Instagram Engagement Plus Survey Follow-Up

The topic of Instagram engagement has been on my mind for some time now. Consternations about ongoing changes in Instagram algorithms as well as the company’s lack of attention to users’ concerns are among the reasons for this.

Oodles of articles are available that provide various numbers of tips, guidelines, and etiquette rules geared mostly toward building a feed that will attract more followers and generate more likes. This post does not contain any of those tips, guidelines, or etiquette rules because I’m not an IG guru on the subject of Instagram engagement. I only know what I’ve read, seen, or experienced first-hand.

Within these articles is an emphasis on the importance of building relationships with other Instagrammers. In a long-ago post, Back On Two Feet, I touched on the subject of stats as it relates to blogging traffic. For bloggers/content creators/influencers seeking to monetize their brand, social media stats are also of importance because they provide yet another measure of the size of your audience. The larger your audience, the greater your prospects for offers of collaborations with companies looking to promote their products.

It was in the summer of 2017 while I was recovering from surgery that I finally began to write a post about Instagram which had been simmering on the back burner for a while. As I went through the notes that I’d scribbled down when I’d first landed on this topic idea, I envisioned it as a three-part series mostly from the viewpoint of personal experience on Instagram. The three general topics that I intended to cover were safeguarding your account, suggested pointers on engagement, and a caution about scams.

So far, two of those three parts have been published. If you were on Instagram five or so years ago, you’ll recall that’s when we first started to hear about IG accounts getting hacked/stolen/held for ransom. When I first heard that this had happened to an IGer that I followed, I was a bit shaken and wondered if the same could happen to my account. In my post, Instagram: Guidelines For Safety, I shared her story and offered some commonsense advice on how to safeguard and protect your account.

About three years later, I got around to writing the post about scams focusing mostly on the romance ones. In Instagram: A Cautionary Tale About Scams I drew from a couple of my own troubling experiences in attracting less than legitimate followers to provide some insight regarding the scams that are commonly run on social media platforms and glimpse into how scammers operate. And now the last one to close out the series.

Originally, my intent for this post was to share some of the tips, guidelines, and etiquette rules for engagement on social media, specifically Instagram, that I had learned up until that point. I don’t recall if “the algorithm” was even a thing five years ago when I first jotted my notes about this series.

In the draft written back when initially outlining the series, I started the post on Instagram engagement by sharing three encounters I’d had on the platform which led me to develop a few how-to’s and what-not-to-do’s. Due to the passage of time (and only sketchy notes), I can now only recall one of them. What follows is from that original draft.

“A blogger that I’d been following wrote a post about her criteria on choosing which Instagram accounts she herself follows. In the post, that blogger spoke of the images and aesthetics of a feed and whether they excite her. She made a point of saying that while she may enjoy the content of a writer’s blog, that enjoyment doesn’t automatically transfer to the associated Instagram feed. She went on to share that she’d recently pared down the accounts that she followed quite dramatically and that she’d made it a habit to edit the list periodically. Naturally, I was curious to see if I had made the cut. It turned out that I hadn’t.

Did you just feel a small twinge in your gut at that revelation? I felt like I’d been punched in mine, much like I had when I was in 5th grade and the girl I considered my best friend asked me “why are you always following me around like a puppy?”. Although this blogger and I had never met in person, I thought that we had more than just a cursory relationship. She was among one of my earliest IG followers, we’d been joining in on each other’s linkups, and consistently commented on each other’s posts. She had invited me to participate in a collaborative post that she organized. For reasons that I have difficulty explaining any further, the realization that my IG account wasn’t one of the ones that she continued to follow left me feeling a bit devastated and at a loss of what to do about it.”

It isn’t my nature to respond with a kneejerk reaction so I held back from immediately commenting on that blog post. I thought about sending her an email so I reread the post several times to be sure that I understood her point of view.  Maybe my emotions were getting the better of me and I had misread her reasonings for selecting which accounts she follows. I’d thought to reach out to one or two other bloggers that we both “knew” in common to get their perspective but that would likely have stirred up a bit of unnecessary drama. Intellectually I respect her right to follow her own path and make her own choices, however emotionally I felt like the support I was extending to her wasn’t being reciprocated. After much pondering, I decided to not send an email. It felt like it would be petty to unfollow her IG account so I didn’t but I did stop liking her posts when they appeared in my feed.

Several years have passed since then and my skin has grown a bit thicker when it comes to social media. I consider it as a one-off occurrence although I find myself a bit jaded by the prevalence of the “follow then unfollow when followed” method of increasing one’s followers. Not that she did that. No, she made a deliberate decision that my account was unworthy of her time. Enough on that, let’s move on.

In talking about engagement, it doesn’t escape my awareness that today’s Instagram isn’t the same as when that incident occurred. Much has changed since then, from the seeming randomness of what appears in your feed, to ads and the algorithm’s preference for reels over traditional images. Still, social media experts will advise that engagement is as important as the content you post or the captions you write in building your following.

Number 4 on the list of 10 Essential Rules For Effective Instagram Marketing is Build Relationships with Other Instagrammers. Liking and commenting are the heart of all relationships on Instagram. They will get you noticed but they only work when they are genuine. For example, from time to time, I will see an account I’m unfamiliar with that has liked a few of my posts in quick succession.

It would appear that they’ve made an attempt to catch my attention to their account (which it likely did). More often than not, the account has a high follower count (like the ones with a K), and an impressive bio, and doesn’t follow mine (yes, I check). Despite the ❤s, it doesn’t seem like this person/account is making a genuine gesture of engagement. I’m all for supporting others who are using IG as a marketing tool by following, liking, and commenting on their accounts but not if those efforts are not being reciprocated. If you’re too busy to do your part in fostering engagement with other accounts, then don’t whine about when others lose interest in yours.

Commenting on posts goes a long way, both in establishing yourself as an interested follower and supposedly with “the algorithm”. I’ve read that doing a bit of “engagement”, such as liking and commenting on others’ posts, for 15-30 minutes before uploading a new post can trigger the algorithm to boost the initial visibility of your new post. It is also said that timely replies to comments left on your posts tend to boost visibility as well.

A couple of the questions in last month’s survey, Instagram: Take It Or Leave It, really struck a chord with those that responded based on the answers and comments that they generated. Even though the sample size was small, I think that the answers provide some good insight into how many feel about the current state of Instagram. There were 9 questions in the survey that mostly focused on the respondent’s interaction with Instagram. In all but the last question, the response options are preset choices, and participants were asked to select the best fit.

How do you use your IG account? In all, there were 31 respondents although five answered that they don’t have an IG account. Bless you for still participating 😊 That makes me so happy. Of the 26 that do have an account, 12 said that it’s for promoting their business/blog, for 6 of them it’s for sharing personal/family life, and for the remaining 8 it’s used for both purposes. As for me, the IG account I use the most is the one associated with this blog.

How many followers does your most active account have? The responses for the 26 with accounts seem like a good cross-section. Out of the 26 with accounts, 5 have fewer than 500, 4 between 500 and 999, 10 between 1,000 and 4,999 and 7 reported having more than 5,000. My account falls into the “between 1,000 and 4,999” range.

How many IG accounts do you follow with your most active account? Using the same ranges as the previous question, the answer with the highest count was less than 500 at 10 of the respondents. 6 reported following between 500 and 999 accounts, 9 reported following between 1,000 and 4,999 accounts, and 1 reported following more than 5000. I’m in the middle ground with this one too falling in between 1,000 and 4,999.

On average, how often do you post on your most active Instagram account? The answer of 2 to 3 times a week generated the highest response with 11. One of the respondents selected the once-a-month or less choice, 8 reported that they do so 2 to 4 times a month, and the remaining 6 said 4 or more times a week. I’ve been slacking quite a bit in this area in the last several months. If my intention is to promote my blog, then I should be posting at least as often as I publish a blog post but it’s been hit-or-miss (and mostly miss) lately.

On average, how often do you scroll through your IG feed? There was somewhat of an even split between the responses of 2-to-4 times a week, once a day, and several times a day at 8, 9, and 8 respectively. Only one person said that they scroll through their feed less than one a week. I may not be posting often but I should do scroll a lot. Like 2 or 3 times a day.

Do you watch Instastories and if so, how often? 12 respondents replied with “yes, but only once in a while” and 7 others reported that they do just about every time they check their feed. Interestingly, the remaining 7 said that they don’t look at Instastories. It took me a while to warm up to Instastories and now I do watch them and typically before I scroll through the regular feed.

What do you think about Instagram’s push for reels vs ‘old school’ type posts? No one selected the “love them; best thing since sliced bread” response but 7 did respond with “like them; mixes things up and provides variety”. The “meh; they might be good for others but I’m usually not impressed” choice was picked by 8 which leaves 11 who chose “yuck; I think that they are annoying and I tend to skip them when I can” as their response. For me, I’m with the majority in the yuck-to-meh range, preferring static posts because they give me time to take in the details of what I’m viewing.

What percentage of your posts nowadays are reels vs “old school”? Over half of the respondents with accounts, 15 of them, said that nearly all of their posts are “old school”. That was kind of surprising to me. There were 4 reporting as 25/75 and 1 reporting as 50/50 reels vs “old school”. A handful is embracing reels as 4 reported a 75/25 split and 1 said that nearly all of their posts are now reels. I think that I’ve only posted two reels ever and have been sticking mostly to “old school”.

If you could change one thing about Instagram, what would that be? On this question, respondents were free to write in any answer and 20 of them did so. 3 of them wanted less emphasis on reels, there were a few complaints about “the algorithm”, and a couple wished for Instagram to go away altogether. I wholeheartedly agree with the comment “to somehow prevent all those icky pervs from following me” and the one about getting rid of ads. To the person who commented about wanting a return to the chronological feed, you’ll be delighted to know that it is available and I’ll gladly tell you (anyone else interested) how to find it.

The chronological order option appears to only be available via the app and not if you’re accessing Instagram on your PC. The images to the right show how you can choose either to see the posts of accounts you follow or those identified as your “favorites”.  See where Instagram appears in the upper left corner of the screen on your mobile device? Tap there to access the pop-up menu you see in the image on the far right and make your selection of either Following or Favorites.  Be aware that this setting is only temporary. You’re welcome.

DIYed statement pants, blazer, striped button-down – all thrifted

Let’s Wrap This Up

Now, onto the Fine-Whatever link-up. My favorite post from last week’s link-up is Let’s Talk About the Stigma of Being Overweight written by Michelle over at Funky Fashion Style which is a new blog that she’s just recently started. You may know Michelle from her other blog My Bijou Life that she is now devoting to “making all the things”. Michelle really knocked it out of the park with her first post by tackling the struggles that come with being overweight.

As a platform for visual storytelling and with a community of over a billion, Instagram has a vast reach and provides its users the ability to connect with persons near and far. So much of our experience depends on how we interact with it. What steps are you taking to foster engagement both with the accounts you follow and those that follow you?

Stay well and let’s keep in touch! Subscribe, tweet, follow, friend, pin … all options are available. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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Note: This is an unsponsored post; however, some or all of the links to clothing items are associated with an affiliate program where I earned a few cents for each click.

Photo credit: MMPerez