By Adam 
Do you want to boost your Instagram engagement? Are you looking for ways to get more comments?
Instagram’s reach is dwindling and many people are worried about the feed becoming very Facebookesque with minimal reach. Instagram could very well be like that in years to come. But there’s one thing that Instagram has that Facebook doesn’t which can play an essential role in helping you reach more people.
This is the explore page. If you get on it you will always generate more engagement.
You should aim to get featured on it every time you publish a post.
One way to do this is by getting more comments. As Instagram’s algorithm gives more weight to comments than likes or impressions when determining how good your post is.
I have noticed this on both Facebook and Instagram. Once you get more comments, other forms of engagement such as likes, views, impressions, and saves will naturally follow.
Therefore, to help you get more comments, I have shared my top tips below…
Create engaging posts:
Getting likes is easy because all people need to do is tap. But comments can take time as people need to think. This is why if you want more comments you need to dig deep down and think about what will trigger your followers to leave a comment.
It needs to be emotional and highly relevant to your followers’ interests.
Spend some time going through your customer persona and think about what makes them tick. Also, go through the accounts they follow to see if they follow any of your competitors’.
Next, analyze these competitors to see who gets the most comments. This will give you a good idea about what kinds of posts will get you comments.
You can create similar content and use a good Instagram scheduling app to publish your post at a time when more followers are online.
For some ideas on creating engaging content check out this post from Asda.
This post got more comments than their other posts as Halloween is at the top of every mind right. Most people won’t celebrate it with their friends because of the current situation. And they’ll be more likely to engage online. So, funny posts like this can trigger emotions such as happiness and get comments.
Ask questions:
A simple way to get more comments is by asking questions. If you ask the right questions that are relevant to the topic of the post, more people will leave comments.
These answers can also help you understand your audience better which will help you create better posts in the future.
But remember to only ask questions when you want to increase engagement. If you ask questions in a post that was designed to generate sales, it can affect conversions. As this post needs to have a call to action that asks people to buy. When you include irrelevant calls to actions or too many of them it can lead to decision fatigue.
A good example can be seen in this post from Grammarly.
They asked a question in both the caption and on the photo itself with overlay text. And the post got over a hundred comments.
Engage back:
A mistake I see frequently on Instagram is people not responding to comments. Your followers took the time to write a comment. The least you can do is respond back.
As Jessica Thiefels, mindset and marketing coach, and founder of Marketing From the Gut, says: “When you reply back to a comment on your post, you’re saying, ‘I see you, I hear you, your voice is welcome here.’ In a world that feels divisive and uncertain, that’s everything.”
When you respond back it can lead to more comments as the commenter will sometimes return to leave a response to your comment.
Also, they will be more inclined to leave comments on your future posts.
But remember to only respond to positive comments. Some people will leave negative comments. There’s no use wasting your time on these.
If you don’t have time to respond to all of them, at least try and respond to a fixed amount. You can spend 10 minutes a day responding or respond to 10 comments a day or another number.
Someone who understands the importance of responding to comments is Stella Parks at Bravetart.
She doesn’t respond to all of the comments, but to many of them. And her posts usually get a lot of comments. It’s because many people know that she’ll get back to them.
Comment on other’s posts:
Another way to get comments is by commenting on others’ posts. When you comment on others’ posts they will check out your profile and follow you. And they will want to return the favor by commenting back. So whenever you have some free time, fire up Instagram on your phone and look for posts to comment on using hashtags and the explore page.
Join a pod:
A quick way to find posts to comment is through pods. Pods or engagement groups are groups of accounts on Instagram where members comment and like each other’s posts. They usually do this as soon as someone publishes a post. As the sooner you get those likes, the more likely you are to be featured on the explore page.
To get this right, you need to get comments from the most relevant accounts. So, make sure you join the right (niche) pods and not just anyone.
Run a contest:
I see the most comments on tag a friend contest posts. This is where you announce a contest on Instagram and offer an easy way to enter. All people need to do is comment on your post and tag their friends.
This will not only get them to tag their friend with a comment but will also get the people who got tagged to tag more people. As a result, the post ends up amassing hundreds and thousands of comments.
But make sure you only offer a very relevant prize for the contest. As you need to attract people who will want to engage with your regular posts in the future and buy from you. If you give away something like a car that appeals to everybody you will get comments from anyone and everyone.
Here’s an example of a tag a friend contest from BDHQ
The account just has about 2,500 followers and the average post gets 0 to 1 comment. But this post got over 350 comments at the time of writing. All they asked people to do is follow them, like them and comment on the post by tagging their favorite gym partner.
They’re a gym so they offered a complimentary membership and some fitness products as the prizes.
Work on getting other forms of engagement:
If you work on getting other forms of engagements such as likes and views your post will naturally get more exposure which will result in comments. So, along with comments, try to get some likes. If you analyze your account you will be able to get it down to a formula. You will be able to see how many likes lead to a comment.
Conclusion:
These are my top 7 tips to get more comments on Instagram. Use them to increase engagement and eventually your following and sales too.
They take some effort but will pay off in the long term.
SME Paid Under
Sitetrail Research Team 
Doug Brown