Hey, guys! I thought it would be nice to write a guide on how to increase engagement rate on Instagram accounts. Those things that I am going to mention helped me to increase engagement rate on my accounts, so I thought you might find useful to get some inspirational ideas 
- Link Instagram profile to FB page (yes, it actually helps to increase the reach as Instagram favors accounts which are linked to FB profile as it gives more authenticity and gets better trust score)
- Making it to a public profile, instead of having private account (yes, it actually helps too to increase the reach as you will be ranking in hashtags easier and getting into explore page too)
- Not making the profile into Business profile (actually having Business profiles, in most cases, decreases your reach because Instagram is earning more money from Business profiles and wants them to spend money on ads more to get better visibility and reach thus decreasing it on purpose)
- Engaging with your followers constantly (yes, this also helps in getting better reach on your posts because Instagram sees your account as a constant engager thus giving you a favor)
- Replying to followers’ comments and DM’s as fast as possible (yes! this is definitely a must thing to do on your own account! I hardly advise you to reply to followers’ comments and DM’s as soon as you get them - preferably in within 30 minute frame)
- Preferably, do not post hashtags in the comments (as this was patched a long time ago and is not working as effectively as while back) - most people use this to make caption better-looking by placing hashtags into the first comment, but please put them in the caption
MY SECRET SAUCE:
Posting only relevant hashtags in the captions (yes, it helps you to get a better reach on upcoming posts if your previous post has a lot of relevant hashtags. Instagram implemented alt text a while ago which determines what is in the image by implementing their image recognition. You can find alt text on any image in HTML code where it says “Image may contain”. By the way, not all images have alt text.
I will tell you one trick that no one has been talking here around:
- Download an image and its alt text.
- Then, find those keywords as tags in Instagram
- Scrape all related hashtags of all alt text keywords
- Use them in your post caption
TADAA! Now you have only related hashtags (in most cases) to your post.
(THIS IS HOW INSTAGRAM DETERMINES IF YOUR HASHTAGS ARE RELEVANT TO THE POST!)
GOLDEN NUGGET FROM ME:
BUT NOW, I WILL GIVE YOU A GOLD NUGGET RIGHT NOW FOLKS. NO ONE HAS BEEN TALKING ABOUT IT AROUND THE INTERNET. Probably some of the experienced Instagram marketers already found out about it, but no one is talking about it and keeping it as a secret to their own needs (bastards…):
I ran several tests while back ago and did this:
- Posted the image which I downloaded from some random Instagram account
- Removed MD5 hash (as all content reposters do)
- Posted the image on a test account
Then, I tried to do this:
- I did exactly the same as in the first test, but uploaded a picture I took with my Samsung phone and uploaded
And you know what? My reach increased! I tested it by following both test accounts with a bunch of other accounts that I created just for the sake of this test to determine which accounts see my posted images on the feed.
Why I got lucky (maybe)? Because Instagram tracks GPS coordinates of each published post. Reposted content don’t have those, while original posts (taken with a phone/camera, made in photoshop, screenshots, etc.) have! You can do this test if you don’t believe me: upload a picture/video on your Instagram account via mobile app and you will see that Instagram will give you suggestions of locations to tag on this post before publishing it. Do you think those locations were given just for fun, randomly? Of course not! Instagram checks those GPS coordinates on image’s/video’s METADATA and then provides you such suggestions.
