Active customer engagement is crucial to your business success. Because you know this, you probably maintain company profiles on the major social media sites. Instagram is one of the best places to interact with potential customers simply due to its tremendous growth. Instagram boasts around one billion monthly users at this point, and it’s not showing signs of slowing down.

An important part of engagement is getting real Instagram likes. Obtaining likes on your posts gives you social currency and shows that followers appreciate your content. It gives you an opportunity to interact with consumers and to build the relationships required for growth. Take a look below to discover six simple tricks companies can use to increase Instagram engagement. You’re sure to learn something new.

1. Always Interact with Your Followers
One of the most basic and important rules of successful social media use is to consistently interact with your followers. After all, if you want them to engage, you have to follow through and show genuine interest in their preferences and feedback. This goes beyond just reciprocating likes or giving a short reply to a comment. Pay attention to what followers are saying.

Find ways to highlight their comments and questions in your posts, Stories and maybe even videos. Ask questions, set up polls and give shoutouts. Get creative. People want to feel validated and recognized. Make Instagram social, and you’ll reap the rewards far into the future.

2. Stay on Top of Features and Trends
Instagram has changed a lot over the years. Like any social media platform, it’s constantly evolving and adding new features. Trends come and go. If you want to maintain engagement, you have to keep up. In fact, it’s even better if you can stay ahead and be one of the first to try something new.

This generates excitement and portrays your brand as having influence. Pay attention to your competition and others in your niche in order to stay on top of the trends. Read blogs on social media and visit Instagram’s own blog to make sure you know what new features are rolling out. Even design trends like filters, colors, and angles matter. It’s worth brushing up on what’s new if you want to invite engagement.

3. Cross Promote to Your Other Accounts
Chances are, you’re active on other social media platforms. Use the time you’ve invested in those places to your advantage by cross-promoting your Instagram content to those followers. Share a link to a particularly interesting post. Invite folks to join you on Instagram.

Even adding a link to your Instagram profile in your email signature or blog are good ways to catch people’s interest. They won’t know about your spiffy new Instagram account if you don’t tell them. Once they find you there, they can engage with likes, comments and more.

4. Use Links Strategically
Instagram is different than other social media sites in that it doesn’t let you put links within your regular posts. This is a method for keeping spam down, and users seem to really appreciate it. You can put a link in your bio, and many businesses use this opportunity to send followers to their website.

This makes sense, for the most part, as it lets people see what you’re all about and make purchases. However, there may be times you want to switch that link up and direct people elsewhere, based on a particular campaign or marketing strategy.
That’s okay. Feel free to switch it up when you need to. The best use of links requires planning and purpose. If you decide to invest in advertising or if you have at least 10,000 followers there are some other options for adding links as well.

5. Add a Call to Action
One of the simplest and most obvious ways to gain more engagement is simply to ask. That’s right. A call to action is simply a statement at the end of your post asking your audience to do what you’d like them to.
Calls to action, or CTAs, can be as basic as directly asking folks to comment or like. Better yet, engage them with meaningful questions based on the content of your post. Getting them involved in the subject matter with a call to action is one of the best and time-tested ways to generate user engagement.

6. Make Posts Shoppable
Shoppable posts are a relatively new feature of Instagram. These are posts in which you can add clickable tags that lead followers to your website where they can directly purchase the item listed.
As long as it’s not overused in every post, this is truly a useful way to convert sales. Users seem to like the convenience of clicking on an item in order to check it out further and learn more details.

While not every click will lead to a purchase, it’s an opportunity that’s too good not to take advantage of and can lead to more sales, along with a loyal and engaged following. People love Instagram for the chance to discover new trends and the latest goods. Why not give them an easy opportunity to get their hands on those items?
Give these simple tricks a try if you want to increase your Instagram engagement. Your business will benefit from a more active following. Plus, it’s just more fun to interact with your audience.