Learn how to boost your Instagram

Learn how to boost your Instagram engagement from scratch + professional tips and practical examples

Boosting Instagram engagement at the moment
Perhaps you could create an Instagram account and gain more than 10K followers in no time back in 2016 or around then, but that’s not the case now. Nowadays, it’s not that easy to do that. That’s because Instagram’s AI technology has been constantly improved, and it’s toughened up its rules and updated its algorithms. The reason why it’s not as easy to improve your page as it was before is that when the path to improvement and success is easy, everyone would rush to take that, some of whom don’t deserve to be in that position.
It’s just that pages that aren’t doing well shouldn’t rank higher than those that are doing well. Back then, on one hand, there were accounts that kept increasing their engagement while they didn’t deserve it, on the other hand, there were pages that deserved to rank higher, but lagged behind.
As a result, Instagram has decided to broaden its AI technology so that justice can be served to everyone and that only those who put forth adequate effort can achieve success in this regard.

Ways to boost your Instagram engagement
You can boost your Instagram engagement considerably in several ways.
Getting on the Explore Page
The first way your page can get more visibility is getting featured on the Explore page of Instagram. In this section, I’m going to share with you a few lovely tips on how to land on the Explore page. When it comes to getting your page on the Explore page, one important thing you must consider is you should post on Instagram when your followers are most active.
Depending on what field your business is in, your followers can be active on any time of the day. For example, if your audience is mostly office clerks, it wouldn’t be a good idea to post between 8am and 4:30 pm. Or if your business offers services for managers, you have to know that they’re not always available, so you’d have to start with a few informed guesses as well as another tried method --which I’ll discuss later in the article—to find the hours when your audience is most active.
Fortunately, identifying at what time your followers are on the app isn’t difficult to come by. The Audience section under Insights is a useful tool that Instagram provides for you. You need to convert your personal account into a business one to be able to use this feature. Using this tool, you can get insights into which hours or days your followers are most active.
When you post at times when most of your followers are on the app, most people will view your post and consequently it gets more likes and comments amounting to your it getting featured on the Explore page. It’s recommended that you post at regular intervals. As an example, if you post something at 8am today, you mustn’t post at 10 am tomorrow or at 3pm the day after tomorrow. If you’re going to post at 8am today, you’d better to keep posting at the same time of the day on other days.
Consistency is of paramount importance. You must refrain from posting three times one day and go without posting anything for a whole week. You have to consider posting at a regular basis and post to your Instagram feed on certain days. If you post every day, you should keep the same routine for other days to come. If you post every other day, you should keep posting every other day in the future as well. If you don’t keep a consistent schedule, Instagram won’t be likely to favor your page, which makes it difficult to get on the Explore page.
Another way you can boost your content exposure is always ask your followers to hit the bell icon under your posts so that when you upload a new content, Instagram will automatically send a notification to the users, informing them of your new post. You can tell them by turning on notifications for your posts, they’ll be notified of the most recent posts uploaded on your account. You could consider giving them a gift in exchange for turning on their notifications.

Advertisements
This method isn’t free, but can have a wonderful effect on your page. Using ads, you can attract more followers as well as showcasing your business to a large number of users, as a result of which you can expect your page to become popular in a short time. A few things should be taken into account when running ads. Firstly, you can increase the reach and effectiveness of your ads by advertising on pages associated to your business, directly or indirectly. This method is probably going to cost you more money, but it could attract the audience target who is genuinely interested and engaged in your business.
Another way you can boost your page’s visibility is using extensive advertisements. The common procedure is to pay an extensive range of Instagram accounts to promote your account on their pages. They usually offer two plans including story ads and post ads. Your ad will be visible on their stories or posts. Importantly, some people offer a permanent ad display plan, that is, your ad won’t be removed after 24 hours, rather it will remain there forever. However, you’d better go with the 24-hour long ad plan as it’s less expensive. Apart from pricing, your ad post will most probably move down the page away from view after 24 hours and will no longer be efficient.
We suggest that you don’t ask bloggers or viners to run ads for you, because they charge you a lot more for promoting your business on their Instagram account. Moreover, most of them aren’t within your niche, thus your ads won’t be effective at all. Above all, why opt for more expensive procedures when you can run ads on several Instagram pages at lower costs?

For the last tip regarding ads, it’s crucial to know when’s the best time to run your ad. You’re suggested running ads at weekends or times when more users are online on the app. This way, your ads will be most effective.

Creating quality content
Whether you run ads or get on the Explore page, you need to create high quality contents to improve your efficiency. If you don’t post engaging contents, users won’t get attracted to your posts which may end up in your posts not being featured on the Explore page. Plus, if someone viewing your page to evaluate its effectiveness for promoting their accounts finds your contents dull and unattractive, they will definitely leave your page.
Your content is considered a high quality one if it can answer users’ questions. Take ‘why do earbuds stop working so quickly + tips to make your earbuds last longer’ as an example. Furthermore, your content must benefit users in one or another. In other words, it should be something which offers a sales tip, or a business strategy, or a product useful for self-development, business development, or enjoying life. Take ‘what are the best sound quality earbuds?’ as an example.
Reciprocal marketing
The next strategy which few people practice, but can be helpful and effective if done correctly, is reciprocal marketing. Reciprocal marketing doesn’t mean that you along with one or more of your fellow Instagrammers have to explicitly promote each other’s business on your Instagram accounts. Nonetheless, this is a type of reciprocal marketing as well. The reciprocal marketing we’re discussing works better if you indirectly present each other’s business or services.
For instance, if you’re a website developer and your fellow Instagrammer is an expert in Instagram marketing, one thing you have in common is you both center on business. You could pose a question on a few stories asking users ‘who do you think is the best Instagram marketing expert’, then, after you’ve received their replies, you can share a new story presenting your mate and his/her page and explaining why you recommend him/her.
In return, your mate could share a few stories asking his/her followers ‘Do you own a website?’ or ‘What do you think about website development’, continuing the discussion via some more stories, and finally telling them ‘if you’d like to learn test and tried tips about website development, you can follow the account of Mr. or Ms. X because he or she has such and such capabilities.
It’s a good idea to promote each other on a different-day basis. Just to give you an example: you can promote your mate’s Instagram account on Saturday, and s/he can promote yours on Wednesday. There wouldn’t be a problem if your followers realize that you two are doing reciprocal marketing, but your promotions will yield better results if you create a scenario for your promotional contents. Remember that you must set a boundary as to how often you do reciprocal marketing, it’s advised against doing it every day. You could do reciprocal marketing once or twice a month, tops, and that should be done indirectly. That’s because too much reciprocal marketing throws the account out of its normal state and followers no longer follow your stories as much as they used to.
Boosting your Instagram engagement by marketing procedures
In the following lines, I’ll be explaining to you how to get more followers on your Instagram account using a few simple and practical tips.

Boosting your Instagram engagement: fixing the flaws in your account

The first thing you need to do is fix the flaws in your profile. Some Instagrammers have accounts that are replete with flaws, but they’re assuming that they’re running a flawless page. A personal experience: Once we arranged a meeting with a business counselor. He told us: ‘You know, our Instagram page is perfect in every aspect, it’s the most beautiful Instagram page, it has such and such features etc.’ I told him: ‘May I see your page?’
When he showed me the Instagram page, I said to myself: ‘That’s awful.’ They hadn’t used a proper logo in their page, the text size of their posts was so small that you couldn’t read them unless you click on the post itself to view it in a larger size.
I mentioned the flaws in his Instagram page, but he insisted that there were no flaws in it. As a counselor, I just gave him some advice, but didn’t force him to take my advice. I visited his account after 4 months only to find it hasn’t changed at all, it could barely have gained 200 followers. The problem is that he could’ve easily created videos around his business, but he wouldn’t do that. So, the first step to have a successful page is to fix the flaws and errors in your page.

Boosting your Instagram engagement: searching for key words
The second thing you need to do is search and find key words related to your page’s theme. The search process includes looking for trendy and most searched key words and creating content around them. Searching about key words allows you to professionally find topics that fulfil users’ needs. Creating contents around such topics tends to be more productive.
Boosting your Instagram engagement: becoming a blogger
Next thing is becoming a blogger. The term blogger has been wrongly interpreted in the world. Blogging doesn’t involve just making videos of yourself and taking pics of yourself, rather it involves more specifically creating scenarios and sharing with people your experiences. You can form a closer bond with your users by blogging so that they can feel a sense of camaraderie with you, resulting in you selling your products to them much more easily.
Obviously, the main goal of any blogger should be building an intimate relationship with his/her audience rather than caring only about making money. So, in the first place, you’d better do something that benefits your followers because when they notice how much you care about them, they will eventually try to benefit you financially.

Boosting your Instagram engagement: story marketing
The nest step involves story marketing. Story marketing refers to a kind of marketing done via sharing stories on Instagram to let followers know of what we’re up to. Story marketing differs from blogging in that blogging is a part of story marketing. A few notes should be taken into account when it comes to story marketing:
Make a scenario. You can do this by blogging. Notably, taking this approach allows your followers to follow your stories as if they’re watching an engaging series. If you write an engaging scenario, your followers will follow what you share like a series. See when we love a series, we keep following it and waiting for its next episodes?
Of course, I finish series with 6 seasons and 80 episodes within 2 days while I know that how long it had taken the poor director and the crew to make it over years and that there had been people waiting for the series to be released for years. If you do your job properly as a blogger and display your life like an intriguing series, users will certainly follow your stories as if watching a series. This creates a good situation for you, and a bad one for them, because if they don’t constantly follow your stories to enjoy the engaging blogging contents in your stories, they can’t finish all its episodes which are similar to a series.

The next point you need to consider is always offer your products and services via stories. I’m not saying that you have to share a story saying ‘Hi, this is my product, please buy it.’ That way, no one would buy anything from you. However, if you offer your products and services using a well-established scenario, they will definitely watch your story as it will be more attractive to them.
The final point involves using specific advertising techniques in your stories. I’ve thoroughly discussed writing compelling ads in the article on how to write an advertisement. Although the tips offered in the said articles mostly involves text-based advertising, they’re all fundamental to writing ads, therefore, you can implement those tips even in creating video-based ads.
Important tip: improve your oratory skills
The last thing I’d like to discuss is oratory skills that is the Achilles heel of many people. Whether you like it or not, sometimes you have to speak to your followers on Instagram. Practice the following activities to improve your oratory skills:
Stand as close to the camera as you can to dispel your fear.
Speak to yourself in the mirror.
Speak impromptu instead of reading from a script.
Go live with your followers and other fellow Instagrammers if possible.
Create videos in a consistent way. Story marketing and blogging, which I earlier discussed, are the best ways to improve your oratory skills.

Conclusion
In this article, I wanted to get you familiar with tips and tricks to boost your Instagram engagement and reach, and I hope I’ve been able to do so. If you have any questions, comments, or experiences, I’m looking forward hearing from you via the ‘contact us’ section. I want you to share with us any tips or experiences you have regarding boosting Instagram engagement via the ‘contact us’ section.