BIYS Day 17: 15 Amazing Tips for Increasing Your Engagement on Instagram and Twitter

It’s almost everyone’s goal to get more engagement and visibility on our favorite apps and social media platforms. And it’s especially crucial when building a brand. Here are my top 5 tips for increasing your engagement and visibility on Instagram and Twitter.

Post Quality Content

Decide on the content you want to post and try to make it as quality as you possibly can. One way you can do this is by getting an aesthetic. We all love seeing content that is pleasing to our eyes and your followers are no different. You can refer to Monday’s post to see the apps that can help you with this, like Preview and VSCO. It’s extremely important to create content that keep your followers coming back; they don’t follow you for fun, they follow you because of the content you post, and, if they start to dislike what they see, they will unfollow you. 

Have a Schedule & Post Frequently

Instagram uses frequency to sort posts. This means the more time you spend on the app, the more likely your posts will be shown and promoted on people’s feeds. If you’re a beginner, try posting once a week. Or do like the pros do and do one photo shoot once or twice a month and take multiple pictures in multiple outfits and locations. That way, you’ll have content for weeks, and you won’t have to worry about running out of pictures to post.

Engage With Others and They’ll Engage With You

Engagement is another key factor to who you see in your feed and who your followers see. Respond to your comments and DM’s! If people take the time to engage with you, it means they really enjoy your content, so return the favor. Engaging with others also makes it more likely for your content to show up on their feeds. So take the time to leave a heart or nice comment because it could have huge rewards.

Post to Your Story

Posting to your story is another way to engage your followers and show Instagram that you’re active. Your stories could be seen by anyone, and that leads to more exposure than your typical post wills especially if you’re not using hashtags. Posting consistently on your story also pushes you to the front of your followers’ story list so you’re content is always front and center. So post to your story! Even if it’s a meme or another post you saw on Instagram.

Post When Your Followers are Active 

This is one that circulates a lot but it’s true. Post when engagement is really high. During quarantine with everyone’s messed up sleep schedules, everyone’s awake late at night, so it may help you to post at 12am or 1am. But since school is starting back up and people are awake earlier, it could help to post at 2pm or 3pm. I know switching to a business account could get your IG shadowbanned (look it up), so I’m not going to encourage you all to switch to a business account. However, if you already have a business account, take advantage of the analytics Instagram gathers for you and post when your followers are most active!

Twitter

Ah, Twitter, the ultimate social media app where you really have to convince people to follow you. Unlike IG, there are significantly less bots on Twitter since Twitter actively removes bot and spam accounts. They also have daily caps on how many people you can follow and other ways they try to keep real people on the app. It’s hard gaining followers on Twitter, but here are 5 ways you can increase your following and engagement on the app.

Tweet Often

Posting frequently let’s your followers know you are active and worth following. People don’t follow you on Twitter, or any app, for no reason. They want to see your content. Also, Twitter is a fast moving app, so filling up your and their feeds will give you more exposure and remind your followers why they follow you. Some say it’s best to post 3-15 tweets daily. Find what works for you and stick to it.

Post Visual Content

Tweets with visual content get more engagement than those without them. Plain and simple. And tweets with images can attract the attention of people who scroll endlessly and make them take a look at what you posted. 

Create an Interesting Profile

Make your bio jazzy. Make your profile picture high quality and eye-catching and make used of having a pinned tweet! Some people have their pinned tweet as really nice pictures of them, or their business or who they are as people and the causes they stand for. Twitter actually gives a good amount of characters in the bio section so make use of it, but be wary! Do not post really personal information. Keep it simple but informative. Let people know who you are, what you do and the kind of content they can expect to see from you.

Engage with Replies, Retweets & Hashtags

Engagement is extremely important, just like it is with Instagram. Reply, retweet and tag. Doing this gives you exposure and let’s your followers know you’re a real person. So take the time like and type out well thought out tweets; this can give you a huge boost to potential followers.

Provide Value

Do not tweet everything that comes to your head. I know you’ve seen multiple times this year celebrities get publicly scolded and shunned for tweets they shouldn’t have posted because they were discriminatory, exclusionary and simply hurtful or violent. You want to provide meaningful value to your followers, whether it’s a good laugh or links to websites and articles that you found really interesting. Find out what you want to provide to your followers and stick to it.