6 tactics that will improve your audience's engagement on Instagram

With more than 2 billion active social media users around the world, Instagram has quickly emerged as a mandatory channel to be used for companies to connect with their customers.

The photo and video sharing app records more than 70 million photo uploads each day and, according to Forrester, in its 2015 review of the world's top 50 brands, Instagram remains the absolute leader in the interaction rate per follower (2.2% for Instagram versus 0.22% for Facebook).

In short, there is a huge potential for engagement with your audience here.

I'm going to detail the 6 easiest methods you can start applying today to increase engagement with your fans and grow your number of followers.

1. Always have a call to action (CTA).

This call to action tells your followers exactly what you want them to do. With Instagram you have some choices with which you can be creative and explore them: either by placing the call to action in the image caption or creating images that already have text inside them.

Try posting photos of your products and asking your fans to double-click your favorites - any double click will result in a like.

You can also ask your followers to tag someone who might like a certain product, or tag your best friend, etc. Your most dedicated followers will soon embark on the suggestion.

2. Reach more people with hashtags.

I love hashtags.

Hashtags are one of the best ways to stand out on Instagram. You can also use them to find relevant people who are not yet following you. Hashtags help users find content that interests them, as they organize related images and videos that use certain specific hashtags - and you can create any hashtags you want.

Just be sure to make use of hashtags from relevant subjects (and relevant to your audience, something they would be interested in looking for more).

You can also take advantage of the popularity of hashtags that already exist and that work in different markets, such as #TBT (Throwback Thursday).

If you want to generate engagement, you have to do everything possible to have your content exposed to the right people at the right time. Hashtags are the best way to do this.

3. Experiment with your captions.

Instagram is a photo sharing app, but you can use it as a platform to expose the written message.

Catch your audience's attention with a beautiful photo and connect with a great story. You have 2,000 characters to use, so try to do something different with your captions and get the best out of each character at your disposal.

Never underestimate the impact that words can have. The most successful campaigns are driven by a combination of images and powerful words.

Sometimes, short subtitles also work. Test and see what works best with your followers.

Don't forget to mention the link in your Instagram bio. Instagram prohibits the use of links in your captions, but you can change the link in your bio at any time and use a call to action to direct traffic access to that link.

4. Be Active on Instagram!

Have you ever had that feeling that some of your friends never take the time to talk to you or go out, and then you realize that, in fact, you are the one who never took the time to take the initiative to call them for something?

Instagram works the same way. You can't always expect the interaction initiative to come from your fans. If you want to increase their engagement you need to actively encourage them.

Don't just use hashtags to distribute content. Use them to find relevant discussions and participate.

When you like or comment on other users' posts they receive a notification.

So they're likely to look at your profile, and if they like the content you're sharing, as well as the way you're interacting, they'll probably follow you back - especially if you took the initiative to follow them first.

In some cases, their followers will see your comment and do the same. This is a great way to accumulate followers organically and improve your reach and the engagement of your audience.

5. Promote your Instagram on your other social networks.

There is a good chance that you are marketing on social media in addition to Instagram. Have you already informed your fans and followers of these other networks that you have an Instagram account?

As soon as you are posting content on Instagram, start sharing your posts elsewhere. It's a great way to increase your number of followers and encourage others to discover what you are sharing.

Facebook connects well to Instagram to cross-promote your content, as do Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. They all have disclosure buttons directly on Instagram when you are posting a new video or image.

However, don't let yourself be limited by that. Be creative in your Instagram marketing.

You can interact with your fans on almost any platform in order to direct them to your Instagram account.

Log on to Periscope and Snapchat and tell the people watching you to log on to your Instagram if they want great tips, advice and more great content.

6. Make posts at the right times.

There are definitely right and wrong times to post content on Instagram. The same goes for social media.

If you want people to get involved and participate then they need to have effective contact with your content. Many users prefer to use social media during a specific time of the day, so if you focus on publishing your content at those times, you will not only get more comments and likes, but also, in general, more referral traffic.

Each social media channel is a little different. According to TrackMaven, user engagement on Instagram is quite consistent throughout the week with the exception of the peak hits on Mondays (after a small drop on Sunday).

A great infographic from QuickSprout reveals some interesting information about the opportune moment to make posts; during working hours, an average of 22.5 followers out of 1,000 interacted with videos posted by Fortune's top 500 companies. During leisure time, 33.4 out of 1,000 followers interacted with the content.

Fortune's top 500 companies typically post mostly during business hours, with content posting peaking between 3pm and 4pm.

This does not mean that this is the right time for you to post. Your audience is unique.

Do some research to find out when your followers are most active and then schedule your posting schedule for those hours to maximize your audience engagement per post.

Conclusion

With more than 300 million active users on Instagram, it's no surprise that 40% of the 100 largest companies according to Fortune are joining this platform to expand their reach. With the right approach you can get a great return on your efforts and really increase your audience's engagement.

Commit to the goal of sharing great quality content, increase your followers' engagement with your brand and stay consistent to start seeing results today.