3 Ways To Increase Your Social Media Engagement Today!

Especially with the new update from Instagram, it's got business owners asking: "How can I get more engagement on my page and more eyeballs on what it is that I do?"  The truth is, social media will always have updates and algorithm changes, so you need to stop thinking in terms of now and weeks and start planning your social media strategy in months and years.

That being said, today I want to give you our top three strategies that we teach our clients that will start to help you increase your social media engagement as soon as the day you start implementing them!

The first way is to simply start creating better content.  I know it sounds ridiculous and straightforward, but it's always the option that people try to avoid.  Teach me this hack, what's this secret, etc. instead of taking an honest look at their content and asking themselves, "How can I get better?"

If you were to scroll back through our entire Instagram feed, you'll notice that we've posted over 1500 times in 3 years, which is a lot by most people's standards . . . this begs the question: WHY did we post so much?  We did it for two main reasons.  The first reason was that we wanted to see what content would resonate most with our audience, and you'll never know the answer to that question only posting once a week.  You have to post consistently to get consistent feedback, and that is what we aimed for by posting that much.

The second reason, and really the main reason, is that we wanted to get better at creating content as a whole, and we've always believed that quantity breeds quality.  The more you do something, the better you get at it.  We apply it in every area of our life EXCEPT social media content it seems.  Go to the gym more, and get in better shape.  Read more books, and get better at reading.  So why businesses don't create more content to get better at content creation has always baffled me.

If you look back through all our Instagram posts you'll notice that throughout our journey, our content has gotten better.  I would venture to say at the beginning it was pretty basic and in all honesty, bad . . . but we all start somewhere, and we knew that if we just kept learning and kept creating, our content would slowly start to get better.  Even after three years and people telling us our content is great, I'm still not satisfied, because I STILL know that it could be even better.  So while hacks, tips, and tricks are great, if your content is good, people will engage with it, end of story.

The second way you can increase your social media engagement is by first engaging with other people.  I call it engagement on here because that's what people have come to know it by, but I've always preferred to call it support because engagement to me sounds like something I have to do, or like a job.  Whatever you choose to call it, the fact of the matter is this:

If you don't give love, how can you expect love in return?

I know that the amount of time people suggest engaging differs, and I even saw an Instagram post of a friend of ours who just hit 50K followers on Instagram, and she said that for over a year, she's consistently engaged on Instagram 6 days a week for 2 hours a day . . . that's a lot of engagement!  Now I'm not saying that you have to engage THAT much if you don't want to, but it was one of the key reasons she said that she was able to grow so big so quickly.

The things you have to figure out for yourself and your business are this: first, how important is growing my Instagram for my business?  Is it kind of important or is the vitally important?  Because the answer to that question will dictate the answer to the next question, which is: how long should I engage on Instagram every day?

If your answer was Instagram is kind of important, but it's not the most important thing, then 5-15 minutes a day of engaging will get you some result, and that will be fine because you know that it's not of vital importance for you.  However, if growing on Instagram for your business IS of vital importance, then you need to decide just how much time you want to spend engaging.

From most Instagram experts, I hear the sweet spot is 30-60 minutes, but again, this all depends on how important it is to you, how much time you have to spend doing it, etc.  An easy way for you to do this efficiently and effectively is to a bigger creator's profile in your niche, then look at their comment section.  This will give you a good idea of who you can start engaging with first.  Then, over time, as you build a routine, you can add these people to your "favorites" section to cut down on the time scrolling your feed.

Because with Instagram now showing so many "suggested posts" and ads (so many ads), you want to make sure that you're using the time you DO have to engage wisely and efficiently.

The last thing you're going to want to do is to create a consistent social media plan.  Too many business owners leave consistency up to chance, then something happens, and gone is the consistency that they said they'd stick to.  So let's take the first two points and create a simple social media plan that can serve as an example . . .

Say you want to post 5x a week (Monday-Friday) on Instagram and you want to engage for 30 minutes a day to start.  The first thing I would suggest is creating all of your content the week before, that way you're not trying to create content 15 minutes before you want to post.  When you batch and schedule out your content, it gives you the freedom to create a piece of content in the moment if you choose but doesn't force you to.  Too many business owners think they'll just create content in the moment, however, when the moment arrives, they have a brain freeze and end up posting nothing.

Make sure you're creating your content, writing your captions, finding your hashtags, etc. the week before, then using a scheduling tool like "Later" or "Planoly" to handle the posting for you.  The reason why is because this will allow your sole focus of the day to be on engagement.

If you were wanting to engage for 30 minutes a day, I would suggest engaging 10 minutes before your post, 10 minutes after your post, then 10 minutes later on in the day, that way you can answer any lingering comments you get back or on any of your posts.  So this means making sure you have that time around your post to be able to engage.  If you can't do it at 8:30 in the morning, then don't do it then.  Just because Instagram tells you the "best" time to post, doesn't necessarily make it true.

It says our "best" time is 11 am, but when we post at 3 pm, we actually get better engagement.  The point is to make sure that you're posting when you can best follow through with your engagement strategy.  You want to set yourself up for success from day 1.  Then simply rinse and repeat.  Create your content the week before, and focus on engaging at the times you pre-determine for yourself.  Sounds so simple, right?  Things become simple when you make a plan ahead of time that deems them simple.

Now that you've got these three pieces of information, I guarantee that if you follow through, you'll see an instant increase in your social media engagement, and what's great about this, is the longer you're consistent, the better long-term results you're going to get!  So focus on creating better content every day, engaging with other people that make sense, and sticking to your overall plan and strategy, then watch your engagement and reach grow!  If you have any follow up questions about how to engage or increasing your engagement, you can always reach out us on Instagram @michaelandjill