There are many times that I receive private messages through my Instagram and they say: “Lorena, how can I make my posts have a greater impact on Instagram ?” Today I am going to talk to you precisely about it. It doesn’t matter if you have a winery, a jewelry store, are a photographer or just an amateur, these tips will help you anyway, so take note as we begin real engagements.
- Publish original and valuable content
The first thing I would recommend for any social network you use is to create a defined strategy with clear, realistic and achievable objectives . Based on this, you should create the content of that social network, generating value for the user . That is, what you publish should be useful and attractive to your target audience . But how to do it?
For your publications to be considered useful by your followers, you must know their profile very well and speak to them in their language, but without losing that “spark” that characterizes you . A good alternative for this is canva , an online editor where you can create very cool publications.
In addition , presenting the content in an original way will attract the attention of your audience and they will be more likely to interact with it . This way you will increase your engagement and Instagram will “open the tap” so you can reach more people.
What is engagement?
From today, your best friend. Broadly speaking, engagement tells us the degree of commitment that the audience has with a brand . This is measured with likes, comments, shared posts, saved posts, etc. That is, engagement is the interaction of users with the posts we make . So as you see, not everyone is likes in this life!
How to calculate the engagement of your account?
The truth is that calculating engagement is not simple, but there are some tools that can help us do this. One of them is the Phlanx calculator . To use it you can click on the following button and this way you will be able to know the engagement of your account .
Remember that the more followers you have, the lower the engagement percentage will be. To know if this is within what is supposed to be “normal” you can take these values as a reference:
My recommendation is that you do not obsess over the average engagement percentage either, but that you do have it as an indicator to guide you about the situation of your account. Focus on achieving a greater impact on Instagram with small actions like these that I tell you about and little by little you will achieve it.
And now that you know the importance of sharing valuable, original content and you understand what engagement is, the time has come to go for the second tip!
- Insert your logo or signature in the image itself
It is true that sharing visual and contributing posts is crucial, but we must not forget to include our signature, website or logo in the composition. I recommend this, because we want to ensure that users not only notice the publication, but also know who created it so that little by little we can become a reference in our field .
Additionally , if you insert your signature or logo, you will prevent the content that you have created with so much effort from being plagiarized . So next time don’t forget this tip so that your followers don’t forget about you!
- Add a location
If you have a local business, adding the location will let your followers know where your store is and where they should go to find you . Sometimes we forget something so simple and the truth is that this can help people in the area think of us when they need our products or services.
On the contrary, if your business is not local or if you don’t actually have a business, I also recommend using localization . This way you can reach more people. In fact, I would tell you to change it to generate more reach depending on which places interest you.
In my case, since I work remotely, I sometimes use other locations, but since I am based in Valencia, most of my publications are located in this area. Therefore, everything will depend on your own objective! But don’t forget this tip because with it you can achieve up to 70% more reach and a greater impact on Instagram .
- Use an attractive title
You need to capture users’ attention with an attractive title so they think “hey, I’m interested in this!” and so they stop to see your post and interact with it . So, put on some music, get inspired and create one of those titles that won’t go unnoticed. - Connect with your target audience through the post description
Creativity, originality and copywriting, a lot of copywriting… but be careful! The good one. In the end, words are what truly connect with your audience . When you use one tone of voice or another, when you present yourself as someone of flesh and blood and humanize your brand, that is when you transmit and, therefore, connect .
So , create a thoughtful description that identifies with your brand values and the post . But, also, start to be interested in why copywriting is , because it can help you attract more clients and increase your community .
- Add emoticons in the description
Using some emoticons in the description itself will help us reinforce what we want to say and connect with the emotions of our followers more easily . In addition, emojis always attract attention, which suits us like a glove, but wait! Using too many can make us look a bit childish . Therefore, do not overuse it either. - Insert a call to action
CTAs (Call To Action, in English) or attention calls (in Spanish), are going to be essential in the descriptions. Thanks to this resource we can tell the user what exactly we expect from them , for example “visit my website”, “don’t miss my new article!” or “take advantage of the sales.”
My recommendation is that you use calls to action near the end of the description , since the beginning and the end of something is what is remembered most by our dear human mind.
- Insert a question at the end that invites people to comment on the post
Do you remember the engagement? We want users to interact with our content, so let’s give them a reason to do so . To do this, I usually leave a question at the end of each post to encourage people to comment . Doesn’t that seem like a good strategy to you? - Use hashtags
Hashtags and their controversial use… “how many do I use, Lorena?” It depends . There are accounts that work better with 5 and others with 19. My humble recommendation? Use less than 20 and the average of those you have been using . And, based on my experience, I have seen that accounts that generally use between 5 and 12 do better with that amount, and accounts that use between 15 to 19 do better with this other amount . My theory? Each account has taught the Instagram algorithm to “work better” with a specific number of hashtags .
This doesn’t mean you can’t change it, but it may cost you a little more to get reach if you drastically change that number.
In my case, I usually use 19 and I am very happy with the results I get from them. Of course, remember 5 things:
Always use hashtags
Change them cyclically, that is, alternate them
Be specific
Use hashtags in each post in relation to the content of the post and hashtags related to the location (for example, in my case: #copywritervalencia)
Choose hashtags with fewer posts (between 500 and 5000 posts), especially if you are new to Instagram , so that you can be among the featured ones. But it also uses medium hashtags (between 5,000 and 50,000 posts) and large hashtags with more than 50,000 or 60,000 posts.
- Share your posts in stories
Finally, don’t forget to share your posts on Instagram stories as they will let your followers know that there is new content published and they will go see it and interact with it . In the stories you can insert a hashtag and a location to also get more reach. Plus, you can add music, polls or whatever you can think of. Bring out your most creative side to attract your audience!
Now that you know how you can achieve a greater impact on Instagram with your publications, you will be able to have a greater reach and, therefore, a greater impact. Additionally, if you wish, you have at your disposal a checklist that I have made to achieve greater reach on Instagram and which is completely free; or you can also see the 10 tips to optimize your Instagram profile.