How to Boost your Instagram Engagement

Instagram, as you all know is one of a fashion blogger‘s biggest tools, but if you don’t do social media for a living it may be harder to figure out how to maneuver the platform. Instagram makes it easy to share your life with your followers in a lot of different ways, so we have to utilize all of them in order to get the maximum Instagram engagement. Average engagement rate in 2016 for brands was 1.85% of followers, and in 2015 was 4.21%. My Instagram engagement rate is and has remained 7-9% throughout my growth.

I’m not one to follow people blindly, so for those of you like me, here’s the why: If your followers are not engaged, then what are they there for? I’ve stated many times, that my Instagram is here for one reason, to get people here, runninginheelsblog.com so they can read my posts and shop my looks! Aside from that, many brands look at your Instagram engagement to secure partnerships. Confession: Most of the brands I work with only want an Instagram post.

I had intended to make this a full post on my Instagram system, but I wrote so much focused on Instagram engagement, I had to cut it short. I’m seeing a series in my future.

Instagram Engagement

While I probably could spend hours on Instagram every day, I have a job and a life and honestly can’t devote that much time to it. So when I do spend time on the platform I want to make sure I’m getting the most out of my minutes.

When to engage for the biggest return: Right after you put up a post. Many people will see your notification and head over to your page and return the favor. You’ll see a good spike in activity when you do this, and get your post moving quicker.

How to effectively engage: I think commenting is the most effective way to interact with people. A ‘like’ can quickly get lost in the shuffle, but a sincere comment will be seen.

Who to engage: Your Followers! They already like you, remember? Make sure you remind them that you are there, and you are happy to have them following you!

Commenting Courtesy: You’ll hear a lot that you should respond to all of the comments you get. While I don’t feel like responding to every “love your (insert clothing item here)” comment is using my time wisely, I do respond in a different way. I prefer to respond to comments on my photos with comments back on their profiles. Of course I will respond directly to a question or if someone starts a dialogue.

Instagram engagement doesn’t happen overnight, so it will take time to build, but it will build up! Keep active and keep engaging. I hope this clears up some Instagram engagement questions I’ve been getting. This was a highly requested post, so I’m really excited to hear what you think! Comment below and let me know!

More Questions? Just ask! Shoot me an email at hello@runninginheelsblog.com or ask in the comments! I read them all!