If you’ve implemented my previous advice on expanding your reach, you probably have more followers now. Congrats on that. However, that’s not the end of it. You need to turn these followers into paying customers.
There’s only one way to do this: Engage them! In this article, I give you practical steps that you can take to increase engagement on your IG business account.
Instagram is one of the social platforms that drives engagements the most. For comparison, Twitter drives way less engagement. If you have 5000 followers on Twitter, you can only expect an average of 3 or 4 interactions per post. On the other hand an Instagram account with 5000 followers should get between 100 to 150 interactions on the average.
When more followers interact with your posts, it becomes a budding relationship. When they eventually need your product or service, your brand will be one of the options that come to mind. It takes an average of 5-7 interactions for people to decide to make a purchase. It’s important that those interactions are not too far inbetween.
Here are 3 tips on increasing engagement:
Write Active, Inviting Captions
Your image is the pièce de résistance of your Instagram posts, but without an effective caption, you might not get the full potential of engagement and response from your followers.
Your content must consist of quality photos, but those are not enough to drive engagement. Your captions are also essential. A lot of your followers
Many brands include a simple call-to-action or direct question to provide that extra invitation that opens up conversations about your post.
Topman asks a question with the answers available in the photo, and receives loads of comments.
Practice the art of caption writing. Don’t repeat what’s in the image, but accentuate it.
Aim for “The Loop”: your follower sees the photo, reads your caption, and discovers a totally different angle that makes them take a closer look at the photo again.
Don’t make captions too long, or users will scroll on by. Be direct and interesting enough to hook attention, make ‘em think, and get them to participate.
Jumpstart Your Instagram Engagement with Contests
What does your business get out of contests? Well, you earn more followers, increase engagement, and reward your most loyal consumers. With 17 times the engagement of Facebook, Instagram has become a unique and ideal place to run contests.
In fact, 70% of Instagram users have already taken part in a contest, or report that they would.
Here’s your quick guide to running an IG contest :
Decide what you want to give away.
Give away one of your best-selling t-shirt designs, a bundle of popular gadgets from your collection, or a significant gift card for your online store. Make sure it’s something desirable and relevant to your brand.
Post an appealing and eye-catching photo of that prize.
Include details of the contest in the caption.
Since 33% of users think that the easiest way to enter an IG contest is to post on an official hashtag, try something like: “Post your favorite snap wearing our shoes and tag it #CoolSneaks – our winner will be announced next Monday!”
Post a second “reminder” post a few days later.
Flaunt that prize.
Pick your winner.
Post an announcement, and congratulate them!
Here is one additional note about contests:
Do not run a contest until you have a pretty solid level of engagement and a sufficient number of followers. On average, for every 33 likes your content receives, you’ll get one comment. So consider your followers’ engagement, because a contest with no response is more damaging than helpful.
Respond to Notifications and Shout Out to Followers
It may seem obvious, but don’t leave the conversation one-sided. Responding to comments, thanking followers for their tags, and proactively following and liking other users’ content is a sure-fire way to get more engagement in return.
Whenever you want someone to see your message, make sure you include their @IGname so they get that ping.
Use Tools for Instagram “Shopping”
Remember that we said the only clickable link on Instagram is your bio? While Instagram’s app itself doesn’t allow followers to click through to product pages, third-party apps like Like2Buy are increasingly being used by brands. Target and Nordstrom use Like2Buy to bridge the gap between Instagram content and online purchases.