How to Increase Reach and Engagement on Instagram Manyfold

The introduction of algorithmic feed seriously hurt reaches and engagements of many Instagram users. Even major bloggers complain that posts now receive much fewer likes and comments than before.

Instagram has complex feed generation algorithms and Facebook does not share their working principles. And yet marketers figure out the algorithms based on their own experience and scarce advices by Facebook.

Post Content Regularly

When you post significantly more rarely, the reach may decrease – this is how the social media algorithm works. Publish new content regularly and don’t get lost for several days.

Communicate Actively

At least, politeness will work – if you comment your friends’ posts regularly, they will reciprocate. Ask questions, leave compliments, reply to Stories and send funny pictures to your friends with Direct. It is right way to increase reach on Instagram.

Share Tales for Increase Instagram Engagement

Yes, everyone is primarily interested in an image. However, a tale, original style of material presentation and humor may help to keep the audience interested. This is very important for increasing engagement on Instagram.

Posts with long texts show good results. The audience responds to such posts. Focus not on the problem description but on the solution and then you’ll receive positive comments.

Use Call to Action

Think of how you yourself behave on social media: sometimes you’d be glad to reply something under your friend’s picture but there’s simply no trigger for that.

Ask questions to the audience, try raising interesting topics that are simple to discuss: memories from the childhood, favorite food, plans for Summer.

Post Stories

Exact factors of content ranking on Instagram are unknown but some suggestions based on developers’ statements say that regular posting of Stories influences on your account reach and engagement positively.

...and Use Them to Promote the Content

Unlike a post in the account, your Story is likely to be viewed by the followers. Bloggers also use that: they announce the new post with an intriguing description and a suggestion to go to the account. 

Abstain from the Gallery Format

Users noticed that posts including several pictures fall down in the feed and receive 30% to 50% fewer engagements.

Define the Right Time to Post

Instagram’ algorithms monitor how many engagements a post receives immediately upon being published, and based on that they define whether it should be deemed interesting and shown higher in the feed.

If you publish a picture late in the night, it will be likely to fall down in the feed. To receive the maximum output, be guided by not your own impressions but statistics.

You can track activity by hour using the Instagram’s internal statistics. And if you need to get data for a long period of time or for a competitor’s account, use Popsters. Thus you’ll be able to analyze any Instagram account.

What Should Engagement Be on Instagram?

A couple of years ago accounts, where the count of likes is 10% of the count of followers, were considered relatively successful. Now the situation has changed: smaller accounts on the average have higher ER than bigger ones.

And you also have the possibility to analyze any account and view detailed data on Instagram analytics using Popsters.

The ratio of engagement to the count of followers was investigated by the team of influence.co. Profiles that have less than 2000 followers, on the average, have 10,7% ER, 2000 to 5000 followers — 6% ER. See the figure for more details:

Useful articles on a similar topic:

• How to view Instagram statistics of any accounts;
• 5 Best Instagress Alternatives that Will Not Fail You;
• Instagram Captions: A Detailed Guide for Composition;
• How Instagram's Algorithm Works and How to Maximize the Reach.