A good Instagram reach and engagement helps people and brands grow their followers, influence, and revenue. The only problem with that is it’s hard to achieve a decent engagement for your posts and stories on Instagram unless you pay to play.
This guide will show you how to achieve a high Instagram engagement rate and break through the Instagram algorithm to grow your audience, conversions, and sales.
Summary:
What Is An Instagram Engagement Rate?
Before proceeding, let us synchronize our understanding of Instagram engagement rate.
Instagram engagement rate is the sum of the likes, shares, saves, and comments per post. Divided by the number of followers that you have and multiplied by 100.
Say you have 3’500 followers and 140 engagements per post. Then you divide 140 by 3’500 and multiply the result by 100. In this case, your engagement rate is 4%.
Bad in math? My math is as bad as my English.
Luckily, I can calculate my overall Instagram engagement rate with HypeAuditor. Their free package helps me do just that.
What Is A Good Engagement Rate On Instagram?
Now, let us set realistic expectations for the engagement rate of your Instagram account.
We need to do that before we move on. Because there is a limit to how far you can go growing your engagement. And the limitation is defined by how big your Instagram account is.
Simply put, the bigger your account, the less engagement you are going to see. This is how the Instagram algorithm works. Take a note of the below numbers to ensure your expectations are realistic.
Average engagement rate depending on the account size:
1K – 5K followers, average engagement is 5.60%
5K – 20K followers, average engagement is 2.43%
20K – 100K followers, average engagement is 2.15%
100K – 1M followers, average engagement is 2.05%
1M followers, average engagement is 1.97%
How To Find Your Instagram Engagement Rate
There are quite a few tools that can help you calculate your Instagram engagement rate.
But as I mentioned before, I use Hypeauditor that recalculates my engagement rate every week, and sends me a report by email.
It is free and takes a minute to connect to my account. And it’s an official Instagram app, so I am not concerned about the safety of my little handy IG.
How To Increase Your Engagement Rate On Instagram
If you checked your engagement rate and it’s below the average given above, you can use these simple steps that will grow your engagement rate, guaranteed.
Understand Instagram Algorithm
Before you take any actions, you have to understand the Instagram algorithm and micro-test. These factors will decide if your content should receive more reach and engagement.
Here is a short piece about the Instagram algorithm and the micro-test.
Define Your Posting Schedule
This is simple. Define how often you are ready to post and stick to it. That’s it.
If you are comfortable posting every day, that’s great. If you are ready to post only once a week, that’s okay as long as you are consistent.
Avoid drops in your posting intervals. Otherwise, Instagram will doubt you as a reliable source of regular content, which will hurt your reach and engagement.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags are a great tool to grow your content distribution and engagement.
Use this guide to discover and select the appropriate hashtags for your account size. They will help you boost your reach and engagement.
Use Best Time To Post
If you synchronize your posting schedule with the time when most of your followers are on Instagram, you will significantly improve your reach and engagement.
This guide will reveal everything you should know about the best time to post.
Stack Your Post Using Instagram Stories Or Lives
You may have not heard about content stacking before. But this is a little secret that helps influencers and big brands succeed on Instagram.
This short piece will get you in the know and give you all the information you need to use content staking to skyrocket your Instagram engagement rate.
Use Geotags
When sharing your content, include a geotag. It can provide up to 80% of your post reach and engagement.
Tip: You do not have to be in the location that reflects your geotag.
Optimize Your Caption
Finally, if you want to take your Instagram engagement rate to the next level, you need to use one or more of the following methods in your cations:
- Tell a story;
- Ask a question;
- Use a Call To Action.
You can read more details about using these methods here.
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