Feel like you’re always chasing what the algorithm wants, but still finding that your posts get no engagement? It can feel like a never-ending chase – one day it’s all about reels, then it’s about guides, then it’s about getting people to save – not like – your posts. It’s exhausting and there’s definitely a fine art to it.
Presenting yourself professionally online has never been more important. More and more of us are turning to Instagram as one of our main ways to communicate and network, which ironically is making it harder to stand out on the site.
So we’ve gathered up the basics of how to please the Instagram Gods this winter.
TLDR? Your posts are being shown most to those who engage with your content the most, so work to encourage that engagement (commenting, DMs, creating content where they spend longer on it like videos, carousels, and posts with longer captions).
Engage with your Followers
- Reply to your DMs – this will demonstrate to the algorithm that your account is both engaging and engaged
- Reply to comments on your posts – see above.
- Create Stories with polls or question boxes, to help create dialogue with your followers.
Timing
- Post at the busiest times (Insta analytics can tell you what time this will be for your followers in particular, but around 10AM and 8PM tend to be winners).
- Post with consistency; this doesn’t need to be every day, but even three times a week with consistency will get you further than having a week of daily posts then weeks of nothing.
Content
- Get into Reels; Reels are Instagram’s most-shared type of content, which will help you reach new audiences.
- Post stories each day, this will keep your followers engaged with what you do.
- Create a ‘look’ for your feed– whether it’s a design format tool you use, or colour-coding, making your content recognisably ‘yours’ will help with engagement.
- Carousels are your friend: your audience will be looking at your content for longer, making the algorithm think you’re more interesting than the post might actually be.
- IGTV isn’t everything, but if you have longer content that’s engaging and will keep your followers watching your content for longer, then go for it.
- Write engaging captions that will encourage people to comment (now that likes aren’t particularly helpful).
- Join in with trends; whether it’s the latest TikTok dance / sound or a new photo format (if you don’t find it too cringey) joining in with these hot-right-now types of content will help attract engagement.
- Use hashtags that are niche-r but have fewer posts associated with them (your post isn’t going to be spotted in a sea of one million posts with #art in their caption).
- Cross-promote – share your posts in your stories, or reference your reels in the captions of your posts – keep your followers on your account content for as long as you can.
Author: Verity Babbs
