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Instagram offers a big variety of tools that can increase your engagement rates on the platform and grow the interest of new audiences in your profile. Both 50 Stories reactions and 50 Instagram likes and can bring you many benefits as you climb to the top of your niche. But the instruments to achieve the result that you need are different for these two content types. Here we will reveal what are the features that can increase engagement level on your Instagram blog – in the feed and in Stories.
Engagement In your Feed
Offer more topics to discuss
Communication and exchange of opinions are what all social media networks are based on. Instagram is no exclusion to this statement. Only feed posts hold the comment section where you can actively interact with your followers and occasional visitors. Hence, you should find ways to expand your topic range so you have a backup of things to talk about.
In case if you are not dedicated to the single theme, but you are a lifestyle influencer, this task is easy – just plan a few general themes to throw in as you keep posting your routine and leisure and see how many likes and other engagement you can get. For more specific blogs the greatest advice to follow would be – expand your limits gradually. Carefully introduce fresh discussions and collect the reaction to see how the process is going.
Use carousels
One of the methods to keep users longer on your post and increase your ranking on the platform is to create carousels. These are posts that include several photos or/and videos, up to 10 pieces to get likes. This type of upload will help you to reveal more related content at once. Many bloggers are putting long-reads to this format, as it helps to:
- save some space for description,
- squeeze a much bigger text in one post,
- add illustrations to it.
Create content worth saving
Another surprisingly successful feature that is available for users on IG is saving posts. This option appears as a small bookmark icon in the right bottom corner of your post. It allows users to store the content they would want to click on again. Mostly, people save how-to’s and tips, but it can also be highly esthetic materials (this one has a huge potential for producing user-generated content). People eagerly save up ideas for photos and guides for traveling. So, if you want to get more saves, choose one of these formats. Saves are the new likes!
Repost your new uploads to Stories
This is the ultimate method to attract some attention to your feed if you see a decrease in it. Each time you upload new content, make a repost to your stories and add a call to action that motivates users to click and engage with your new post. This way you can regulate the flow of traffic to each type of content that you create on Instagram.
Host a contest
Contests and lotteries of different sorts are some of the easiest ways to increase activity in your Instagram feed such as likes and comments. The task is to settle the conditions for users to win the prize. In terms of boosting engagement level these can be:
- Leave a comment under a certain post
- Like this or a few recent uploads
- Repost the photo
- Create relevant user-generated content.
Of course, the prize has to be motivating, this is the field for co-working with sponsors. But in general, such contests help to balance the rating of your profile and give you the platform for further growth.
Engagement In Stories
Unlike feed posts, this form of content offers many features for engaging and entertaining followers that are integrated there directly.
Question sticker
This option is great for strengthening the connection between you and your audience. You settle the topic, usually, it is something like “ask me something”, and users have an interactive field where they can send their questions. You will be able to answer these questions through Stories as well. There is no big difference whether you talk, or write the text.
Quiz
This one is good for entertaining the audience and giving them a positive vibe. It also helps to detect what topics you haven’t covered often enough. The sense of this sticker is for users to select one true answer among many – you can add at least two options. The most popular number of answers is four. After picking an option user will see if they were right.
Poll
This sticker offers the percent counter, which is good to examine the preferences of the audience. As users click on the option they liked more, they will see the statistic in percent, which shows which opinion is more popular and interesting to the public.
Reactions
This is how users can react to your content immediately. As they watch your story, they can send you a smiley that appears in your DM. your task is to encourage your fans to send more reactions, so the ranking algorithms can calculate your ratings. A simple call to action will do.
A note about “The talking head”
This type of content is the most common for Stories. Bloggers narrate, and users listen. Nowadays you have to be careful with this kind of material. It can be highly engaging but requires balance and a really interesting topic because modern followers are a bit tired of talking heads in their Instagram. So, you must work on the content that you talk about, in order to make it interesting and engaging enough for viewers to send at least a reaction.
Highlights
This is the opportunity to save Stories if you want to preserve them for some reason. If you don’t save your upload here, it will disappear in 24 hours. This function helps brands to save important information for customers, and nonprofits to collect evergreen content for their fans.
Important General Tip For Your Instagram Blog
Whatever type of content you prefer – stories or posts, you must remember that only high-quality materials are interesting enough for users to interact with your profile and give likes. Your goal is to create stunning materials, that can catch the attention and retain your audience. Stories that users are looking for in the modern world, are something more than your narrative speech and thoughts. Include different things both in your feed and in your stories to reach success.
Conclusion
As we can see, feed posts and stories have different instruments that impact the engagement rate and likes. Stories were made for fun, whereas feed uploads can contain more deep thoughts and materials. The main difference between these two types of content is that one is good for situative content on the go, and the second one holds evergreen materials, which can be actual for your fans for a longer time.
