How To Grow Engagement on Instagram

I sometimes get a lot of people asking me how to grow their Instagram accounts, make money, get followers and some other weird stuff… so I decided to share a free MasterClass I promise not to invoice you.

Before using something we kinda need to understand how it works, right? I know some of us are the type when we buy a new device we don’t read the manual, put it on and be on some “aaah what does this button do” well social media doesn’t work that way.

Instagram has something called an Algorithm, this is just like a fancy word for process or rules which are to be followed. Every time you post an image on Instagram it only pushes that post up to about 20% of your followers. So let’s say you have 1K followers, only 200 followers are likely guaranteed to see it, so now if your 20% doesn’t engage with the post, you won’t be able to unlock your other 80% how this works is that the more engagement you get on a post the faster that post starts moving up people’s feeds.

So I guess the question here comes down to how do I increase my engagement? There are quite a few things: firstly you need to watch the accounts that follow you… some people are ghost followers. Others are inactive and some are mass followers. Ghost followers and inactive users just make up your numbers as they don’t engage with your content, some are suspended accounts and others are accounts that aren’t being used anymore  — mass followers are people that are already following a huge number of accounts.. these people will hardly ever see your post so they won’t engage. Get rid off them.

Now you’re wondering how do you get someone to unfollow you? You block and unblock them, this is a long and tedious process so use an app like IG Cleaner.

Now that you’ve gotten rid of the inactive and ghost numbers. I’m gonna share some tips on how you can grow your engagement.

HAVE A NARRATIVE

What are you selling? What’s your story? How do you want to communicate that story through your post? It’s important to know who you are, what you do and how you want to share that with the world.

CONTENT QUALITY

I personally don’t understand people that post low-res images.. you guys don’t deserve Instagram haha.. high res images definitely push your audience to engage with the image, aesthetics capture the eye. However it doesn’t stop there.. people don’t have all the time in the world so don’t write an essay as a caption if you do keep it short & impactful. Avoid one-word captions unless your image backs it up.

MOOD / STYLE

Try and create a colour scheme with your pictures, use the same filter, try and use the same camera or photographer, if you use different people then give them a brief of what your feed is like or what you want to achieve. Be strategic about what you post, maybe use an app like UNUM to assist you in planning the mood and style of your feeds. Pay attention to the lighting in your images, always try and achieve the same light – sometimes that’s the filter.

CONSISTENCY

Growing engagement is a job, learn your post times by looking through your insights so you know when your followers are most active. Once you know that try and post at least every day. Some people post more than once a day but I love letting my audience digest my content.

RESPOND

Don’t be a celebrity and ignore people that comment on your images, some of your biggest personalities if you look closely actually take time to respond to at least 5-10 people on their posts, this will grow your engagement massively as people will feel a part of your content and entice them to always comment or hit the like button.

#HASHTAGS

Use hashtags that relate to your post.. have at least 3, a good number is 5, please don’t do 55. A lot of users search for content through hashtags, what this will do for your post is filter it to appear through those searches, this will increase account visibility and organically grow your numbers.

FOLLOW & ENGAGE

Follow accounts that make sense to you. Accounts that have content you’ll actually like. If you really only like two people in the world on insta then follow those accounts. I don’t follow influencers, celebs, brands just because other people do, I do some because their content is what I want to see.

Comment and engage with those you follow, be active. Sometimes you get followed because of your comment on someone’s else post.

SPREAD YOUR CONTENT

Don’t post everything at once! If you have a shoot compile 4 outfits you have in your wardrobe and make 8 outfits out of them… HOW SWAY???  by mixing and matching them so e.g

shirt 1 of outfit 1 will go with pants 1 of outfit 2…or whatever you’re wearing.

So you’ll end up having at least 8 outfits. That’s 8 looks and most probably 10-15 images depending on how you and your photographer work. This will be enough images for 2-3 weeks or even a month. When you post spread your content. So post different outfits everyday day or 1 outfit in a grid of three weekly.

DON’T LIE (my favourite)

Don’t spend money on fancy clothes, expensive holidays, good food just to maintain Instagram. Use what you have, I always tell my friends when I attend fancy meetings, lunches or when I go on holiday I don’t do it to maintain an “Instagram lifestyle” I do it because that’s what I want to do or it’s what’s genuinely happening in my life at that specific moment. LIVE YOUR LIFE. Don’t be pressured by what you see on these platforms, most of it isn’t real, so create true and genuine content. Always.

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