If you’re on Instagram for a while and you try to grow, maybe you’ve asked yourself – “What’s a good Instagram engagement rate?”
Well, that is a good question and in this blog post, you’re going to find the answer.
Your engagement rate is going to affect your growth, reach…and sometimes even sales.
And in the end, that’s why we’re on Instagram, right?
So, I’m not going to make it any longer, and let’s dive in.
What Is Engagement Rate And Why It Matters?
Your Instagram engagement rate is essentially telling you how many people in your audience engaged in some way with your post. It’s found by dividing your engagement by your total audience or by impressions.
Here is a simple formula for how to calculate it, but it is way easier to use some of the tools like Not Just Analytics for that…
Likes + Comments Of Your Latest 12 Posts / Number Of Followers
But why does your Instagram engagement rate maters?
Well, it is quite simple.
The better the Instagram engagement rate you have the more people are engaging with your posts…which means your content is great and there is a massive potential for Instagram growth!
But if your Instagram engagement rate is low, something is wrong with your content or engagement strategy and that is why you have to improve it.
However, what is a good Instagram engagement rate?
What Is A Good Instagram Engagement Rate?
Many factors that play a role in determining, what is a good engagement rate for your Instagram profile.
In my case, I have a 5.1% engagement rate, and Not Just Analytics considers it “Above Average”.
Why is that?
Well, it is because I have a higher number of followers.
But for your profile, 5.1% can be either SUPER HIGH or SUPER LOW. It all depends on 2 factors – your industry and the number of followers you have.
Let’s take a look at engagement rate averages based on followers:
For example, if my profile would have 1,000 followers and my Instagram engagement rate was around 5% then something is wrong with my content or Instagram engagement strategy.
And that’s why I would have to change it.
But if my Instagram engagement rate would be around 12% – then everything is good and I know what I do works and is going to bring me better results.
It is that simple.
But Instagram engagement rate based on industries looks a bit different – however, you shouldn’t take it as seriously as the engagement rate based on followers.
Here is how it looks like:
You see, the median is way lower than the one based on followers, and that is why you want to check the engagement rate based on followers more than this.
However, it can be a great help when it comes to comparing your posts to competitors and seeing that they have higher Instagram engagement than you.
Usually, it is because of your content…but it can also be an industry.
But again, I highly recommend to even totally forget about the industry Instagram engagement rate and care more about the one based on your followers. It is way more relevant.
Now when you know what is a good Instagram engagement rate, you might find out that yours is low.
What can you do about that?
How To Increase Your Engagement Rate?
If your engagement rate is low, it is because of one of the two reasons that I already mentioned before.
First, it can be your content, or second, it can be your engagement strategy.
If just one of these two things is bad, you are going to fail on Instagram and that is why I am going to show you how to fix them to increase your Instagram engagement rate beyond limits.
Here we go…
Fixing Your Content
Your content is most likely the reason why your Instagram engagement rate is low. Probably because it doesn’t do one of these things:
- It is not relevant
- It is badly presented
- It is not valuable
If your content is missing out on just ONE of these things you are never going to get better.
Let’s break down how to get each of these elements right so that your Instagram engagement rate is going to hop higher than you could ever think about before.
1. Relevancy
To make your audience want to engage with your content it has to be relevant to what they need. And the only way you are going to discover that is by studying your target audience.
But how do you do that? Well, let’s start with answering these three questions:
- What do they desire?
- What are their biggest problems and frustrations?
- What do they love?
When you have answers to these three questions (based on RESEARCH), you have a solid foundation for creating the content that is going to be of interest to them so that they are going to engage with it and you will get a higher Instagram engagement rate.
But that is not everything.
After you answer these questions you have to continuously create polls, surveys, and ask questions to discover more about your audience every day.
For example, you can do it easily by using Instagram stories:
Just post a poll or ask them a question, and you are most likely going to discover what you need to be relevant and get more engagement on your posts.
2. Presentation
The way you present your content is more than important.
The presentation includes the way you structure the message as well as the design of the post.
If you want, I talk about this part in-depth in my new Elite Instagram Content Creation Cheatsheet E-book.
But in short, keep your message clear, make sure everything flows, grab their attention, and make sure that your design looks great!
3. Value
Your content has to be valuable – otherwise, you are wasting your time and nobody is going to follow, engage, or buy from you. This is probably the main reason why your Instagram engagement rate is low and you have to work on it.
But remember that value is not just an education. Most people think that you are valuable if you teach people how to do something.
And even though it is extremely spread it is not the truth.
There are three main pillars of value on Instagram (of course there is more of them but this is the foundation):
Pillar #1 = Education
Pillar #2 = Inspiration/Motivation
Pillar #3 = Entertainment
If your content is not in a single one of these pillars, then two others are more exclusive to Instagram and that is visual appeal or connection (sharing your personal life.)
Visually appealing content is mainly posted by photographers and it includes beautiful images that glue our eyes.
Connecting content is usually posted by everybody but it has to be combined with ONE OF THE THREE MAIN PILLARS.
I mean, being relevant and sharing your personal life can be great to build relationships, but in the end, when it comes to making sales nobody is going to trust you and that is why it is super-important to mix it with one of the pillars in the “magnificent three.”
All right, is your content fixed?
If so, let’s move on to the second thing that is going to help you increase your Instagram engagement rate which is your engagement strategy.
Fixing Your Instagram Engagement Strategy
Now, what is your engagement strategy?
Your engagement strategy includes commenting, replying to comments, participating in lives, replying to DMs, etc.
It is the way you engage with your followers and with the people that don’t even know about, to build strong relationships so that they are more likely to engage with your content.
Plus, if you engage with people that don’t know you, it is going to help you increase your growth.
However, how are you going to build one if you already don’t have it?
Well, that can be too complex and that is why I am going to show you my engagement strategy that works all the time and it is going to help you succeed as well.
- 50 Comments On Leading Industry Accounts
- 50 Comments On Relevant Hashtags
- 50 Comments On Follower’s Posts
- Reply To Every Comment On Your Posts
- Reply To Every DM You Get (Except it is some forex spam BS)
All right, do you get it? If you will use this engagement strategy your Instagram engagement rate should spike up immediately.
But remember to be valuable in the comments and don’t copy/paste them or comment just emojis.
That sucks, and it is not going to help you in any way.
Filip Konecny 