Leveling up your Instagram engagement is simple but doing a GOOD job of it takes a lot of time. Yes, time. You know… that thing we all have tons of.
Sure, there are some ways that you can get large influxes of engagement on your own content that require more money than time, such as contests, asking people to tag their friends in order to win product or services, or hire influencers. It is important to understand that even when you choose to take this approach, you still have work to do once the content is released into the wild wild web (in case you didn’t know, that’s what www. actually stands for). You will still want to engage with those that engage with your content in an organic and meaningful way for the best chance of converting them to a customer somewhere down the road.
Benjamin Franklin said that an “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. In that same spirit, I’m going to attribute that to social media and say that “an ounce of preparation equals a pound of success”. Taking time to organize hashtags, locations, and keywords that are relevant to your brand will save you time when you just have a few moments to manage your Instagram engagement.
4 Steps to Set Yourself Up for Quicker and Easier Instagram Engagement
- Do some Hashtag research. Spend an hour or so looking at your competitors and potential clients to see what hashtags they are using. Let the content take you to more content and more hashtags. Instagram rabbit holes are SO FUN!
- Keep a document of all the hashtags you collect. Make sure to add to your collection as time goes on!
- Use longer, more specific hashtags so they do not get lost in the swamp of more generic, popular hashtags. Example; rather than using #spaday, use #hotrockspaday
- Follow said hashtags so the content shows up in your newsfeed to make those interactions simpler when you only have a few minutes to spare.
6 Ways to Engage on Instagram
As with anything valuable, you must spend focused time on taking care of it to get good results. We suggest you pick a time and day of the week that you plan to do some ‘Graming and spend a half-hour or an hour going down this list, every week or biweekly, or daily… whatever you choose, just be consistent and intentional.
- Tag others when it is appropriate and natural to bring them into the conversation.
- Find your target demo and interact with them. Ask questions to get them to engage back with you. Be genuine.
- Always engage with your own posts. If someone comments, make sure to reply.
- Spy on your competitors and engage with people engaging with them.
- Engage with your audience shortly before and shortly after you post new content. This encourages new followers and engagement when they follow your cookie trail of interaction back to your profile. Timing is important.
- Share your handle on other sites that are relevant to your brand. Don’t be afraid to sneak your IG handle into a relevant conversation that you are having on Facebook. The good ole “shameless plug” never hurt anyone.
- Find people who have been tagged in locations near you or relevant to your business and engage with them. Location tags are a huge opportunity for engagement!
The most rewarding strategy of them all is the most time-consuming strategy of them all. But it works.
The $1.80 Instagram Strategy is one of our favorites here at Spry. I’ve always felt this title insinuated paying actual dollars for something and that is not the case. The title is actually just a little cheeky, coming from the idea of leaving your “2 cents” 90 times a day. This method works tremendously if you are willing to give it a try. Adrienne wrote this little blog about it if you would like to learn more and give it a try!
With Instagram engagement, you really can’t go too wrong if you are spending time on the platform and striking up organic conversations and genuine interactions. We encourage you to make the time and spend the time on the platform. As always, we are cheering you on from here and when you decide you just don’t want to do it anymore, give us a call… we’re for hire!
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