Is it possible to gain lots of engagements on Instagram without promoting the page?

[Wantosleep39]

This message probably won’t interest you if don’t run a business on Instagram or active Instagram user. And I appreciate any advice you give
I have created a Instagram page for my business. I actually do really good posts. But without paying to Instagram I don’t gain any followers and even most of my followers won’t see my posts.
The moment I promote any of my posts my engagements go really high. Gain lots of followers and get lots of likes and comments. Also people save my posts too. if my post wasn’t good enough I wouldn’t gain any engagements from promoting too. I guess 🤔
My question is there any way to gain more engagements without promoting.
I won’t follow unfollow
I won’t join follow or like loops.
I tried those and they actually give negative impact
anyone knows? Please 🙏

I organically grew my following to 100k + but it took years and honestly you’re much better off with 1000 really engaged followers than 100k who don’t. Selling from Instagram is really hard, where do you send your followers to buy from you?

Asking for something - answer a question for example can improve engagement. Reach is the important metric, an increase of 5% to 10% per month is a good number to aim for.

Make sure you are using hashtags that your potential followers are likely to use.

Use the story and reel feature (apparently the algorithm favours this.)

Make sure you are commenting on other people’s posts.

Follow related hashtags and comment on posts that contain that hashtag.

That’s all I can think of for now!
It is much harder for posts to get as much reach as they used to; it’s like they want users to pay for promotions

Apparently only likes do nothing and you need comments so the algorithm shows your posts even without promotion.
I go every few days and pop a comment on local small business pages hoping to help.

What I promote is not sold on insta, bit it still can bring some customers so I can deal with lower engagement sometimes.

Great thing is to be part of a something like a community of small businesses there. We do local small business shoutouts for example. Stories seem to do well.

Don't use exactly the same # every post. Apparently it markd you as a spam then and it lowers exposure.

Is it only instagram you sell on?

@LongPauseNoAnswer

I organically grew my following to 100k + but it took years and honestly you’re much better off with 1000 really engaged followers than 100k who don’t. Selling from Instagram is really hard, where do you send your followers to buy from you?

Asking for something - answer a question for example can improve engagement. Reach is the important metric, an increase of 5% to 10% per month is a good number to aim for.

I do that I ask questions and I get one or two comments only. If I have one post on promotion my next post which is not on promotion can get lots of comment. Because Instagram expose my page so they are seen. They want us to pay 🙈

I have a website so I usually send them to my website. Selling is also so hard.
I use a lot of hashtags and I only use post related. They don’t rank much. I use less used ones more used ones less than 100 ones. But nope they don’t rank

Engagement with other accounts is key. Use relevant hashtags.
Use Reels to extend your reach, stories to keep your current followers engaged. Post regularly and avoid selling all the time.
Keep going at it. You will build an engaged audience slowly but steadily.

It is a lot of work to do well.

@Wantosleep39

I have a website so I usually send them to my website. Selling is also so hard. I use a lot of hashtags and I only use post related. They don’t rank much. I use less used ones more used ones less than 100 ones. But nope they don’t rank

According to the Dragons, best place to grow a business is focusing and selling on Amazon, have you looked into that?

I have over 4K Instagram followers and have never paid for promotion.

The trick is rigorous engagement: liking others pictures, great use of relevant hash tags of varying degrees of popularity, commenting on lots of other people’s pictures and doing all you can to appear active, visible and interested. Finding your niche really helps, as does very good quality pictures.

If you have a good profile odds are your account will be featured in the Stories of another account in due course, which helps.

It is doable, but hard work. At one stage I was liking 3-5 photos of over 100 people a day!

@HalzTangz no I haven’t try Amazon actually. I do consultations but I sell digital documents too. I will look in to Amazon too. Thanks for your advice

@VestaTilley

I have over 4K Instagram followers and have never paid for promotion.

The trick is rigorous engagement: liking others pictures, great use of relevant hash tags of varying degrees of popularity, commenting on lots of other people’s pictures and doing all you can to appear active, visible and interested. Finding your niche really helps, as does very good quality pictures.

If you have a good profile odds are your account will be featured in the Stories of another account in due course, which helps.

It is doable, but hard work. At one stage I was liking 3-5 photos of over 100 people a day!

I do follow some hashtags that bring me potential followers. I do occasionally like pictures from there but not as much as you do. I will definitely do it more and see how it goes. Thanks for your advice

Follow @thesocialstable - so many useful tips that can be applied to any business. Follow 5 people a day, spend 15 mins x 3 a day commenting on posts by accounts who are your target market, reply to your comments, use stories and reels, use polls/questions to encourage engagement. Lots you can do without paying a penny

You cannot attract customers without promoting on Instagram. You need to develop your page. You should write interesting posts, shoot stories and select hashtags for them. To select hashtags, I use site tagsets.com/