Today most of the brands struggle to understand and keep up with the ever-changing Instagram algorithm.
In 2021, many brands on Instagram notice the engagement rate and post reach are in steady decline. The reason for this decline is that Instagram algorithm gets more sophisticated and complex each year.
Instagram wants, to monetize and remain the prominent social media, by keeping you interacting with their app as long as possible.
The app favours account who are active and engaged as long as possible. Lower contribution to the app lowers your post reach and engagement rate, which encouraging business to sponsor their content
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Some of the popular ways are to post regularly relevant Photos, Videos, Stories, and using all other IG tools.
Doing so, on a daily base, is the road to success!
Here are the top 10 tips that will help you boost your reach, improve engagement, and drive new followers.
#1 Spend more time on Instagram
The more time you spend on the app engaging with your followers, the better chance the algorithm sees you as an active provider.
Make sure to reply to comments, post stories, videos, photos and respond to all your DMs.
Practising the above on a daily base for as long as possible with relevant content will increase your chance for a high reach and engagement.
#2 Use all Instagram features
Using all Instagram features is very important to the algorithm to detect contribution and engagement. It also shows how well, and balance is your activity.
Don’t only use mix content of video and images but use the other tools such as IG shopping, IGTV, location tags and all other available to your brand.
Make sure to engage and comment back within the first 1 hour. By doing so, your fans will appreciate it, and Instagram will boost your reach.
#3 Don’t edit your post
We see that the first 24h are crucial for your post to gain reach and engagement, by editing your caption, hashtags, tags or location during that time will negatively impact your performance.
When you post a photo on Instagram, it starts collecting data, (likes, comments, saves & shares). The algorithm uses this data, as a sort of ranking and any changes made after posting will reduce your reach.
#4 Don’t delate or repost
It is strongly advised not to delete any content, as it may have a very severe impact on your performance. The app works by calculating behaviour and predictions of your account activities. Unusual activities or too much in a short time can lead to a negative outcome. If you keep doing so, it can lead to a shadowban, which is our next point.
#5 Avoid Shadowban
Shadowbans can damage your account, by blocking your reach to zero and Instagram does that with no notification.
If you are uncertain about your account been shadowbanned check your analytics. In the analytics, you can see how much you reach and how many are from the hashtags you used. If the analysis shows 0% from hashtags and low reach, you got yourself a shadowban.
The ban last 14 days, during that time, whatever you post will be only visible to your followers and not outside.
To avoid that, follow the Instagram community policy, do not buy followers or likes, do not mass-follow and mass-like. The standard rule is not to exceed a maximum number of 60 likes, comments, follows and messages per hour.
#6 Use the right number of hashtags
There’s a lot of conflicting information out there about how many Instagram hashtags is the “right” amount. If you can find thirty super relevant hashtags to add to each post and keep changing them, we advise you to go for it.
But using all thirty hashtags in a post caption can look spammy.
Not to mention, it increases your chance to include a banned hashtag. Instagram currently has a long list of banned hashtags, more than 60,000.
Many times using the less but more relevant and descriptive hashtags deliver much higher results. Our ideal number is 10 to 20 high-quality hashtags.
#7 Do not use the same hashtags
You might have great success with some hashtags, but if you keep using the same one for every post, IG algorithm will detect it as spam.
A best practice is to list all successful hashtags that are relevant to you and keep changing them as regular as possible.
Instagram, of course, wants to push the most valuable content to their users, so they’ll prioritize content from creators who accurately and thoughtfully use hashtags, rather than spamming the same few tags.
As social media experts, we advise, to begin with, is switching at least half of your hashtags. We suggest doing that every few posts to maximum a week.
#8 Geotag popular destinations
The purpose of geotagging, it allows your post to be seen on Instagram by other users on the same tag on other photos.
It is essential to the Instagram algorithm it will help your post to reach more accounts. If your business is a travel agency or you have multiple locations conducting business, you will benefit and increase your chances with geotagging. However, using different photo and tagging wrong destination, it will negatively impact your reach.
#9 Write better captions
IG algorithm detects your caption too!
Users are spending more time on the platform, reading longer captions, and the Instagram algorithm loves it. Microblogging gives brands the chance to capture their attention and speak about their story.
That’s right, Instagram checks the length and quality. The quality is defined how relevant to the reader and how related to the post.
In other words, encourage users to spend more time reading and looking at your post.
#10 Track your best time to post
Timing is crucial, but no account is the same, as each business profile has different followers and users there are no set times.
A good practice is to check Instagram insights regularly and see the best time your followers engage with your previous post. Next, it’s time to test a variety of posting times to figure out what works best for you. Keep track of your engagement rate for every post, alongside the day and time of posting.
Conclusion
The Instagram algorithm constantly evolve, becoming more complex every time. The best way to keep up performance is to understand the platform how it works.
Those are the main tips that should help you increase reach and engagement. Should you find it overwhelming keeping it up, you can always higher a digital marketing agency like FOLLOW.
Let us know if you find those tips useful and share with us your feedback. #instagramalgorithm #growinstagram #instagramtips
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