Ways to Increase and Calculate Your Instagram Reach

You’ve been on Instagram as a brand or content creator for a while now, but you’re still unsure of how to increase and calculate your Instagram reach and engagement. Engagement is everything when it comes to Instagram. It is the factor that determines how well you connect with your audience.

According to Oberlo, Instagram engagement — as measured by likes, shares, and comments — is also off the charts, with a rate of 4.21 percent. This is ten times more than Facebook, 54 times more than Pinterest, and 84 times more than Twitter.

Apart from such impressive figures, challenges are emerging that indicate Instagram’s marketing potential is dwindling due to lower engagement rates and competition from new challengers such as TikTok.

If you want to increase your Instagram engagement, look no further. This post provides an in-depth look at Instagram engagement rates and how to improve them.

Table of Contents

What Does Instagram Engagement Mean?

Instagram engagement is more about how well people respond to your published content than it is about the number of followers or the perceived reach of your content. The total number of people who interact or take action on your content in relation to your total following determines your Instagram engagement.

These actions can be calculated with an Instagram engagement calculator from various different key metrics, like:

Likes
Comments
Shares
Saves
Link clicks/swipe-ups
Hashtag usage
DMs
Mentions
Stories sticker interactions

Typically, engagement rates for feed posts are calculated by dividing the number of likes and comments (and sometimes saves or shares) by an account’s total number of followers.

Instagram provides a detailed analysis dashboard for all professional accounts called ‘Insights,’ where you can check the basic data metrics and how your posts are performing among your audience.

How Does Instagram Engagement Make a Difference?

How would you feel if you cooked dinner but no one ate it? That would be terrible. The same thing happens when you post content in various formats on your Instagram account and no one responds.

So, when your audience interacts with your content, there are three things you should be aware of.

First, the engagement on your posts will show that people like your created content, that it is valuable to them, and that they prefer interacting with it.

Second, your content is reaching the appropriate and relevant audience, and your followers are the target customers you should keep.

Lastly, and most importantly, your engagement is crucial in aligning with the Instagram algorithm. The higher the engagement, the more likely your content will be automatically visible in explore and newsfeed, capturing more impressions.

What Is an Instagram Engagement Rate?

An Instagram engagement rate is a calculation that shows what percentage of your following has interacted with your content.

It typically takes into account the number of likes and comments a post receives in relation to your overall follower count.

In some cases, it can also take into account the number of impressions, saves, and shares a post receives.

Why Should You Track Your Instagram Engagement Rate?

Monitoring your Instagram engagement rate is important. While having a high follower count may look impressive, what’s more, impressive is how engaged those followers are.

Tl;dr: High engagement > # of followers.

Your Instagram engagement rate gives you a clear picture of how your content is resonating with your audience. If you’re seeing consistently strong engagement rates, you know your followers are enjoying your content.

And if your engagement rate is lower than where you’d like it to be, you can use it as a springboard to pivot and improve your social strategy.

What Is the Average Instagram Engagement Rate?

Later analyzed millions of Instagram feed posts (excluding Reels) and found the average engagement rate is 2.88%.

To break that stat down even further, the average engagement rate for carousel posts is 3.11%, images is 2.76%, and videos is 2.60%.

Why Has Instagram Engagement Dropped in 2022 for Feed Posts?

Instagram engagement rates have dropped for most accounts in 2022 due to three main factors:

1: Instagram Reels

Instagram’s focus on Reels has meant that other feed formats have taken a hit in engagement.

According to Later, after analyzing over 81M Instagram feed posts (excluding Reels), there discovered that average engagement rates have dropped over time.

As traditional photos give way to Reels, it’s time to consider incorporating short-form video into your overall Instagram strategy.

2: Suggested Content in the Main Home Feed

Instagram has recently seen a fresh wave of feed updates, ranging from new Home feed views to the addition of more suggested content in Instagram’s main Home feed.

As a result of this change, some posts may not receive as much exposure as they once did, potentially leading to a drop in engagement.

After users have caught up with all recent content from people they follow, the Instagram feed will display a collection of suggested posts. However, you can benefit from suggested content by using specific keywords.

3: Less Scrolling By Users

According to Forbes, Instagram was the second most used social app in 2020, with users spending on average 53 minutes a day.

But in 2022, our Instagram usage has shifted.

Between the rise of TikTok and a general sense of social media burnout, there’s been a dip in how much time users are spending on the app.

According to Statista, the average time spent on Instagram in 2022 is 30 minutes a day.

And even further — TikTok is now leading the pack with an average time of 45 minutes.

While the number of people using Instagram continues to grow, the decline in time spent on the app does reflect a shift in how users are engaging with it.

Increase Instagram Engagement in 2022 – 5 Best Ways to Do

You did everything right with your Instagram engagement post ideas, but when you calculated the engagement rate, it was terrible – truly awful. You have no idea what could have gone wrong or what you’re missing.

So here are the 5 best ways to increase Instagram engagement while keeping all social trends that will influence 2022 in mind. Let’s get started:

Tip #1: Share More Instagram Reels

People are talking about Instagram Reels and how amazing they are everywhere – but why?

So initially, Instagram was all about feed images, video posts, and stories but then TikTok came in 2017, which swept away the users, affecting the overall Instagram engagement and reach.

Instagram is competitive, and irrespective of the difficult times, it tested and launched a short-form video stream as Reels in August 2020.

Unlike standard video posts, Reels come with audio, visual effects, and creative tools, allowing the social media creators to be innovative while relevant.

Reels work like your first impression to your audience. You grab your audience’s attention, and before you know it, the time is up! The content needs to be crisp, precise, and definitely to the point, so there is no chance of missing your message when a Reel reaches your target customers.

Tip #2: Carousels Do Wonders

Carousels are a goldmine – the best performing Instagram engagement post idea ever.

Carousels are mostly used for storytelling, which they do well. You can choose, upload, and post up to ten images, videos, or text banners per post.

As imagery, you can post a series of photos describing the most eventful day of your life, a visual story of how you started your business or an informative series on brand strategy. Relatable content is more savable and shareable, increasing a post’s IG engagement.

People are most likely to interact with a carousel post based on social media tips or hacks, which they can return to learn from later. Carousels are mostly used for interactive content that receives feedback in the form of comments.

Tip #3: Interactive Features on Stories

Meanwhile, content on stories is more likely to be daily updates or relatable post shares, with interactive features resulting in an increase in DM responses as story replies and reactions.

The first question to ask when trying to increase engagement with Instagram Stories is, what are the most popular interactive features to use?

As requested, I will reveal the 3 major Instagram engagement hacks within Stories to increase engagement.

Link Stickers

Initially, availing links as ‘swipe-up links’ on Instagram Stories was only possible for businesses and creator accounts with 10K or more followers. Until recently, Instagram discontinued swipe-up links and introduced Link Stickers – For Everyone!

Polls and Questions

Interacting with your audience through stories using these stickers is one of the safest bets for increasing engagement. The most rewarding is poll stickers.

A poll will include a question (within the word limit) and a choice between two options. Consider this: you create a poll with the question ‘Is it beneficial to use a social media management tool?’ and two options, Yes or No. Your audience will read your story, and if it is relevant, they will vote by tapping on any option.

In the case of Questions Sticker, either you can create a question with several answers, with one being the correct answer, or you can post a question for your followers to respond to and interact with you.

Location Sticker

The ‘Location Sticker‘ is without a doubt the most popular and widely used interactive sticker on an Instagram story. Whether you like using stickers or not, posting a picture of a place in your story update and informing your audience about it with a clickable location sticker is a great way to increase interaction.

Curiosity is piqued by well-captured images and intriguing video recordings of beautiful places or possibly food within a story. Where is this location? Can you provide specifics about the location?

And a simple solution to these can be a location sticker strategically placed within your story feed.

Tip #4: Act Human – Engage in Conversations

Meeting up with someone is a task in today’s hectic world where everyone is rushing towards a goal. Nobody has time to interact with someone because everyone is trying to grow their businesses online, save time for pending tasks, and so much more.

When there is a two-way conversation, it is possible to have an impactful Instagram engagement.

Create a balance. Act like a human, not a bot. Do what you expect your audience to do when they come across your Instagram account, and it will have an impact on overall engagement.

This way your audience will feel more welcome while new people may easily discover you as well. Frequent interactions result in pushing your posts up in front of people again and again which captures more eyes, eventually.

Tip #5: Consistency Is The Key

If I can emphasize one best way to fuel up your Instagram engagement game, then that would be being consistent – over and out!

People are posting on Instagram every minute and there is a complete chance for your post to get pushed down and disappear from the newsfeed. In this case, comments or audience interactions on such posts play a vital role to keep pushing up the content posts in the feed. There will be a time when this post will no longer be new or easily found on the feed by new active users – this is why post consistency matters!

It is considered ideal to at least post 2-3 times a day from your Instagram account to maintain your social presence. It is also very important to choose and post at the right times when your majority audience is active on Instagram to trigger conversations leading to much anticipated Instagram engagement.

Conclusion

Whew! There you have it: Make sure you use all the features Instagram has to offer to your advantage: from Stories and Reels to video content and captions, there’s something for every business to use for engagement.

Instagram is a fun place to be. So use this platform to connect with your audience and show off your creative side. And when in doubt, come back to this article to see what Instagram practice you should try next.

For a more in-depth dive into building a successful social strategy, check out our Ad Campaign.