Instagram is a place to grow your community and foster relationships. But when engagement is down, people start to freak out and lose sight of this. Today I’m giving you three proven ways that you can get more engagement on your Instagram, that leads to a bigger, better community, and fostering more sales on social media.

3 Ways to Get More Engagement on Instagram

Follow Hashtags and Engage with Community

Tip number one may not blow your mind, but whenever we get busy throughout the days, weeks, months, it’s just something that we forget to do. I want you engaging with your followers, both new and people that have been around for a while, at least 20 minutes a day. Now, whenever you’re engaging with new followers, a way that I like to do this, is finding hashtags that I know that my idle clients are using. And I go in there, and I follow those hashtags so they pop up in my feed. So whenever I’m scrolling, I can discover new accounts, and engage with them without ever leaving my main feed. But I don’t want you to forget the people who have been around for a while. I want you to go into your profile to the followers, and follow those accounts as well, and engage with them, and comment on their posts. Because they’re just as important as the new followers. Now, just as Jenna Kutcher says, I don’t want you to ‘post and ghost’. What that means is, whenever you post a picture and then you immediately jump off the app into whatever you were doing. After you post is a great time to spend that 20 minutes engaging with your audience.

Add a Call-to-Action to Posts

So for tip number two, I want you adding a call to action at the end of each post. Whether that’s asking somebody to tag friends who need to hear this, commenting with their favorite movie, asking them to go read a latest blog post, whatever it is, you need to have a call to action. Because if you post a caption that just says, this is another beautiful wedding on a sunny Sunday, what does somebody say back to that? You have to have something that creates a conversation, so that the other person has something to say whenever you post an image. And that right there will grow your engagement just by doing that alone.

Send Direct Messages to Followers

Okay, whenever you hear the third tip, don’t roll your eyes, stay with me. I want you sending direct messages to new followers, when appropriate. I don’t send this out to every new follower. I like to know who’s following me. I like to know who’s engaging with my account. So whenever I see a new follower, and they intrigue me, I go into their account, I spend some time learning about them, what they’re posting, go into their website, and then if I feel like they would be an ideal client, then I will go ahead and send a personalized direct message to their account. It may say something along the lines of, hey, thank you so much for following along with my Instagram, your feed is full of inspiration. I really like that post that talked about your mom being there for you every step of the way. I can totally relate, my mom is definitely my biggest fan. Please don’t be a stranger, reach out to me and let me know how I can best serve you. Not slimeball at all. It’s just creating a conversation with people in your community and fostering that relationship, which is what social media is all about.

I promise if you follow these three tips, you will start to see more engagement. Comment below and let me know which one is your best tip, and how you’ll be utilizing it within your business. Remember, Instagram is a place to grow your community and foster relationships. It’s not a fast track way to get sales, it’s a slow-paced method that’s going to grow your community, and foster that like, know and trust factor, that we all know is important. So if you feel like your Instagram bio may need a facelift, then go to carrylovedesigns.com/education and get your Instagram bio guide that’s going to craft your Instagram bio to get found in more searches, by more potential clients.