Instagram engagement is more than just several followers; it also considers how your audience interacts with your material.  Engagement occurs when one of your followers takes an action on your profile or in reaction to one of your posts. Some of the most common Instagram engagement metrics are as follows

Paul Crow, founder and CEO of Eagle's Nest Coffee Co., says, "There was a time when Instagram was all about lovely photographs, and that's long gone." “Nowadays, the most well-known brands interact with their customers.”

 Instagram interaction is key to establishing a connection with your target audience - without it, you're effectively speaking to an empty room.

Keeping track of your Instagram engagement rates not only allows you to evaluate if your social media marketing efforts are paying off, but also allows you to develop deeper relationships with your followers. That link might make all the difference for small enterprises.

What is Instagram engagement?

 Instagram engagement is more than just several followers; it also considers how your audience interacts with your material.  Engagement occurs when one of your followers takes an action on your profile or in reaction to one of your posts. Some of the most common Instagram engagement metrics are as follows:

Metrics after the engagement:

• Likes
• Comments
• Views
• Follower growth

Other indicators of engagement include:

• Link clicks/swipe-ups
• DMs
• Hashtag
• Use Stories
• Sticker interactions
• Mentions

(We'll be focusing on post-engagement analytics and monitoring your engagement rate in this article.)

Why engagement matters

There are several reasons why engagement is important:

For starters, it displays how people are responding to your material. Your engagement will be stronger if your audience can relate to your material. This is a strong indication that your social media plan is working.

Second, one of the most crucial ranking variables for Instagram's algorithm is engagement. When Instagram loads your feed, the algorithm strives to reveal the posts you're most likely to interact with, so posts from accounts and subjects you engage with frequently will likely show at the top.

In other words, the more people who engage with your material, the more likely they are to see it.

How to calculate Instagram engagement rate

Instagram tracks how people interact with your posts, IGTV, Instagram Reels, and Instagram Stories. Likes, comments, shares, saves, website views, profile visits, followers, and replies to Instagram Stories are all Instagram indicators that influence your engagement rates. For additional information on how to access these stats, see our Instagram analytics guide.

If you're looking for an Instagram engagement rate algorithm, look no further. That depends on how you define engagement: reach, impressions, the total number of followers, video views, and so on.

Here's how the two most popular Instagram engagement formulae work:

Engagement rate based on followers

Let's imagine you want to figure out the engagement rate for a specific Instagram post based on the number of followers. You'll multiply the number of actions on the post by 100 by dividing it by your total number of followers. Don't worry if you're already sweating from algebra exam flashbacks; we'll break everything down for you.

Your engagement rate would be 9% if you had 1,000 followers and your Instagram post earned 70 likes, 15 comments, and 5 shares.

When you calculate your Instagram engagement rate based on your followers, you may get a fair picture of how your followers feel about the material. It does not, however, take into consideration how many of those followers saw the post in the first place. To accomplish so, you'll need to use impressions to calculate engagement.

Engagement rate based on impressions

You'll use the same formula as above to determine your Instagram engagement rate based on impressions, but replace your number of followers with the total number of impressions.

Your engagement rate would be 4% if your post was seen by 515 people (impressions) and earned a total of 25 engagements.

Third-party analytics can also help you with this. One client's top post garnered 317 engagements (Likes, Comments, and Saves) and 7,637 impressions, resulting in a 4.3 percent engagement rate.

Why do we use impressions to gauge engagement? There is no right or wrong formula to employ here. We utilize the impressions-based engagement rate methodology because it shows you how many people reacted to your content based on how many people saw it rather than how many people follow your account.

What is a good Instagram engagement rate?

Although the term "excellent" is subjective, you may be surprised to learn that a good Instagram interaction rate might be as low as 1%. And that relatively low figure is rather common across businesses: a study of 1,800 Instagram profiles from 12 different industries found an average engagement rate of 1.6 percent.

Consider what makes engagement valuable to you before labeling your engagement rate as excellent or negative. Giveaway posts may generate a lot of interest, but do they result in more sales? Do more likes lead to more sales? While Instagram engagement is good for your ego, it's far more vital to think about how that engagement converts into revenue.

Instead of focusing solely on the figures, consider how far you've come over time. Take note of whatever material generates the most engagement, then alter your social media marketing plan to boost total engagement.

6 Tactics to help boost your Instagram engagement

Because raising engagement rates is all about engaging with your specific audience, there is no step-by-step guide. These strategies, on the other hand, will assist you in determining your audience's preferences and tailoring future material to them.

1. Experiment with different content types

Instagram allows you to submit material in a variety of formats, including single-image posts, carousel posts, IGTV, Instagram Reels, and Instagram Stories. By varying your post kinds, you can see which forms your audience responds to the most.

We've been working hard to diversify the content formats we use on Instagram. In our feed, you can see a mix of IGTV, carousels, Reels, and single-image posts in the screenshot below:

Carousel posts have the greatest engagement rates of all post formats, according to studies, with particularly high rates for posts that combine photos and videos. However, what works for other companies may not work for you. Don't regard engagement studies like they're the law.

Consider this: if you own a dance class, which is more likely to pique the interest of potential dancers: still photographs in a carousel post or an IGTV showing a spectacular dance performance you choreographed?

2. Look beyond likes

It's easy to get caught up in counting likes, but that's not the only measure to keep an eye on.

Paul Smith, the founder of Big Digi Creative, states, "Previously, the content was assessed on likes and follower counts." "Now is the time to start thinking about your savings and investments."

We scroll, double-tap, and go about our lives without thinking about our likes. Other Instagram analytics provide further information about the people who engage with your content.

“I care enough about this to type out my opinion,” says one commenter.

“I like this, and I hope someone else will as well,” says one sharer.

“This is fantastic,” Smith exclaims. I'd like to come back to it in the future.”

Because shares and saves aren't visible to the general public, many brands make the mistake of ignoring them. I mean, what good is engagement if you can't flaunt it? Wrong. Saves and shares not only reveal who cares about your material, but they also reveal who cares about Instagram. Instagram's algorithm keeps track of who saves and shares your photos, and it makes sure they appear more frequently in those viewers' Instagram feeds.

3. Make it a conversation

Don't expect to be praised just because you put your information out there. Allow others to engage in back-and-forth conversations with you.

To promote comments, include questions or a call to action (CTA) in your postings. “Remember that you're talking to people, and people love to be heard,” Smith advises. Posing questions to your audience is a terrific approach to break the ice and start them talking. Just make sure you respond to comments and DMs the same way you would to phone calls to your company.

Popcorn Pops, for example, put a question at the end of a description about one of its flavours, asking, "Who's tried this one already?" This post drew a lot of feedback, and Popcorn Shed made it a point to react to each one.

However, keeping track of comments isn't always easy because Instagram notifications fade rapidly.

4. Use Instagram's interactive features

Use interactive Instagram Stickers in your Instagram Stories as well. Instagram polls, questions, quizzes, and sliding scales are all examples of stickers that encourage your followers to interact with your content.

What's nice about Instagram Stickers is that it only takes a second to vote in a poll, grade an adorable puppy photo with the most hearts, and so on — and all of those short actions stimulate the connection between your followers and your content.

5. Be consistent

Because the Instagram algorithm rewards active users, posting frequently will help your content reach a larger audience. Experiment with your posting schedule to find the optimal time for your brand to post on Instagram.

Marney Murphy, a co-founder of Flash Up Digital, argues, "Consistency destroys the competition." “As a company, you should post at least once a day. If I follow you on Instagram, it's because I'm interested in seeing your content.”

Consistent posting boosts your Instagram engagement. When users interact with your content, Instagram knows to present it to them more frequently. It's important to remember that more isn't always better. Businesses post roughly once a day on Instagram on average, and they don't experience an increase in engagement when they post more frequently.

6. Analyze what's working

Analyzing your material to determine what resonates with your audience is a wonderful first step if you want to increase your Instagram engagement rate. You may start planning and shipping additional content in that style after you know what sorts of content are generating the most interaction. If user-generated content has higher interaction than other posts, for example, you might consider sharing more user-generated content.

Work out the engagement rate for each of your posts over a week or month to examine your content, and make notes on which pieces have the most engagement.

Focus on your audience and the engagement will follow

Paul of Eagle's Nest Coffee Co. advises, "Create your social media presence around what your customers want to see rather than offering folks what you want them to have."

Finding out what your audience wants to talk about, share, and enjoy on Instagram is the first step in measuring engagement. Increasing engagement requires generating and distributing content that satisfies those desires.

Paul explains, "We spend a lot of time engaging with customers to find out exactly what they want, so we offer them more of what they want, and as a result, they look forward to our postings because our posts aren't about us; they're more about them."

 

How to get started

If you are trying to promote your business, product or service then you should definitely consider the benefits of investing in buying real Instagram followers, auto Instagram likes and views for your account. You can quickly reach thousands of new people without wasting money on traditional methods of advertising. If you are not using this type of service, you are falling behind.