Are you not happy about your engagement rate? This article can be the answer to all your worries! Stick around to make sure you haven’t fallen prey to these 6 common Instagram mistakes that ruin your engagement.
In the last post, we tackled 6 common Instagram mistakes that are hurting your reach. For all those who haven’t read it yet, I recommend to head over there first to really understand the difference between Instagram reach and engagement, and start implementing these quick fixes to improve your profile reach in the first place. But for everyone who already did their homework, welcome back, and as I promised, here’s part II full of basic Instagram mistakes that may be affecting your engagement.
Let’s do it!
What is Instagram Engagement?
Engagement is how many people interact with your content. Everything that counts as interaction are: likes, comments, shares, saves, and even DM’s
Once you reach Instagram users who are potentially interested in your brand, your content must intrigue them enough for them to take any of these actions. Engagement is your evidence that people in your audience actually care about what you have to say, and may be interested in buying your service or product.
If you’re not seeing much action in your profile, stay with me till the very end of this article, to eliminate these 6 basic Instagram mistakes hurting your engagement.
1. The Infamous Posting and Ghosting
You’ve spent a lot of time crafting your fantastic content, you’re satisfied with the work you’ve done so you hit post and… You’re off to have a bubble bath, or play with your kids, or do grocery shopping. The point is: you leave your phone feeling like the job is done, but I’m afraid to say… It’s not.
The first hour after you post, the algorithm determines if it’s worthy of appearing higher up in your followers’ feeds and more users’ explore pages.
If you’re receiving comments that you’re not responding to during this hour, you significantly lower your chances for the algorithm to favor your post and promote it.
But also, given our human nature, think how would you feel if you take time in your day to say something nice and insightful about someone’s work, and this someone doesn’t acknowledge it at all. Like he or she doesn’t care. This is the exact message you’re sending to your audience when you don’t get involved in the conversation.
Engagement comes from real connection with your followers, so try to be there for them as much as you can!
Mistake #2 hurting your engagement is…
2. Posting Inconsistently
You don’t have to be on Instagram 24/7 to work hand in hand with the algorithm, and build an engaging profile. Posting frequency isn’t as important as being consistent. Instagram wants you to spend as much time as possible on the platform. Saying that, it favors creators who deliver content regularly in short periods of time, but it also rewards you if your content makes people stay on the app for longer.
So posting three posts a day, and then disappearing for 2 weeks or more works against that rule. What’s also essential, inconsistency won’t create any pattern between you and your audience. They won’t know when to expect new content from you and may even forget about your existence. So plan your content and build a posting schedule that works for as well as for your audience.
Moving on to #3 on the list of basic Instagram mistakes ruining your engagement:
3. Writing Lousy Captions
I used the word lousy to define every caption that brings no value to your audience. It’s made of one or two words or, even worse, only emojis.
An excellent engaging caption should:
- be relevant to the posted imagery or video.
- bring value to your audience – so depending on the industry you’re in and your brand’s voice it should answer their problems, questions, inspire, educate, or make them laugh.
- include calls to action – known as CTAs. used to encourage your audience to speak their minds and react to your content in the way you want them to in order to increase engagement.
And if you’re interested in improving your caption writing, you should definitely check out this article up here, where I cover this subject in detail.
Here’s another major mistake affecting your engagement…
4. Ignoring Your Statistics
Do you know when the majority of your followers are online? Do you track engagement on your previous posts to see which one of them performed the best?
Don’t post at random times, suitable only for you. Plan your content, and post at peak times when the majority of your audience is most active on Instagram. The more people see your posts, the more likes, comments, shares or saves you’ll likely receive.
Your posts’ insights will also be helpful to decide what kind of content is the most appealing to your audience. Check them to see if any of your posts generated more engagement than your other content. If that’s something your audience engaged with more than usual, probably they’ll be happy to see more of it in your feed.
This is your way to understand your followers’ behaviors, and adjust your strategy to their needs and expectations.
Number #5 on our list is:
5. Not Using Interactive Stickers in Your Stories
Instagram stickers aren’t just a fun way to create more appealing stories. They are a fantastic tool to increase engagement in your Instagram profile because simply – they are effortless to respond to.
- Use the question sticker to collect feedback and get audience insights .
- Polls to ask what kind of content they like more
- Emoji sliders to encourage your audience to express their feelings about something.
Adding these elements to your stories will be especially encouraging for followers who feel more comfortable communicating less verbally.
Number #6 on the most common Instagram mistakes list goes to:
6. Using Engagement Pods
Engagement pods remind me of a support group. A group of people running profiles in a similar niche shares their posts within the group so that all participants can like, comment, and share it. They should bring good to your life but sadly, for Instagram they’re just another suspicious way to generate engagement.
Instagram got really good at filtering messages including keywords inviting to this activity, such as “like, comment, save” my “new post” so even if the trick isn’t the same as buying fake followers and likes, the platform might still severely decrease your reach and therefore your engagement.
That’s all for today. Thank you so much for reading this article! If you found it helpful, leave a comment below, and let me know what changes you will apply to your Instagram strategy to increase your engagement.
