Tell me if this sounds familiar.

You started using Instagram for your business. You set up your profiles, you posted, you engaged. I mean, every business has to be on Instagram, right?

Despite knowing what a powerful platform it is to get engagement for your business, things got busy, and well, maybe you ghosted on your Instagram account. 👻

So with Halloween around the corner, we’re going over ways to boost engagement on Instagram—even if you’ve been quietly haunting the platform for a while.

What is Instagram engagement?

According to Hootsuite, engagement is more than counting your views or followers. It’s about measuring the interactions that your audience makes with your content. On Instagram, engagement is measured by a range of metrics, such as:

Comments
Shares
Likes
Saves
Followers and growth
Mentions (tagged or untagged)
Branded hashtags
Click-throughs
DMs

#1. Use Carousel Posts

Carousels are currently the best-performing Instagram engagement posts. It is being used frequently by brands, entrepreneurs, influencers and more!

Carousels make it so easy to tell your story via pictures! All you need to do is upload up to 10 pictures. These can be graphics, photos, videos—whatever helps tell your story.

People primarily engage with these types of posts because they are, in most cases, educational. These are often based on social media tips/ hacks.

Social media users tend to have shorter attention spans which makes carousels perfect content as it allows them to get the main details in picture/word format in a short amount of time. It’s easy to glance at!

In the year 2021, Instagram accounts with up to or equal to 5K followers tend to have the highest engagement rate on carousel post-type – 4.90%. This percentage was followed by videos with an average Instagram engagement rate of 4.04%. - Social Champ

#2. Use Reels

Even if you worry about looking ghoulish on video, Instagram Reels is one of the easiest ways to increase your overall account engagement.

You really can’t mess up when it comes to Reels. With video capturing, audio, text and editing tools built in, creators are able to elevate their content with ease. Just remember that the first 7 seconds are crucial to make your audience stay!

Reels are also a great way to be discovered by others that don’t follow you. You can be found in the explore section or use hashtags that are being searched regularly. Just make sure that your account to set to public to widen your reach.

You can boost your engagement a little more by also sharing your reels to your story directly after posting.

#3. Use Stories Regularly

Don’t wait until the next full moon to post another story to Instagram. Increase your engagement and visibility by posting them regularly.

While Instagram feed posts (carousels, videos, images/memes, reels) are more content-focused to get more saves, likes, and comments—stories are more in-the-moment content! They are done on the fly, and they disappear after 24 hrs.

Stories have many tools available to increase engagement, including:

Link Stickers

Share a link directly to whatever event or product you’re talking about.

Polls and Questions

Add a poll sticker to assess interest from your audience. It can be as fun as asking about favourite Halloween activities or you can use it to get your audience to weigh in on business decisions.

Question stickers can be used the same way, but with 4 possible answers instead of two.

Location Sticker

The most used interactive sticker on an Instagram story is the ‘Location Sticker’ - tag restaurants, businesses you visit, or local attractions to share your activities with your audience. (Just don’t use it for your home address!)

Consistency = Higher Engagement

The scariest thing about ghosting Instagram for too long is that it’s hard to get that engagement back up after it’s been lost.

The more consistent (aka, the more active you are) on Instagram, the more engagement you’ll get because the algorithm sees your account is active.

I recommend posting to Instagram at least 2-3 times a week to maintain your presence. (This doesn’t include stories as stories can be done more frequently as you are capturing in the moment and behind the scenes.)

In the end, social media is about being social! It’s not a one-way street. Social media was created to build relationships and to create connections, and that can’t happen without engagement!

Once the conversation has started, there is a good chance that the other person/account in the conversation is interested in knowing you or your brand better since they engaged in the first place. Keep the conversation going, leaving time every day to answer DM’s and comment back to your followers.

3 Ways To Boost Engagement On Instagram