Amongst all the metrics that marketers use to assess the suitability of an influencer, engagement levels are arguably one of the most important. After all, thousands of followers are hardly beneficial to a brand unless those thousands of followers actually see, like, comment, share and generally interact with content.
Often brands will assess engagement as an indicator of an influencer’s potential. High followers and low engagement can send warning signals of potential fake followers or other dubious methods, whereas high levels of engagement show a brand that your content resonates with the audience that they are trying to target.
The best way to boost engagement is to create great content that is valuable to your audience. In this article, we offer you tried and tested methods for boosting your engagement on TikTok and Instagram.
Collaborate
Visit any successful influencer’s Instagram or TikTok page and you will doubtlessly see several recent collaborations with brands and other influencers. But why is doing this so popular?
Working with other influencers will help you tap into a wider audience, as those you collaborate with are likely to share the content with their following. It can also help you tap into new creative ideas and generate exciting content that is both relevant and interesting to your own audience. This is especially true for influencers in competitive spaces such as gaming where the content of them going head-to-head can really make for incredibly exciting viewing.
Brand collaborations can also help boost engagement. When a brand chooses to work with an influencer it is a vote of confidence. Or in other words, it is like the brand is saying ‘this influencer creates great, trustworthy content’. Similarly to collaborating with other influencers, collaborating with brands can also gain you exposure to their audience.
Brand collabs also facilitate highly engaging content by fundings its creation - often letting the influencer think a little bigger than usual.
TOP TIP: Use the Instagram collaboration feature to invite the brands and other influencers you have collaborated with to get involved with your posts and to help you boost engagement.
Talk to Your Audience
If you have spent time scratching your head over how to engage your audience better, you may have asked yourself questions such as:
“What type of content does my audience like best?”
“Why do my audience like my content”
“How often does my audience like me posting content?”
“Is there anything I’m not doing that my audience wishes I would?”
It can seem impossible to tell…except it’s not.
Take the guesswork out of discovering what type of content your audience will engage with by asking them. It is crazy how many influencers deliberate over how better to engage their audience, but never actually ask them - perhaps they think this may seem unprofessional or like they don’t know what they are doing - but it is a great idea.
Asking your audience is a smart way to show that you care about bringing value to them in a way that works for them. It gives you direct insight into what they want to see. Best of all, when you ask your audience what type of content they want to see, you can create great engagement such as asking for their ‘answers in the comments or by publishing polls on your stories.
Partner with Brands for Giveaways
Giveaways and competitions are a staple of many brands social media strategies and for good reason. They offer an audience a powerful incentive to engage with content. For example, competitions can be used to drive:
Likes (like to win)
Comments (comment to win)
Public sharing (tag someone to win)
Private sharing (sharing with friends to also enter)
But it isn’t just brands that can benefit from competitions. Influencers can also leverage this powerful marketing tool to drive engagement amongst their audience. Better yet, when an influencer works with a brand to create giveaways they gain exposure to the brand audience, further boosting their potential engagement.
Increase Content Frequency
There are several reasons why increasing your content frequency is likely to boost engagement on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Firstly, it increases audiences familiarity with your personal brand and style of content, allowing people to feel more confident in interacting with it.
When you post more content, you also benefit from increased audience feedback. In turn, this allows you to improve your content in a way that better engages your audience. For example, if you post multiple pieces of content a day you will likely start to see a trend for the types of content and posting times that create the most engagement - this can then be used to drive your future content strategy.
Use the Q&A Feature
Influencers that engage with their audience receive more engagement in return. This is why using Q&A features on platforms like Instagram and TikTok can be so beneficial.
Running Q&As allows your audience to get more insight into who you are. Doing this can also be especially beneficial to those who are considered experts in a particular niche, as it will help you find the questions that people want the answers to.
TikTok offers a Q&A feature to creators that can be used to collect questions via your profile and then answer them with direct videos. Similarly, Instagram allows you to use a ‘Questions Sticker’ in your story where you can ask your audience to send you general or specific questions to answer.
Instagram & TikTok Engagement for Influencers: Summary
The ultimate goal of an influencer should be to create content that resonates with their audience and in turn generates high levels of engagement. From brand and influencer collaborations to answering direct questions, there are countless ways to drive better engagement on your TikTok and Instagram pages.
Written by Owain of Make It Mana