By entering your business into the world of social media, you are opening a wide range of opportunities to connect with your customers on a more personal level and increase your brand awareness. Although many people’s main goal is to gain as many followers as possible, it is just as important to humanize your brand and create authentic content. By creating an open line of communication with your audience, you are strengthening your brand authenticity and gaining the support of your followers. Keep reading for some tips on how to increase your engagement on Instagram.
Importance of Audience Engagement
The algorithm works so that when an Instagram user first opens their app, they are greeted by posts that have been selected just for them, based on what they might be interested in. Engaging with your followers is a great way to increase your overall ranking and the likelihood of appearing on someone’s feed, even if they do not already follow you. As your interaction with your follower’s increases, Instagram takes note and will place your posts higher onto the feeds of those who already follow you. It will also increase the chances that your content will be placed onto the feeds of those with similar interests who do not yet follow you, leading to a possibility of a conversion.
Identifying Your Audience
To strengthen your engagement, you must first identify who your audience is. The first question you must ask yourself is: “who follows me?” This takes a look into the demographic of your following, which includes their age, gender, location, employment, and other individual characteristics. From here, you next want to ask; “why do they follow me?” Whether you use your social media accounts to inform, entertain, or sell a service, it is important to determine what makes your followers interested in your content. Using this information, you can then optimize your page to gear towards increasing audience engagement.
Connecting With Your Followers
Once you have identified your audience, as well as the content they are interested in, the next step is to begin engaging with your followers.
1. Don’t Be Afraid to Show Your Personality
Social media allows businesses to “humanize” themselves, giving their brand a personality and making it easier to connect with. Followers are looking for content that is related to their interests and want to see the face behind the business. By letting your personality shine through your content, followers are more likely to engage.
2. Post When Your Followers Are Active
By using analytical tools, you can track when your followers are online the most. It is a smart idea to use this data when deciding when to schedule your posts. When choosing a time that is more popular, you are maximizing the potential of your post being seen.
3. Create Opportunities to Be Interactive
As much as your followers want to hear what you have to say, by allowing them to have a voice as well you can increase your engagement. Instagram Stories are the perfect way to achieve this by offering additional features that allow your followers to respond directly to your post. The easiest, and most popular feature is the ability to ask a question. You can leave it as open-ended as you would like, and can use the answers you receive as a reference for the future. If you are unsure what to include in your future content, you can ask your follower what they would like to see more of. You can also try using polls in your stories to encourage user engagement!
4. Shoutouts & ‘Thank You’ Posts
A great hack for audience engagement, that also increases brand awareness, is to post ‘shoutouts.’ For example, when your business is tagged in a post by a customer, you can repost this to your own page. This not only makes the customer feel special but also can display your reputability. The key to increasing your customer support is to make them feel as supported.
5. Hashtags
Getting creative with hashtags in your captions or stories is a great way to connect with your followers. You can use hashtags such as “#shareyour___,” allowing your followers to use this hashtag in their response to your post. Using hashtags is also a simple, but effective, way to bring Instagram users to your page that don’t already follow you.
Contact Boston Web Marketing for Social Media Management
For further information on how you can improve your audience engagement, optimize your social media pages, or to find the tools to do so, contact Boston Web Marketing at (857) 526-0096, or fill out our contact form.