When I ask my coaching clients what they are hoping to get out of our coaching sessions, 90-95% say some form of higher engagement on their social media platforms.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to entice someone to follow you. It\u2019s another for them to stay engaged.<\/p>\n

Engagement on Instagram is more important than ever, largely due to the new algorithm.\u00a0There\u2019s a lot of talk about how to use the best filter for your brand photos or how to style your flat lay, but there are many more variables that factor into a post\u2019s engagement.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s break it down.<\/h1>\n

First, what is engagement, really? It\u2019s a buzzword that is often thrown around but rarely defined. Think of it as an action your audience takes regarding your post. This could be in the form of double tapping a photo to like it, leaving a thoughtful comment, or even clicking the link in your bio.<\/p>\n

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Have a call-to-action (CTA) in every post<\/h2>\n

This does not mean changing your website link and saying \u2018link in bio\u2019 at the end of every. single. caption. It\u2019s important to change up your CTA to keep things fresh, unique, and unpredictable. The most overlooked CTA is asking your audience a relevant question. It\u2019s the most simple way to start a conversation.<\/p>\n

Adding a question at the end of your caption gives your followers a quick, clear way to share their thoughts rather than having to mentally search for something to say on their own. Once you\u2019ve got your audience\u2019s attention, keep it until the end with an engaging question.<\/p>\n

Tell a story in your caption<\/h2>\n

Every now and then it\u2019s okay to have a witty one-liner, but people are following you on Instagram because they want to get to know you. The more you open up (see buzzword: transparency) and share your heart along with your work, the more you\u2019ll make a lasting impact.<\/p>\n

Match the story in your caption to the story in your photo<\/h2>\n

The stories in your caption and photo don\u2019t have to match up perfectly but they should be similar enough to make sense when blended together. When they have a similar mood, vibe, and sentiment, you\u2019ll be able to share a variety of stories within your brand.<\/p>\n

For example, if you have a picture of a beautiful sunset you are dying to share but your primary goal with Instagram is promoting your handmade goods, you can post the photo and talk about a recent highlight or \u201cah-ha\u201d moment that changed your approach to business or a new sales or subscribers goal that you reached with the help of Instagram friends.<\/p>\n

Include *relevant* hashtags<\/h2>\n

You\u2019ve probably heard a lot about how important hashtags are to your Instagram\u2019s success because it\u2019s true. When you use relevant hashtags, you\u2019re able to find and attract dreamy clients, buyers, and readers who are already interested in the subject matter of your post. I chat a bit more about hashtags in my Instagram captions post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Make the most of the characters you have in your caption before \u2018Read More\u2019<\/h2>\n

Remember when Instagram showed the entirety of post captions in our home feeds? Oh, those were the days. Now the tool gives you about three lines before it hides the rest of your caption behind a \u2018read more\u2019 link.<\/p>\n

Think of it like Twitter<\/a>. You only have a few dozen characters to make an impact so your first sentence should act as a hook to entice your audience to take action. The action, in this case, is reading more. Keep this in mind when you\u2019re crafting your captions.<\/p>\n

Optimize your time for engagement<\/h2>\n

One of the best ways to increase your engagement is to free up more time for it. You can plan your content (photos, hashtags, CTAs, and captions) all in one sitting so posting every day becomes a simple task.<\/p>\n

My favorite tool for this is Later<\/a>, formally Latergramme, which allows you to schedule and plan your Instagram posts from your mobile or desktop. It even sends reminders to your phone if you have a tendency to forget like me. (Oops!)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Engagement on Instagram is more important than ever. There\u2019s a lot of talk about how to use the best filter for your brand photos or how to style your flat lay, but there are many more variables that factor into a post\u2019s engagement. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17,9,57,40],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-blogging","tag-coffee-break","tag-instagram","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1002,"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions\/1002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaylahollatz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}