audience

So you have the follower count but your engagement doesn’t seem to correlate with any of the audience growth you’ve been seeing. You can count your engagement rate with your fingers in one hand. My article walks you through the latest tips to become a more engaged Instagram account.

Last updated: January 23, 2020

Here’s what popular opinion never tells you: You have to engage!! It’s easy to post multiple images a day and leave it alone. Unless you’re a celebrity, you’ll soon realize this method will get you nowhere. If you want a following you’re going to have to give people a reason to give their attention to you. Attention is a commodity nowadays so why should anyone give you 3 seconds of their time? Well, to start, a good reason is that you’re giving them yours. So with that said, let’s move on to the very first tip.

1.) You Scratch my back and I’ll Scratch Yours

The idea of reciprocity is an age-old one from the early days of human civilization and trade to the present days of social media. It’s very simple, when you like a post there’s a good chance that account will like yours right back. It’s an even exchange. Always keep that in mind.

But, “Rich, I’ve haven’t seen any reciprocity. When I try to comment and like another account, they never respond back to me. You’re completely wrong!”

Then my next advice is to check the accounts you’ve been interacting with. If these accounts are 3 times or more your audience size, chances are they’re not going to reciprocate. It’s nothing personal, it’s science. Aim for the accounts that are similar in size to you (or smaller) and you’ll notice more interactions.

Found Tip #1 useful? Check out my Unwritten Rules of Instagram article that goes into the mindset to have for a successful Instagram Foodie Account.

2. The Art of Following Up

This tip ties in with Tip #1 about reciprocity. Whenever someone interacts with you, interact with them back. It only takes a few interactions for that person to begin to remember you. For example:

• If someone likes your photo, go back to theirs and like them.
• When someone makes a comment on your photo, reply back.
• If someone tags you, like and leave a comment.

After a few likes/comments they are going to remember you and as a reminder, no ghosting allowed if you want an engaged instagram account! If you’ve ever been ghosted, you’ll know it’s just not a cool thing to do.

3. Peacock Theory in Action: Use Bulk Likes

Like a male peacock, the most colorful and flashiest get their mate. It’s not different for humans. After all, we are social animals and will reciprocate good deeds (are you seeing a pattern here? Human reciprocity is alive and well!). So as mentioned earlier, when someone shows you love, you gotta show it right back. As you’ll find out sooner or later, time is very limited. You have to make every effort count and in order to do that, you will follow my commandment: thou shall like in bulk. What I mean is you want to take up their whole notification screen. I actually took the time to count and it comes out to about 10-11 rows like this:

This is how you keep your ancestry, I mean, your account fresh and memorable with others. Usually, accounts will be thankful and give you a shoutout on their story. This is great because it gives you more exposure and it’s likely other accounts will want to follow you because you share these important values of being a decent human being.

4. Leave Thoughtful Comments

A word on commenting. The most useless comments I’ve seen are generic ones that can be copied and pasted over and over again. If you really want to leave an impression, you have to stray away from those type of comments like “Amazing!” “Yummy” or inserting a bunch of emoji’s. You gotta ask yourself what’s the difference between yourself and a bot at that point? Show them your value by giving them a few extra seconds of thought and over time it will pay off. Respond to their caption. If its a question, it‘s even better because it just makes commenting easier!

5. Use Engagement Pods

For those who are not familiar, a common technique most accounts use is what’s called an Engagement Pod or sometimes referred to as Instagram Pods. Essentially these are chat groups often found in the Direct Message who all are dedicated to liking and maybe commenting on every member’s post. We, humans, tend to have a herd mentality, where we are influenced by our peers. For example, when you drive by a restaurant with a huge crowd outside. Chances are you’d want to stop by to check out the commotion. For the case of Instagram, when we see many liking and commenting on a post, we want to join in. Engagement Pods can help boost your engaged Instagram account and I would not pass it up.

Overtime, as both your account and engagement grows others will want to be a part of it. In other words, you will start seeing others outside your engagement pod leaving comments on your post. The reason why this is the case, is because these accounts are also trying to grow. They know that if they leave a comment, they will be seen thus increasing their chances of getting followed.

6. Take advantage of Insta Stories for Engaged Instagram

I call it the Best Friends Forever (BFF) maker. It really is. Many are not taking advantage of this awesome feature. It gives you a way to connect with others and show your human side. Sometimes, especially with themed accounts like food ones, you don’t get to show another side of yourself. With polls, quizzes, questions, etc. it would be difficult not to create any rapport with other users. Instagram makes it easy so take advantage. Regular posts at times, do not give you the chance to show your personality and Stories does allow the possibility.

Do: Check out other users’ stories. Respond to them. This is a great way to stick out because, as I said, many are not taking advantage of Insta Stories. Think about it, when you use Instagram do you remember those who DM you or the account activity in your Notifications? When you react or respond to an Insta Story, a DM is sent.

7. Tag your posts

Haven’t interacted with someone in a while? Well, here’s your chance to tag them. After a while, just as others have noticed you, you will begin noticing certain accounts yourself. You’ll notice what this account likes and dislikes solely based on the subject they post. For example, some may be dominant in posts about icescream. If your next post is about icescream, guess who you can tag?? 🙂

BONUS: Leave Great Captions

This one here shouldn’t be a secret. If you leave great captions, it will make it easier for others to comment. This goes with Tip #4. It’s good courtesy to have for both sides as engager and engagee. If you caption with a boring description of your post, it’s not going to translate well. Energy is contagious and it can transfer to the captions. Be exciting, ask a question, tell a short story, and answer the question why we should care.

There you have it! My 7 tips for an engaged Instagram account. Use these tips and you should see your Instagram game multiply twofold. If you found my article helpful, you should definitely check out How I Got 2000 followers fast because there are more components involved. And if you want to support my page, do subscribe and follow me on my social media handles: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.