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What to Post on Instagram to Increase Engagement

Published April 26, 2024

When you have an Instagram account for your brand, coming up with new and engaging content can sometimes be challenging. Are you having a hard time figuring out what to post on Instagram? In this article, we will go over several ideas for posts and content ideas that will help you increase your engagement for greater success with your social media strategy.

Try out some, or all, of these post ideas and we are sure you will start seeing your engagement levels increase.

Create Instagram Reels

As a newer content type, Reels allow for greater creativity than standard photo or video posts. Use this post idea to make brief and captivating videos that entertain your audience and keep them engaged.

You can match your unique brand voice to create all sorts of Reels, including how-to guides, storytelling, Q&As, user-generated content, and funny skits. Share your Reels as Stories to extend their reach and enhance engagement even more.

Run Contests

People love entering contests for a chance to win prizes. Running a contest will give you the benefit of significantly increasing your engagement and reach due to requesting your contest participants to like, share, comment, and tag others in your post.

When you encourage participation in your content by way of contests, you get to reward your followers for the engagement they bring you, and also create a stronger community or fanbase.

Make Carousel Posts

A carousel post allows you to add more than one photo or video into a post. This can be especially helpful if you would like to share several pieces of content all related to each other, or share a compelling story with your audience.

By swiping through multiple photos and videos within the framework of one post, you boost the chances of more engagement with your content. There are numerous opportunities for how to leverage carousel posts, so let your imagination run wild.

Showcase User-generated Content

In recent years, user-generated content (UGC) has exploded in popularity due to it being a type of content seen as more trustworthy. Taking the form of user testimonials, hands-on reviews, and compelling stories about products and services, UGC can be the social proof your brand needs to be successful.

If you are selling something and looking for what to post on Instagram to increase engagement, you should strongly consider showcasing some UGC from your fans and followers. You could also reshare content reviewers of your products and services post on their accounts, and even ask them to use your brand’s hashtags so that all content related to your brand is more easily tracked.

Reveal Behind-the-scenes Views

To demonstrate greater authenticity, you can also show off some behind-the-scenes content. People enjoy seeing how your creative process works and what goes into what you do. Seeing you being authentic and connecting with your followers in this way makes them feel included and special.

Show off some photos or videos, ideally as Stories, of you at a photo or video shoot, working in your office, at an event getting ready to perform, or whatever fits what you do as a content creator.

Create Topical Content

People like to engage with topical and timely content, so make sure you are sharing this type of relevant content. You can take advantage of special events happening in the world, your industry, and elsewhere.

Open up the conversation with your content to get your audience involved. Just make sure not to go overboard with how many events you are leveraging. You want to avoid your followers seeing you make a post about every International this and that Day.

Share How-to Guides

You can create content showing off step-by-step how-to guides that interest your audience. This means presenting an easy-to-follow sequence of action steps they can tape to accomplish a specific goal or task, or even overcome something difficult.

There are many forms of these how-to guides, including DIY projects, workout routines, recipe walkthroughs, and much more. People enjoy learning a new skill or understanding how to do something they are interested in.

Find something that is relevant to your brand and create this type of content to get more eyes on your profile. Make the content easily digestible so that people can easily follow along. Carousel posts work great for this type of content, and can greatly increase your engagement.

Offer Helpful Tips

Similar to how-to guides, sharing some helpful tips based on your knowledge and experience can get you more engagement .Whatever sort of hacks, tips, and tricks you can share with your audience they would find helpful, you should do so.

Everyone enjoys learning new things they are interested in, and as an authority in your niche, you can share what you know with them. The more helpful tips you share, the more trust you build with your audience, who will keep coming back to your page to see the rest of your content.

Highlight Products and Services

If you have a brand, you most likely have products or services you would like your audience to buy. If you want to stand out from your competitors, you can highlight your products or services in creative and unique ways.

Show off all of the great features, advantages, and perks of what you are offering. This should be done in a way that makes use of striking visuals to demonstrate the product or service actually being used or benefited from. You can consider it educational promotional content.

Share Industry Trends

You can share industry trends that give an insightful glimpse into the niche you operate in. This helpful information, coupled with your personal analysis, can position you as a leading voice within your field.

Whatever your industry, you can share about the latest trends, innovations, and developments that expand your audience’s knowledge on the topic.

Mention Your Customers

If your customers have reviewed your products or services and talked about their great experiences with them, you could mention them in your content.

Customer reviews are extremely valuable for any brand today. If you provide recognition of someone who enjoys what you’re doing by tagging them in a post or doing a shoutout in a video, they will feel very appreciated by you. Additionally, it could lead to more people wanting to leave testimonials in the hope that you will highlight their support and glowing reviews as well.

Cross-promote With Others

It can be hard to get noticed amid the sea of other content creators on Instagram. That is where cross-promotion comes in.

You can connect and collaborate with others in your industry and niche to leverage each others’ audiences. This can become a mutually-beneficial relationship that could also lead to developing strong and valuable partnerships.

Conclusion

If you have been wondering what to post on Instagram to boost your engagement, you now have a dozen different ways to do exactly that. From user-generated content to cross-promotion to helpful guides and tips, there is an abundance of content ideas you can run with now.

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Written By:
AUTHOR & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Jessica is a consultant, researcher, and the editor-in-chief of the Buzzoid blog, who specializes in social media, marketing, and digital strategy. She is a graduate of Antioch College and earned her MBA at Boston College’s Carroll Graduate School of Management, specializing in STEM Management.

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