During the past few days, your might have asked yourself why is your engagement so low and why nothing you do works…
You tried all the commenting hacks…
You tried buying ads…
You added stuff like “double-tap” call-to-action to your content…
Yet you still get no results. Why is that? Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to show you today. So, are you ready to begin? If so, let’s begin.
You Target The Wrong People
One of the mortal sins when it comes to getting more engagement on Instagram is targeting the wrong people.
In other words, what you have been doing up to this point is that you created content for steak lovers while everybody you target is a vegan.
Well, you can only imagine what that is going to result in.
Yes, they will unfollow you, hate you in comments (which is probably the only engagement you’ll get), and for sure the post is not going to get any likes, saves, and shares.
Is that what have you been doing up to this point? Have you been creating irrelevant content and now experience the super negative effects of it?
Well, then you need to do two things.
First, study your audience and ask yourself these very basic questions:
- What are their top three daily frustrations?
- What are their top desires?
- What do they absolutely hate?
- What are their biggest pains?
- What are they angry about? Who are they angry at?
- What are they afraid of?
- What are they dreaming about?
- What keeps them up at night, staring at the ceiling?
Once you have answered these questions clearly, then you need to start creating content that is going to either push them towards their goals or move them away from their pains and frustrations.
That is the entire science behind being relevant. Once you do it, your Instagram engagement is going to rocket off-limits.
Your Content Sucks
The second reason why you might not be getting the engagement that you want is because your content sucks.
That means it adds no value to their lives and it is presented pathetically. Here is a good example:
This post is clearly nothing but a pile of crap. (Yes, that’s exactly how I feel about it.)
There is no value, it looks like 5-year-old would create it, and the only engagement it got were…yes – BOTS spamming comments on it.
Would you like, comment, or even share or save a post like this? Of course, not. It is not valuable to you.
But would you save a post that looks like these?
Of course, you would! (At least my insights say it.)
And the reason is pretty simple – the design is awesome, anybody can understand the message in the carousel, I add as much value to the table as possible, and what’s best is that these posts also got me a ton of customers.
Do you see the difference? Instagram is a value gambit. Add value and you are going to win.
You Over-Promote
The next mortal sin that repels engagement is over-promoting.
Of course, we are in business and we have to promote our products and services to make people buy.
But what I find totally ridiculous is overpromoting. However, over-promoting has a different meaning than you think.
You take over-promoting as posting a lot of promotional posts. But that is only half of the truth.
Over-promoting means posting a lot of promotional posts without compensating for them with posts adding value.
That means for every promotional post that you post, there has to be at least 1 valuable post that is going to serve your audience. (I recommend 2 but we will stick to 1.)
That post is still going to serve those who don’t have an interest in your product or service and that will make them keep engaging and following you.
But if you promote something people don’t want and do not compensate for it with value, they will get flustered and they’ll not only stop engaging with you, but they will also leave.
So, make sure that for every promotional post there is at least one valuable post, posted the same day.
You Don’t Build Relationships With Your Followers
The next thing that is keeping you from getting more Instagram engagement is not building relationships with your followers.
In other words, you’re not replying to their comments, DMs, etc.
You must do that as all of these things create a true community. And that community is going to engage with you no matter what happens.
So, always reply to everything, share posts that make you relatable, tell them your story, and build relationships.
Filip Konecny 