This week we focus on hacking the algorithm for fast growth, by focusing on this one key factor: Engagement. Your Engagement Rate is the single most important growth metric that Instagram looks at when determining whether to push your page in the algorithm or not. In other words, getting better engagement is the best growth strategy on Instagram in 2022.

As I explain in the video, when your engagement rate hits 10% or above, Instagram will usually start promoting your content in a bigger way, leading to faster follower growth and increased reach. The problem however, is that boosting your engagement is one of most the complicated processes on IG.

*In my experience, this strategy (boosting engagement) becomes more important once your page is around 2,500 to 3,500 followers, because that's generally when you'll become eligible for the explore page.

Growing your engagement, while not super easy, really will make a huge difference in your page's growth rates. On my TrapTheory101 page, when my engagement hovered around 5 - 10% for a month, I put up over 10,000 followers in that month. And 10,000 followers per month is great growth for a page under 50K.

I made the mistake though, of becoming complacent. Riding on the coat-tails of that growth, I stopped doing essential steps that would keep my engagement up. As my engagement has fallen over the past few months, my growth has slowed down and my reach has dropped.

This is when the relationship between Engagement and Growth became clear to me. When my engagement was great, my growth was great. When my engagement dipped down, my growth decreased along with it.

And I've seen this trend with other pages that I run. When you get lots of engagements, your posts will almost always perform better in the algorithm, and be seen by more people.

So the question becomes, How do you get more engagement on Instagram?

*I'll just say this upfront: Buying likes or using an Instagram Growth Service is usually the worst thing that you can do.

If you're interested in growing your engagement the right way, here are some strategies to try out:

1. Post your content at your audiences' peak times. In your page's insights you can see exactly what times your audience is most active and online. You can use that data to sync up your posts with their schedules. Think about it like this: If you want 10% engagement, and you're posting when only 6% of your audience is online, how do you intend to consistently hit that 10%? It's harder to reach your engagement goals if you're not strategically posting at your followers' peak times.

2. Carousels and Reels naturally get more engagement than most generic photo and video posts. These post types are favored by Instagram's algorithm right now. If you want to maximize your engagement, I recommend trying to fit the majority of your content into these two formats. Your watch time percentages will be higher on a short reel, than a longer form traditional video. The amount of time your followers spend flipping through your 10 slide carousel post will be longer than the amount of time they'd spend looking at a single image post. The lesson here, is help Instagram with their mission to keep people entertained for longer, and they'll help you get more engagement and reach on your account.

3. POST GOOD CONTENT. This is a tough one because there's not much I can give those who are in different niches than mine, but generally speaking, but you want to evoke emotion or give value with your content. Think about: "Is this content that people can really resonate with or enjoy?" In my experience, memes and funny content perform the best. Humor is a pretty universal language. I'll also add this: If you have no idea where to start with mapping out your content strategy, look at pages in your niche that are killing it. They're killing it for a reason. Maybe you can take a few notes from their content, and remix it to make it your own.

4. Removing Ghost Followers is a defensive measure that you can take to increase your engagement percentage. If you've got inactive followers that are looking at your content, but not interacting at all - you can use a Ghost Follower tool to remove them, thus improving your percentage of engaged followers. This generally won't improve your topline engagement that much, if at all, because you're removing followers. BUT - If you remove the correct followers (the inactive followers), your actual engagement rate percentage will improve.

5. Creating a call-to-action for engagement is a strategy that some creators use. This is most helpful if you're a page that provides a lot of value. In some cases though, people just forget to engage with your content and reminding them can be a big help. Just don't do this sleazily please.

6. Be intentional with how you're creating your audience, and who you're bringing it. Watch til the end for more on this one.

God bless & Much Love,
-Mitch 🙏

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