How To Increase Instagram Engagement Rate

In 2024, businesses are increasingly using Instagram to reach their target audience, leveraging its 2 billion monthly active users. Instagram is also the 4th most-used social media platform, which makes it a no-brainer for businesses to leverage it for creating content and building their brands. Yet, it's crucial for businesses to not only post regularly but also to monitor and understand the impact of their content. 

Engagement rate—measured by likes, comments, shares, and interactions—is key to connecting social efforts with business goals. Our upcoming blog will delve into defining Instagram engagement, how to calculate it, what levels are considered successful, and will provide strategies for boosting engagement.

What is Instagram Engagement? How To Calculate IG Engagement Rate?

Instagram engagement is a composite measure of various metrics that show the level of audience interaction with your content and their commitment to your online presence. It's essential because it reflects whether your content truly resonates with users or not. It is an indicator of brand loyalty and affects how Instagram's algorithm prioritizes your posts. 

Engagement is influenced by actions like comments, shares, likes, saves, and mentions, which can amplify a post's reach. Moreover, engagement signals to Instagram that users find your content valuable, helping it gain more visibility. 

To calculate your brand’s Instagram engagement rate, you will have to look at the overall number of interactions you can link to your content. Likes, comments, shares, story responses, and saves —  all of these are included in this. Once you have a hold of the data, you can use this Instagram engagement rate formula given below:

Engagement Rate = (Total interactions / Total impressions) x 100.

This formula helps you understand the effectiveness of your content strategy on Instagram.

What is Considered as Good Engagement on Instagram?

Experts concur that an average engagement rate between 1% and 5% is ideal. However, according to research by Later in 2022, the average engagement rate (by follower count) is 2.88%. This metric was reached after analyzing 44 million Instagram feed posts (excluding Reels). A granular breakdown of this stat reveals that the average engagement rate (by follower count) for images is 2.76%, videos is 2.60%, and carousel posts is 3.11%.

Image source

However, Socialinsider's 2024 report notes a drop in the average rate to 0.60% across industries, with Reels being the most engaging format at 0.93%. Instagram's algorithm promotes Reels more due to their visibility in both the standard and the dedicated Reels feed, contributing to their higher engagement rates. 

In the next section, we will discuss several Instagram engagement post ideas to help you create a highly engaging Instagram content strategy. 

5 Compelling Instagram Engagement Post Ideas

If you do not know what content you should be posting on Instagram, here are a few post ideas to get more engagement on your account:

1. Share BTS Content: The kind of authenticity that behind-the-scenes content brings to a brand is unmatched. It fosters audience trust and helps them connect more with your business. You can use BTS content to present your team, discuss your goals, and project a more laid-back image of your company. This could serve as the cornerstone of a more powerful brand identity.
2. UGC Reposts: User-generated content can be a powerful tool to boost brand engagement on Instagram. How? UGC content usually comes from customers, which makes it excellent as social proof. The more your brand gains customer trust, the more dedicated an online community you can build around your business. 

Image source

To obtain copious amounts of UGC content around your products, you can hold contests where people upload content tagging your products in posts and Stories, ask followers to express their views about a brand-relevant subject, or even exchange memes.

3. Product Teaser Campaigns: This works when your brand has already gained some ground on Instagram and has an active audience, no matter the size. Product teaser campaigns can be short videos or a single image (like a movie poster) that thinly unveils your newly launched offering. A straightforward countdown to a new product launch may be a great way to build excitement for an important occasion for your company, and it takes very little time or money to implement.
4. Seasonal Content:  These can be the most simple type of posts to create, heralding a new season’s excitement. For example, fashion brands often use such posts to release their seasonal apparel collections. 

Image source

While seasonal posts have a short shelf-life, they have been proven to significantly increase engagement for a couple of days, depending on the varying interests of your target audience. 

5. Company Culture Posts: Instagram is a great way to highlight the culture of your business. Being an aspect of your organization that interacts with the public, it's the ideal instrument for establishing your brand for clients or customers. It is perfect for exchanging perspectives about your team, workplace, and business activities. This strategy may benefit both parties involved, internally and externally. These posts may also be seen by your staff as a form of public acknowledgment for their hard work.

BONUS: Some other Instagram post ideas to elevate your engagement rate include 

• repurposing customer testimonials as visual images, 
• themed posts based on trends, 
• a reel series based on intriguing topics, 
• educational content surrounding your niche, 
• polls and quizzes, 

and much more.

Ways To Increase Instagram Engagement Rate 

Increasing your Instagram account’s engagement rate is not a very difficult endeavor if you keep these two things in mind — 

• knowing your audience in and out and 
• posting consistently at strategic times.

Besides these, we have specific tips for you to increase engagement on several different types of Instagram content, namely, posts, Stories, and Reels. Let’s check them out.

How To Increase Engagement on Instagram Posts

Here are three ideas to increase more engagement on Instagram posts:

1. Create Relatable Visuals and Memes

Many creators and brands rely on quotes and graphics to engage their followers. Instagram users love a good inspirational quote or a funny, moment-appropriate meme. Big brands often take part in moment marketing for the same purpose — because such posts have a way higher probability of going viral and capture the attention of new audiences.

One more trend that is recently doing rounds is posting repurposed tweets as graphics on Instagram. You can simply screenshot a selected tweet and paste it on a visually appealing background using a photo editing app. 

Another opportunity you can use to create a post that resonates with your audience is to write a relevant Instagram caption. You can use it to include a powerful call to action. For example, if you pose a question in your caption, people would be more inclined to respond in the comments. 

2. Make Carousel Posts Informational

Carousels have trumped over normal Instagram posts in 2023. Research indicates that a carousel with pictures and videos has a 2.33% average engagement rate. It is, therefore, ideal to include photos and videos in your carousel posts to increase engagement rates.

Image source

The high rate of engagement for carousels is because the Instagram algorithm favors them over normal posts, and they frequently appear in users' feeds multiple times, thus potentially doubling or even tripling the number of likes, comments, and shares. You can use carousels to create step-by-step guides, tell a brand story, share lists and tips, and reveal a product range.

3. Use Branded and Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags are a great way to expand reach and increase engagement on your Instagram account. The likelihood that someone will interact with your content increases with its visibility. This is where hashtags come in.

You can make use of branded and relevant hashtags to reach your ideal audience. The objective is to get Instagram to display your content to users who have expressed interest in topics covered by that hashtag. These users will likely check out and interact with your content when they see it or search for the specific hashtag.

How To Increase Engagement on Instagram Stories

Here are three ideas to increase engagement on Instagram Stories:

1. Post Stories Daily

One of the prominent ways to always keep your brand top of mind for your potential customers is to post Instagram Stories every day. Instagram Stories can possibly give you the best chance to attract your ideal audience’s attention. Once they view your Stories, any interest you generate can translate into a visit to your business profile. 

Stories allow you to interact in a variety of ways and have a unique appearance and feel. You can afford to be more informal and personal because they only last 24 hours, which will appeal to some users far more.

Furthermore, some users choose to watch Stories over their feeds. This way, you can continue to provide excellent content in your feed for everyone else while being available to those users where they choose to discover you.

2. Engage Users with Instagram Story Stickers

Another great way to drive Instagram engagement through Stories is by using Story stickers. It is human nature to want to press buttons, and Story stickers like the Poll sticker can generate insane engagement for your brand. Instagram offers multiple Story stickers, including Polls, Questions, and “Add Yours.” 

You can use Poll stickers to create quizzes or gather votes on the kind of content your followers would like to see from your brand. You can also ask yes/no questions using Poll stickers. 

Image source

The Questions stickers, on the other hand, can allow you to have direct conversations with your followers. You can put something like “Ask Me Anything?” and open the floor to your users to ask any questions they have about you or your business. 

Last but not least, we will talk about the “Add Yours” sticker, which is pretty popular these days. You can use this sticker to introduce a challenge and encourage brand interaction. Providing challenge prompts and inviting others to join in by contributing their own content can expand brand reach manifold. 

3. Make the Most of Instagram Story Highlights

When you assess your audience base for engagement, you will find two kinds of followers: 

• One category of people who have liked a few posts and seen a few Stories and Reels but do not view your content regularly, and 
• Second category comment on every post, view every Story, share your Reels, and more. The latter type is called a “super follower.”

As an up-and-coming business, you will want more of the latter, and the best way to convert more of your regular followers into “super followers” is by creating Story Highlights. 

Image source

Story Highlights are like “content buckets or categories" that enable you to group related content together. In short, Highlights allows you to save particular Instagram Stories to your feed, archiving content that might otherwise be lost. These remain at the top of your profile (not simply in your daily Stories) until you decide to remove them.

Here are some content bucket ideas for your Instagram Story Highlights:

• “Collections” for the seasonal release of products;
• Categories for your content based on particular subjects;
• "Channels" for distinct audience groups with particular interests; and
• Categories for primary brand content (how-tos, behind-the-scenes, etc.).

How To Increase Engagement on Instagram Reels

Here are three ideas to increase engagement on Instagram Reels:

1. Create Reels in Volume

Reels have a much better chance of getting likes or going viral. Additionally, if your Reel content is authentic to your brand and resonates strongly enough, it may attract new users to your Instagram profile. 

Image source

You can use Reels to demonstrate behind-the-scenes processes or how-to recommendations. Reels can also serve as educative tools by offering a concise summary of topics that viewers may find interesting. Moreover, Reels serve as a good medium for making a real connection with your audience because you can show your face on Reels. It does not have to be complicated. You can start small by simply talking to your audience like you are talking to one person. 

2. Try Out Different Reel Features

You can post almost any type of Reel to enhance Instagram interaction, but you need to maximize watch time for the most boost. This implies that you must grab the audience's attention within the first three seconds of the Reel and maintain it.

To do this, you can try out these important Reels features:

• Transitions: You may generate a dynamic motion with these abrupt cuts from one scene to the next. For clean cuts, you should use the align tool. Transitions are great for showing transformative results, time lapses, and more.
• Voiceovers: This is very useful when describing something, such as a process or a recipe. Voiceovers are great for storytelling, and creators can attract a huge number of followers using this feature. It also lends authenticity to your brand.
• Timed text: This helps audiences follow along more easily. You can mark particular scenes in your Reel or call out particular words or phrases that create impact. Captioning Reels is a good idea, considering there may be several accents for one language.
• Trending audio: You can greatly expand your audience by incorporating trending audio into your Reels. Instagram Reels offers a huge library of trending audio clips to make your content more appealing. The algorithm also supports some trending audios, which means your Reel can have better chances of being boosted to new audiences.
• Templates: This is especially helpful for beginners. You can simply sync your photo and video clips with an audio track if you start with a Reels template. The algorithm also supports Reel templates, so even users with no experience can start making short-form video content in no time.

3. Collab on Instagram Reels

Collaborating with fellow creators or businesses is an age-old way to boost engagement for Instagram accounts — and now, you can use Reels to do that too! Similar to Instagram posts, a Reels collab appears in the feeds of both of your followers, offering an opportunity to increase interaction. Thus, you can take full advantage of this functionality to work with brand partners, industry leaders, and, yes, even influencers.

Image source

Influencers are the golden geese of the modern social media world, who can literally make or break a brand. They have a loyal follower base, irrespective of size, and can introduce your brand to new audiences from a place of trust, which guarantees positive publicity and greater brand awareness. 

But influencer partnerships can be tricky, and if you do not research properly, you might end up with the short end of the stick. You can use creator data management tools like Phyllo to access content data and engagement metrics of influencers you are thinking of partnering with and make an informed decision that will benefit your business.

How Phyllo Can Help You Gain Insights Into Creator Engagement Metrics?

Phyllo offers a universal API for multiple social media platforms, including Instagram, which you can use to extract creator profile insights directly from the source platform. Using the Engagement product from Phyllo, you can access a constant stream of content data and engagement metrics, including likes, comments, shares, views, reach, and saves.

Image source

The smart technology from Phyllo makes sure you have access to real-time statistics, especially for Instagram Stories. The Webhooks product, on the other hand, sends regular notifications anytime there is an update in any engagement metric. Last but not least, the Connect SDK product guides creators on connecting their Instagram accounts to Phyllo in a seamless way. It even allows them to de-activate the integration, thus promoting transparency and security. 

Phyllo provides you with refreshed creator engagement metrics data every 24 hours straight from Instagram, thereby ensuring that the data you receive is accurate. This will help you collaborate with those creators who have an engaged, loyal community composed of your target customer personas. In short, Phyllo can inform your influencer partnerships to generate desired outcomes for your business. Schedule a call or sign up for a free account to access creator data with Phyllo APIs today! 

FAQs: 

Does scheduling Instagram posts affect engagement?

Maintaining consistency and optimal posting times using scheduling can help increase the engagement rate of your Instagram posts. However, it may hamper real-time engagement and the ability to react to trends. 

How do you check your engagement rate on Instagram?

To determine your Instagram engagement rate, you must divide the total number of interactions (likes, comments, and shares) by the number of followers you have. Then, you can simply multiply the result by 100 to see the percentage. 

How do you find the average engagement rate on Instagram?

By dividing the entire number of interactions by the total number of followers, you may compute the individual engagement rates for your posts on Instagram. Once you have those separate figures, you can add up the individual engagement rates of all the posts you analyzed and then divide that total by the total number of posts to find the average engagement rate of your Instagram account.