less-than-perfect joke about wedding culture to be extremely relatable. Audiences value honesty over perfection… after all, don’t you think?
3. Share Eye-catching Images
Instagram is, if you haven’t noticed, a visual medium. While you don’t have to be the next Annie Leibovitz to thrive on the platform, creating images that stand out from the news feed is essential. Even if you’re not a great photographer or graphic designer, there are a plethora of tools available to assist you in giving your photo a little extra oomph. You can edit photos directly in RAV.AI by adding text and filters. Alternatively, you may use other apps to take your Instagram posts to the next level.
4. Post carousels
Once you’ve mastered the art of creating eye-catching images, experiment with carousels. Carousels, or Instagram posts with multiple images, are an excellent way to increase engagement. (And, by chance, we have some lovely Instagram Carousel templates right here!) Many social teams discover that carousel posts receive 3.1x more engagement than regular posts. Furthermore, carousels have the highest average engagement rate of any type of Instagram post globally (1.01 percent ). It could be because the algorithm re-serves these types of posts to followers who didn’t engage the first time, giving them a second or third chance to make an impression.
5. Share Video Content
Video is both visually appealing and engaging. So engaging, in fact, that video posts receive approximately 38% more engagement than images. Carly Rae Jepsen shares some images from a new photoshoot set to music in this video. How can you turn your gaze away?!
Don’t overthink it: video content doesn’t have to be perfectly polished or edited. (Recall the earlier “authenticity” tip?) Shoot it now, give it a quick edit, and get it out there. There are a plethora of tools available to assist you in combining scenes, adding music or text, and downloading a free or paid video editing app. InShot and Magisto are excellent choices, but there are plenty more offering AI-based services such as RAV.AI.
6. Create Compelling Captions
A picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand words are worth a thousand words as well. Instagram captions can contain up to 2,200 characters and up to 30 hashtags. Make use of them! Captions add context and highlight the personality of your brand. Nike’s caption tells a compelling story and invites followers to share their own in the comments. Get our advice on how to write the perfect caption on RAV.AI’s official website.
7. Make Content that can be Saved
Creating reference material that your audience will want to save in their Collections can also help you gain some engagement. So You Want to Talk About’s Instagram account creates easy-to-understand reference material on a variety of complex topics, which is ideal for saving in a Collection or Story Highlight. To encourage users to return to this content later, include a “Save this post” call-to-action in a carousel post with tips, how-to guides, or recipe videos.
8. Go live
Using Instagram Live through stream live video is an excellent way to connect with users, share news, and increase engagement. Apparently, 80 percent of viewers would rather watch a live stream than read a blog post. Give ’em exactly what they want! With Live video, you can answer questions in real-time, greet viewers by their name, and then generally welcome your audience into your world in an intimate and engaging manner. If you want, you can also use Instagram’s new Live Shopping feature to build an e-commerce audience.
9. Create Enticing Content
Posting product photos every day will get old after a while. Change things up with a varied content schedule. Contests, polls, questions, and quizzes break up the monotony and directly encourage your audience to participate and be active. For example, Hi Alyssa Comics held a custom card giveaway to commemorate a follower milestone and prompted users to share and then interact with the post.
10. Distribute Audience Content
It’s tempting to think of your Instagram account as a one-way street, but social media is a two-way street. When fans contact you, make sure you’re listening and engaging with them.
Reposting or sharing audience content is an excellent way to accomplish this. Toss that post up in your story if someone tags your tequila brand in a post about an out-of-control Margarita Monday. In its own Instagram Stories, the Las Culturistas podcast shared listener compliments on its 12 Days of Culture holiday countdown. A shout-out within a shout-out, sort of like a mini-Story Inception.
Bottom Line
As you can see, there are a number of things you can do to increase your Instagram engagement. Try out some of these tips and see which ones work best for you. And if you want to take your marketing efforts to the next level, be sure to check out Rav.ai – the first AI-based video editing service that will help you create stunning videos that capture attention and drive results. With Rav.ai, it’s easy to add creative touches that will make your content stand out from the crowd and increase your Instagram engagement. So what are you waiting for? Sign up today and start creating videos that engage and inspire your audience!
