Instagram Engagement Rate Advice, the holy grail of Instagram success. Engaging with other people on the platform is super easy, but unfortunately, getting your own engagement rates up is a little more complicated. Boosting your Instagram engagement rate is something we all struggle with, but because everyone is struggling, there are tons of really good, quality advice being shared on the topic. We, ourselves, over here at Wolf Global, used to struggle with our own Instagram engagement rates in the same way you might be struggling right now. We’ve been there, done that, and have tried a ton of methods to fix it. In this article, we’re sharing our best Instagram engagement rate advice with you guys in the hopes that it will help you in your own journeys to boost Instagram engagement, and in turn, boost your growth on Instagram.
1. Engage and be engaged
Okay, so this Instagram engagement rate advice might seems obvious, but the power of engaging with others on the platform is frequently overlooked. We’ve mentioned this bit of advice in a few of our other blog posts, and it’s so important that we think it’s worth reiterating now. Instagram and it’s ever-changing algorithm are a puzzle that no one seems to be able to figure out, but there is one thing that remains constant with the algorithm throughout the constant changes: the algorithm likes when you engage with others. Think of Instagram as a reward system. If you do what Instagram wants, which is engage with others in an organic way, then Instagram “lets” other people engage with you. How? If you engage more, the algorithm will show your photo on more of your follower’s feeds, will be more apt to put you onto the Explore page, etc. While there’s no definite proof of this, we’ve done a number of little experiments on our own and it’s proven to be true.
Try engaging with the photos on your feed and on your explore page for 15 minutes prior to, and after, posting a photo on Instagram. We promise that, at the very least, your number of impressions/your reach will significantly increase from past photos where you haven’t done this trick. The algorithm is like a child. If you don’t give it what it wants (genuine engagement), then it throws a little hissy fit and doesn’t give you what you want. If you do what the algorithm “likes,” then it will “like” you back and reward you with more engagement, more views, more impressions, etc, improving your Instagram engagement rate.
2. Wolf Global All The Way
If you’re reading this blog, then we’re assuming that you’re already familiar with our Wolf Global engagement groups. What our engagement groups offer to our members is priceless, and it comes at no cost to our users. Another way that the algorithm functions has to do with engagement vs. time. If your photos gets tons of likes and comments shortly after being posted, then the algorithm assumes that people are really interested in the content. As a result of that, the algorithm is more likely to show your post to more people, whether that be on your follower’s feeds or on the explore page. Another great piece of Instagram engagement rate advice is to ensure that you get a quick inflow of engagement on your post is to head to the Wolf Global engagement pods immediately after posting.
Our personal favorite groups for the desired “quick inflow of engagement” are our Viral and Power Likes groups. These are beneficial for a number of reasons, one of which being how quick they actually are. Our Viral and Power Likes groups are Dx5 or Dx10, respectively, so you only have to engage on 10 or 5 photos before you can drop your link. Right after dropping, you almost immediately get a quick 10 likes or 5 comments on that new post. Because we have a few different Viral and Power Likes groups, you have the option to catch up and drop links in multiple groups (that you qualify for) and double, or even triple, up on engagement.
Once the quick burst of engagement has been achieved, you can head to some of our D24 Hour groups, like Sapphire Likes, to ensure that you have a steady inflow of engagement over the next 24 hours. We’re being totally honest and transparent when we say that the Wolf Engagement groups have really helped up in our own journeys to achieve better Instagram engagement rates. If there’s one piece of Instagram engagement rate advice you take away from this, we hope you’ll take advantage of those groups and use them to your advantage when it comes to growing on Instagram.
3. Don’t Ignore The Analytics
Instagram offers some really, really insightful analytics that are game changers when it comes to getting engagement. Unfortunately, these analytics and insights are only available to those with a business profile, but that switch is super easy to make via your settings on Facebook. The analytics are great because they tell you when your follower base is the most active on Instagram, every day of the week. So, for example, if it’s a Tuesday and you want to post a photo, you can head over to your profile analytics and see what time of day your followers are the most active on Instagram on Tuesdays. It’s a super simple engagement tactic that way too many people overlook. Solely based on these analytics, we think it’s worth it to go through the 4, or so, steps to switch from a personal Instagram account to a business account.
The analytics also tells you all about your engagement by post, so you can really easily see what your followers responded well to, and what they weren’t loving. This makes it super easy to fine tune your content. For example, if a post using a certain VSCO filter got tons and tons of engagement, and a different photo, with no filter, was lacking likes, then you can try to edit more of your content using VSCO and see how your audience responds. The only thing missing from Instagram Analytics is Instagram engagement rate information. The data is there to do the formula yourself, however it doesn’t do the math for you.
Side note: If you’re unsure about your Instagram engagement rate, or are wondering whether or not your Instagram engagement rate is where it should be based on Instagram engagement rates of your peers with similar followers, definitely check out our Wolf Analytics. This is a completely free tool that not only lets you check your own Instagram engagement rates and average likes and comments per post, but it also lets you check anyone else’s rates.
4. Be More Than Just A Pretty Photo
Okay, so this next piece of advice is a little off the beaten path, but we really think it’s a valuable piece of advice. Instagram has become pretty “cold” lately, and by cold, we mean impersonal. Think about it logically, how much more likely are you to like one of your friend’s photos than a photo posted by some random influencer who you have no connection to? To really exemplify how important it is to talk to your followers, and letting them get to know you and your personality through your Instagram stories or more personal captions, we turn to influencer @sivanayla.
Sivan Ayla from @sivanayla is one of our favorite bloggers on Instagram. She’s the true epitome of a lifestyle blogger and she’s really, really good at it. What makes her so successful is not her fashion or even her infamous dinner recipes, but her personality. We’ve never seen another blogger who gets so personal and so real on her stories and in her captions. Her 202k followers absolutely adore her and know her life and personality, through and through. We personally find ourselves liking and commenting on her photos solely because we feel like we know her and like we’re actually friends. Her personality shines through her photos, captions, stories, youtube tutorials, etc., which has awarded her higher engagement rates than most others in her peer group.
Sivan is a shining example of why it’s so important and so valuable to be unapologetically yourself on the a platform that’s become largely impersonal. Let people get to know the real you and reap the rewards in the form of faster growth and deeper engagement, all helping with your overall Instagram engagement rate
5. Consistency Is Key
The last piece of Instagram engagement rate advice that we have for you guys is something that we’re sure you’ve heard before: Be consistent. Consistency is key for keeping your followers engaged and, well, following you. Again, this is really just a logic thing. If your content, editing style, personal brand is all over the place and constantly changing, then how do your followers know what to expect from you? If Jane Doe in California started following you because she loved your bright and colorful New York City content, then why would she continue to follow you if you started randomly posting dark, black and white photos of the countryside? In terms of editing and content, there’s not much more to be said about keeping your posts consistent, and we hope that it’s something you’ve already been doing to improve your follower retention.
Another area to keep consistency in is your posting. Many studies have been done that prove that posting one time a day, every day of the week, is good for engagement and growth. Logically, if you post at least once every day, more people are going to be seeing your content and your impressions, reach and other analytics will boom. We’ll give you an example of this. One of our Wolf Global admins recently accompanied a brand on a sponsored trip to California. As a part of that contract, she was required to post three times a day. It seems like overkill, but at the end of the week, her impressions and reach were up almost 450%, most of which were new impressions from people who weren’t already following her. When more people see your photos, more people like your photos, and that’s just simple fact. We’ve also been on the other end of this at times when we were unable to post for a few days, for whatever reason. In a weird way, the algorithm “punished” us for not being active on the platform, and it took a while to get our Instagram engagement rate numbers back up to normal levels. Bottom line: post on a consistent schedule to achieve consistent growth in your engagement rates. If you liked this post on Instagram engagement rate advice, you might want to head to the Wolf Blog to check out more tips and tricks on Instagram, photography and more!
