By now we know that *real* growth on IG is about way more than just posting to your grid and building your followers. It’s about building a real and genuine connection with your audience! At FHC we are firm believers that engaging with your followers is the key to achieving this , and to increasing your reach too! Here’s how we do it …
What engagement looks like
Engagement basically covers every interaction that makes you an active participant in the IG feed, rather than someone who just posts and runs. This could be:
- Liking and commenting on other people’s posts on your feed.
- Voting in polls, getting involved with Q&As and replying to stories.
- Following RELEVANT people in your industry or niche.
Why it’s important
First of all, technically, engaging on the IG feed means you’re going to get seen more often. You’re keeping yourself fresh in your audience’s mind and, what’s more, the Instagram powers that be will see that you’re an active member of the community and NOT a bot. The algorithm is far more likely to favour you if you’re getting involved and engaging on the feed.
TOP TIP: Try engaging 15 minutes before you upload a new post. This way, you’ll be fresh in your audiences’ mind when you do post, and they’ll be far more likely to go and have a look!
However, even more importantly, proper engagement helps you build a relationship with your audience:
- Building trust: by actively commenting on your network’s posts with helpful thoughts and insights, you’re going to be presenting yourself as an authority in your industry who can be trusted to give good advice. BAM – more visitors to your page!
- Making connections: engaging allows you to get involved with more conversations, and often times they can convert to potential new leads that you’d never have even thought of.
- Being part of a community: the more your name crops up in the likes and comments of your audience, the more you’ll begin to immerse yourself into the wider community of your niche.
How to engage properly …
Is there a wrong way to engage on the IG feed? Absolutely. If you’re engaging purely with selfish purposes (i.e. building followers) then it’s going to show. And it’s not going to work. There is definitely a right way to engage:
- Only follow people who can add genuine value to your feed. If you’re spam-following just in the hope that someone follows you back, not only will this not work, but your account could even be flagged. Relevant follows only people!
- Only comment when you have something useful to say. Don’t just comment ‘love it’ on every post you see and think your job is done. Real engagement means commenting to share insights and advice or ask questions that are specific to each post. A good rule of thumb is to never comment less than five words – but usually quite a few more!
- Spread it out. Engaging 15 minutes before you post might be a good hack, but it’s not all you need to do. Staying consistent with your engagement is key to true growth. We recommend spending 15 – 20 minutes every day engaging. And if you can manage it, do more.
Ultimately, real engagement on the IG feed is about being authentic. And if you do it right, it can help build real connections and genuine leads!
ps. Don’t have time to engage yourself? We offer an engagement package that takes care of all of this and more. Pop us a dm over on @fhcsocials to enquire today.