Unlocking Instagram Success: Top Tips for Social Media Engagement

With more online traffic and more places to interact than ever before, it’s also more important than ever to be smart about how you reach the right people. Despite having been around for a long time, Instagram is still prime real estate for doing just that.

It’s easy to get lost in the noise, though, so how do you set yourself apart — especially as a full-time content creator? No one wants to get bonked for being a [brand], so we’re here to share five tried and true Instragam engagement tips for getting that sweet, sweet engagement.

What Is Instagram Engagement?

Engagement is the blanket term for any interaction a person has with a piece of content. The specific terms for engagement metrics vary from platform to platform and include things like likes, shares, views, and so on. Instagram engagement refers to likes, comments, shares, saves, and replies. In the case of Instagram Stories, views are also considered engagement.

Why Does Instagram Engagement Matter?

Ultimately, Instagram engagement is a measure of how often people interact with your content — not merely see it. With the prevalence of doom scrolling and short-form content seeking to capture increasingly shorter attention spans, getting some to stop and take action comes at a huge premium.

Obviously, bonus points if that action leads to a key event (like a conversion) for your business, but even getting engagement in the first place is a north star that should be followed. If you can harness the content that elicits reactions from people, you can continue to build their trust, and — eventually — win them over as customers.

How Do I Calculate My Instagram Engagement Rate?

Calculating your Instagram engagement rate is easy. Simply take the total number of engagements for a piece of content and divide it by 100 to get your engagement rate:

Engagement rate = (total engagements) x 100

As a refresher on what metrics are included in engagement:

Standard posts

• Likes
• Comments
• Shares
• Saves

Instagram Stories and Reels

• Likes
• Comments
• Shares
• Saves
• Story replies
• Reel replays

Now for the Good Stuff: Tips for Increasing Your Instagram Engagement

Now that we’ve had a refresher on what engagement even means these days, why it’s critical, and how to calculate it, let’s get to the good stuff. Here are five tips for taking your IG engagement to the next level.

1. Find your niche (and your audience)

You gotta find your people — in life and on Instagram. If you’re trying to grow an Instagram presence, discovering a good niche to operate in will help you hone the way you create content.

This comes from gaining an understanding of who you’re trying to reach, how they like to be engaged online, what they want/need, when they’re most likely to be interested, and why they would be engaging with your content in the first place. See a pattern here?

Start by thinking about what content really delights you, and go from there. If a post makes you go “ooh” and stop scrolling, note why. Chances are, if you’re reacting to it, there’s something at play that you can use in your own content.

How do I start?

Thought experiment time! Let’s develop a buyer persona. Sit down with a blank doc, set a timer for 10 minutes, and start writing about who you’re trying to reach. Consider what they like to do, what age they might be, other accounts you can see them following, and even things like the language they use or memes they like. 

Pretend you’re trying to describe your friend and be as specific as possible. Once you do this, try referencing it when you post. Would this friend laugh at what I’m about to write? Would they watch this Reel again and want to know more?

2. Take full advantage of IG tools

Long gone are the days when you could snap a square photo with a poorly placed vignette, slap 55 hashtags on it, and call it good. There are so many tools out there now, and more are being created every day.

On Instagram, we have content types like Stories and Reels as well as interactive features like Stickers that lead to higher engagement. After all, when you ask a question, someone wants to answer it, right? (Got ya.)

Stickers can add polls, questions, music, links, quizzes, countdowns — you name it. Use them liberally since they add some richness to an otherwise flat post, and they let people interact with your content in more ways than just liking and commenting.

How do I start?

Storytime! Stories are easy to set up, they are short, and they allow you to be active without having to craft posts that will live on your grid until the end of time (ok, that’s dramatic, but you get it). Get into the habit of putting up a Story whenever something sparks your interest.

It’s ok if it isn’t an absolute banger since they only live for 24 hours, and this means you can freely experiment to see what gets a response. Practice adding links and other Stickers to your Stories, and also use this as a way to get more experience with short-form video so you can start making those sweet, sweet Reels.

3. Create a posting framework that works for you

All the tips in the world won’t help if you aren’t posting consistently. This means finding a timing and cadence that works for you — both how often you find it doable to post and the times that your audience is most likely to be scrolling. Even the most interesting content in the world isn’t gonna do much if it goes up at the witching hour.

Posting in the morning (6-9 a.m.) catches early risers, people having their morning coffee, and folks on the way to work. Posting in the early afternoon (12-3 p.m.) gets people who are browsing at lunchtime, and posting in the evening (6-10 p.m.) will get you people who are done with the day and are now scrolling to their heart’s content.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t post at other times of day. Social media is 24/7/365, but hitting these windows will give you a nice boost in initial engagement to give your content some much-needed momentum. You may also discover there are unexpected windows when your audience is active. Not only is that ok, but it’s also a valuable piece of info to add to your buyer persona.

How do I start?

Set a schedule and stick to it for a week. Choose one of those windows and make an effort to put out a piece of content each day during that time, and don’t forget to use relevant hashtags. This will create the consistency that your audience can expect and help you learn how often it’s realistic for you to post. Maybe once a day feels easy, maybe you have more info to share than you thought, or maybe you don’t even need to post once a day yet and can instead focus on engagement.

4. Do some housekeeping

This is a short one and not very flashy, but it’s insanely important (especially at the beginning). Viral posts that get you featured on the front page are dope, but when people click through to your account, what do they see? Having a well-crafted profile with an easily recognizable username, a crisp bio, and a well-laid-out grid are key to getting (and keeping) attention.

How do I start?

Visit your profile as someone who doesn’t follow you, then as someone who does to compare the experience. Tailor what a first-time visitor would see to get right to the point of your account. If you don’t have a link in your bio to your website or a Linktree, why not? If all someone sees is your bio, ideally they’ll want more info (and have a way to get it).

5. Embrace community content

Whether it’s trends, memes, or user-generated content, there’s a nearly infinite amount of things happening online whether you’re posting or not. Something might blow up one night and be done a week later, so work to ID these opportunities and get in on the action.

Interacting with existing content in your niche is a goldmine for engaging with people you want on your profile between posting of your own. You also get major bonus points if the content is especially timely or if it’s created by users in your niche. People love to be recognized, so sharing a piece of content or paying homage to it and tagging the person is sure to win you fans.

How do I start?

When you’re not posting, hit up hashtags, other accounts in your niche, or your Discover page, and just start engaging. It really is that simple. Like peoples’ stuff, comment on things (meaningfully, or people will get the ick), follow accounts that you think would be especially good for this tactic, etc. You’ll get more visibility, you’ll be interacting with people primed to enjoy your content, and over time that effect will drive up your followers. 📈

Putting It All Together: The Road to 1M Followers

Ok, maybe not a million… at first. But we all have to start somewhere, and these Instagram engagement tips are a great place to do it. Cleaning up your profile to be tight and on brand, really speaking to a specific audience, taking full advantage of the tools IG has to offer, and being incredibly consistent will all bear fruit and help your account grow.

For more info on how to grow your Instagram, check out some of our other posts here:

• 7 Instagram Takeover Tips to Maximize Your Results
• 3 Funnels to Grow Instagram Engagement & Leads in 2024