Want to grow Instagram Engagement? Take a Look at our 2 top performing posts and what we can learn from them

If you know me, you probably know I am an analytic-maniac!

This is funny because numbers aren't really my forte. But I have learned early on that all the answers we need to grow Instagram engagement (whether it’s on our feed posts, stories, Lives or Reels) lay behind that little Insight button on our Instagram profile.

I even built a whole strategy around it, my Superposts™ strategy.

But today I want to focus on feed posts.

I want to share with you two of my highest performing posts ever.
They both happened this month.

The first was this one: an image of a mural which reads “You’re More Than Your Instagram”.

Let’s look at Instagram Insights for this post:

At the time I took this photo, these are the metrics we had on this post:

• 5,274 likes

• 92 comments

• 513 shares — note that this number could be higher, because as you can see in Instagram’s disclaimer on the picture in the center (which is partially covered by the arrow) due to new privacy laws in Europe they can’t disclose some of the shares and replies.

• 601 saves

• 80,530 reach (about 150% percent my number of followers)

• 74 new followers (coming from this post specifically)
  

This was my post that has the highest reach ever, over 80k accounts —mind you, I have 54k followers, so I reached a lot more accounts than follow me.

Also to note that I gained 74 followers with this post alone, which is a LOT if you consider this post was a lifestyle post I had scheduled for a Sunday and has a super short caption.

And this post was the second top performer in my account recently: an image of a billboard that says “Stop Overthinking Everything You Post on Instagram”.

Now let’s look at Instagram Insights for this post:

Now let’s look at metrics for this one as well.

At the time I took this photo:

• 3,307 likes

• 109 comments

• 423 shares — note that this number could also be higher, due to new privacy laws in Europe.

• 1,153 saves

• 38,893 reach (about 75% percent my number of followers)

• 208 new followers (coming from this post specifically)
  
  

Louder to the people in the back: From this post alone, I gained 208 followers and counting! Nuts!

Even though this post had less than half the reach of the other post, I gained a lot more followers because my caption actually adds a lot of value too.

That resulted in more saves, so people could go back to the tips I was giving them in the captions.

But what are the Instagram engagement tips we can get from taking a look at these posts?

Here is the process I went through to create these posts and get these results:

1. Selected topics that were generating lots of likes, comments and saves on my account

2. Summed them up in one short phrase to add to the image itself, so when people saw them it would stop the scroll

3. Worked with a professional designer so I would have high quality images

4. On the second one, I added great value in the captions and the results speak for themselves. Less reach and so much more engagement and targeted follower gain.
   
   

So if you feel like you never know what content will perform and what content will flop when you’re creating your Instagram posts, this is a process you can try.

But if you want to skip all the guessing game, the research and the professional designer fees, we created a whole set of Canva templates in this style. Created by an Instagram expert (it me) and designed by a professional designer to get you results and make your life easier.

That's right. These posts are both part of my set of Canva templates for Instagram called Messages IRL.

You get 20 different designs that you can change the text or use as is, and create hundreds of posts you can use and reuse.

Look at some of the templates:

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Manu Muraro is the founder of Your Social Team, an Instagram training membership and content shop to help social media managers and Instagram savvy women entrepreneurs to beat the algorithm and grow their organic engagement (yes, even in 2021). This year she also launched Your Template Club, a Canva Template subscription to provide social media managers and Instagram savvy business owners with content template designed for engagement in their inbox.

Born and raised in Brazil, Manu moved to the U.S. in 2000 right out of college to work for Cartoon Network, where she made an award winning career in creative and strategy. In 2017, Manu started Your Social Team with the mission of helping women entrepreneur and social media managers grow engagement and sales through Instagram without the overwhelm.

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