In this post, I will be approaching Instagram engagement enhancing strategies and, in an indirect way, Instagram growth in followers and how to keep your followers loyal to your page.
Let’s Get Right Into It:
- The number one thing to understand is that Instagram engagement is directly related to growth.
In other words, by reaching out to more people, your posts will leverage higher engagement levels. As your posts reach higher engagement levels, the more likely it is that they will, consequently, keep reaching out to more people.
The more people that see and interact with your posts, the more people will visit your page and, eventually become new followers.
The algorithmic process that’s behind this phenomenon is quite simple, actually:
- Instagram’s algorithm perceives content that is highly engaged with, as valuable content. That’s because it is Instagram’s goal for people to spend as much time in the platform as possible.
Therefore, as your content is highly engaged with - in a fast succession - the Instagram algorithm will allow it to reach out to more people via what I like to call “external sources of reach”, such as hashtags and the explore page, as you will rank higher on those.
That’s why one of the assets that I use is (still) so effective:
1- Engagement groups 
Engagement groups are groups that exist within Instagram, that can be related to any niche.
I have personally created and built dozens of powerful engagement groups for various niches, which feature some of the top performing pages and influencers of those given niches.
The way Instagram engagement groups work is the following:
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You share your last post in the group(s) you take part in;
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These pages / influencers that take part in them will engage (like and comment) with your post;
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You shall do the same back in return (the purpose of engagement groups is of mutual engagement, leading into mutual growth).
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Each engagement groups features 20 to 35 big pages of the same niche, therefore multiplying the effectiveness of this strategy.
As you leverage more engagement from these groups, your posts will more easily rank higher on hashtags (if your strategy is on point) and, eventually, in the explore page.
Another awesome asset of engagement groups is that you have the change of interacting and building networking relationships with some of the most known pages of your niche that take part in them as well, with opens lots of opportunities for you, especially if you run a smaller page, which traditionally makes it more difficult to join these groups, as they’re usually designed / restricted for bigger pages.
2- CTA’S (Calls To Action) 
By placing CTA’s in your posts’ caption, you are inciting your audience to interact with your posts.
The most common examples of CTA’s include tagging a friend, a loved one, sending the post to someone who “must see this”, sending it to someone “and dont’t say anything”, etc. etc.
Note: Don’t just go for a random CTA and hope for it to produce magical results. Don’t be lazy, put in at least some creativity or irreverence to it and place it after a description of your post that contextualizes it.
As people tag someone in your post or send it to someone else, via their dm’s or stories, your reach from “other” will improve, as more people are having access to it through this source, mostly thanks to your CTA.
This is also a way of making your audience feel engaged in your posts.
3- Instagram Stories 
These are yet one of the most underrated and effective assets to retain your audience and keep it engaged, as well as to enhance your engagement levels and to improve your page’s overall performance.
Here’s what most people do: they post stories and insert a description. Tadow! - That’s all.
And they expect their audience to be happy that they’re putting out content…
… But hey, you’re not taking them on the ride with you.
Here’s how to do it:
- Add polls to your stories. Instead of just describing your story, ask them questions about it. Be it “Yes or No” polls, or quizzes, or leave space for more personalized interaction, such as with “Ask me something” polls.
Take it a step further and ask your audience what kind of content they prefer seeing the most from you, and insert an open answer poll so that you can track their answers and adapt your content to their preference (if that’s doable for you, of course).
Actually interact with their responses. Make them feel valued and relevant. That’s why you should have a presence on Instagram in the first place, and that’s how your page is going to grow a loyal, solid following base.
I apply these strategies all the time and that’s how you can leverage such a low following drop and such a high following gain and retention, as I show in one of the pictures below.
BONUS TIPS:
Always answer comments on your posts, at least to a bare minimum. Sometimes people will follow your page just because they’ve noticed that there’s a human behind it, and that there isn’t a robotic presence leading its ways.
Also, add a CTA in your bio and in your posts, such as “Follow @username to be a part of our ________ tribe!”, for instance.
Hope this helps! Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions 
