Are you posting on Instagram lately? But everything's coming up crickets? I mean, you've got your posts, you've got your stories, but no one's really interacting. If you've been seeing your numbers on Instagram go down lately, first of all, I can relate, but in today's video I'm going to share tactics and strategies that are going to help you get more likes, more views, and more shares that are actually going to make a difference in your business. Just like my friend Lillian of Strategy gal, formerly big data gal who went from about 20,000 followers all the way to over 130,000 followers. But more than that, she's gotten brand deals. She's gotten clients. She got a feature in Glamour magazine, she got podcast interviews all from Instagram. Plus there's my friend and Instagrowth Boss student Monica, who's hitting between 15 and 20% in engagement per Instagram post. I'm Elise Darma and I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs like yourself grow your business on Instagram, and in today's video I'm covering how to boost your engagement on your Instagram account.
Now, word of warning, I'm going to go deep into engagement strategies, but there's so much more that goes into Instagram marketing and just growing your business in general. So make sure you hit that Subscribe button and the bell, like, right now, so that you don't miss any of my future trainings. The first tip to boosting your engagement on Instagram is to include call to actions everywhere. Believe me when I say that, people want to be told what to do, so the first place to include a CTA is your bio. Spell it out for your followers, what's in it for them when they click on the link in your bio, then you want to make sure that you're including a CTA at the bottom or the middle of all of your captions.
And then of course in your Instagram stories, make sure you're not just sharing things out of context, but that you're giving context and then you're wrapping up your story with a small CTA. It could be a request for people to reply, which will DM you. They could answer the poll sticker, they could answer the question sticker; doesn't really matter what you choose, just as long as you're not forgetting to get your followers to engage. Speaking of Instagram stories, they are literally my fave and probably the hottest feature of Instagram today. So if you're not using them, you are missing out on getting that high engagement. When it comes to Instagram Stories, you need to use all the features within Stories. So the poll feature, the question sticker, the slider, there are so many ways that Instagram has made it easy for us to get our followers to engage. So use all of these features to their fullest. I promise you the algorithm is actually going to bless you with more engagement because you're using those features. And one last note about Instagram Stories.
It really pays to be consistent. You can't just pop up in your Stories once a week and expect the sales and the leads to roll into your DMs. You really want to be consistent. So find a cadence that works for you. I recommend to my students to post three times a day, morning, afternoon, and night. That way you're staying at the top of your followers' feeds, no matter what time of the day they're checking into their Instagram to view people's Stories.
My next tip is to optimize your bio to be found in search. Did you know that Instagram doesn't have a lot of ways for you to be found in search except for your username and your name field, so your username is typically your brand name or your personal name. Cool, fine, but your name field is where you can get really creative with the target search terms that your target follower is looking for. So make sure you're really putting yourself in the shoes of your target follower and choosing the best keywords to be found for in your name field. My next tip to boost your engagement is to use hashtags, and I don't mean just plopping them in your caption and forgetting about them.
You're going to want to actually follow the key hashtags related to your niche or your industry. Then you're going to see posts in your feed that have used that hashtag. This is your time. This is when you need to like, comment, watch their stories, hit reply to their stories. That way you are, you know, really engaging with a targeted account and opening up that pathway to start a conversation in the direct messages. Speaking of direct messages or DMs, that is my next tip. You gotta be proactive here. You can't wait for people to blow up your DMs with questions about working with you or wanting to get on your email list. You need to go out there and find them. Now, I've done a whole video on how to get those DMs and then how to sell in them right over here. So go ahead and check that out. But my number one takeaway here when it comes to DMs is it's all fine and dandy when you boost your engagement on your posts or on your stories, but do something with that engagement.
You have more eyeballs interacting with your content than ever before. Don't just let it sit there. Make sure you send a message to everyone who liked your post and thank them for liking. Really start that conversation in the DMs because truthfully that's where the sales happen. My last tip for you for boosting your engagement is to use a relatively new feature which is posting a preview of your IGTV video in your feed. This new feature came out in early 2019 and since then my IGTV videos when they are previewed in my feed get like 10X the views that they were getting before.
Now I've covered this entire IGTV strategy in this video, so if you're interested in 10X-ing your video views, make sure you give it a watch. Question for you. Which of these tips that I've shared are you going to use today to boost your engagement? Let me know in a comment below this video. Is it your CTA, optimizing your bio, sharing in your stories, more following hashtags, using DM strategies or posting to IGTV? Let me know.
Here's the bottom line. If you've made it this far in the video, you're getting the real talk. And the bottom line is you need to reward people for interacting with you. Being conversational equals engagement. So with that, don't be boring. Don't share the same old, same old. Don't be afraid to show up and be vulnerable, be truthful, be honest, be raw. You will be surprised at how your audience will love and react and engage with that content because truthfully, we're all craving it.
You can show people the behind the scenes of your life. With Instagram, we kind of have this tendency to show the highlight reel, but as I said, people really want to engage with the real person. They want to know you, so don't be afraid to take them on random adventures of your day. Take them behind the scenes as you're cooking. Really have fun with this type of content. Experiment, and honestly, like, it's always the most random topics that my followers respond to the most.
Now, you can always check your analytics if you have a business account to see when your audience is most in the app and this would be the best time to post. And lastly, you could always schedule in 20 minutes into your calendar to make sure you're going into your Instagram account and just engaging with people that could be replying to comments, viewing stories and replying, DM-ing people, following up with people you chatted with a few weeks ago, whatever the case may be, taking those 20 minutes to really grow those relationships, you will see not just a boost in your engagement but a boost in your business too.
Ready to turn all this engagement into actual revenue in your business? Excellent. I have just the thing for you. Head to freeinstacourse.com the link is right below this video and get started with my free Instagram training. I'm going to show you what's working today to grow a profile and actually earn revenue from it too and just for fun, since you've made it to the very end of this video, why not send me a DM? Go ahead and find me on Instagram @elisedarma. Send me a message and let's start a little one on one conversation. To ease and revenue. I'll see you in the next video. But my number one takeaway here in boosting your engagement. What is it? Now you can always check your analytics if you're a business account to see when Instagram's showing new that me....
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