It’s no secret that Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms out there. With an estimated 1.44 billion monthly active users, Instagram has become an essential digital marketing tool for connecting with your audience and improving brand awareness.
But as the platform continues to evolve, keeping up and cutting through the noise can feel like a moving target. With countless companies on the platform, how do you stand out from the crowd and get more eyes on your brand? How do you boost your reach?
We’ve got some tips for you. Here are 11 strategies to increase your Instagram reach and expand your audience.
What Is Instagram Reach?
First, it’s important to emphasize that Instagram reach refers to the number of unique users who see your post. This is different from impressions, which is the total number of views on a post. A post that was viewed 10 times by one user, for instance, would have generated 10 impressions but only have a reach of one.
For companies concerned with growing their audience and maximizing brand awareness, Instagram reach is an essential metric to track since it lets you know how many different people are seeing your posts.
As long as you have a business or creator account, Instagram will report your reach under Views in your professional dashboard. You can see how many accounts you’ve reached in a specific time period, as well as the reach of a particular post, video, Story, or Reel.
To check out those numbers, simply navigate to your professional dashboard from your profile or click to view the insights on a specific post. Instagram has several guides on how to navigate to Insights on their Help Center.
You can also see your Instagram performance data with an all-in-one social media analytics tool like Rival IQ, which displays not only your Instagram reach but plenty of other essential metrics through detailed and visual reports.
Start analyzing your brand's performance on Instagram with Rival IQ. 
11 Ways To Increase Instagram Reach
Instagram’s algorithm, or its system of rules, classifiers, and processes that determine what posts appear in each person’s feeds, greatly affects your reach. This system is complex, but we do know that it strives to personalize the user experience by showing the most relevant and engaging posts based on each user’s activity.
So, what does that mean for brands looking to grow their reach on Instagram? The more users engage with your posts, the more the algorithm will present your content to relevant audiences. In other words, knowing your audience and delivering engaging content is essential. Try implementing these 11 strategies for increased Instagram reach.
1. Post at the Right Time
While Instagram feeds are no longer organized chronologically, timing is still an essential part of getting seen.
Instagram’s algorithm tends to highlight new posts because they’re considered more relevant. Posting new content when your following is most active also increases the chance that they’ll see your post and interact with it. This jumpstarts a snowball effect where posts that earn high engagement quickly are deemed popular and served to more users by the platform.
The best times to post will depend on your unique audience and industry. Luckily, you can easily find the days and times that your followers are most active using Instagram Insights. Plus, with Instagram’s built-in scheduling tool, you can plan and schedule your posts directly within the app, making it easy to stay consistent and post at optimal times.
To understand more about your industry and your competition’s posting schedule, check out our insights into the best times to post on Instagram for 14 key industries across North America.
2. Experiment With Different Types of Posts
Instagram has come a long way since its inception. Once limited to just static single images, users now have a lot more options in terms of the types of posts they can share, including carousel posts, videos, Reels, Stories, and more.
Try experimenting with these different types of posts to figure out what resonates with your audience the most. Even something as simple as adding music to your feed posts can make a difference. In fact, Instagram recommends it. Photos and carousels with music are now eligible to appear in the Reels tab, allowing you to reach new audiences.
Ask yourself: What kind of content gets the most eyes on your account? Which type of post tends to draw the most engagement? Why do you think that is?
Tools like Rival IQ can help you go deeper by showing which post types are generating the most engagement, not just for your brand but for your competitors too. This kind of insight can reveal patterns you might not have noticed and help you fine-tune your content strategy.
Maybe you’ll find that your followers love to interact with and share the funny Reels you post. Or perhaps they’re big fans of the aesthetically pleasing carousel posts of your products. Find out what works for you and adjust your social content strategy accordingly.
Pro tip: Want to test out new content? Instagram’s Trial Reels feature lets you share a Reel with non-followers first. If it performs well, you can publish it to your followers with a single tap or even set it to publish automatically. Trial Reels won’t appear on your profile or in your followers’ feeds unless you decide to share them later, giving you a low-pressure way to test what works.
3. Get Smart With Hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to have your posts discovered by people outside of your following who may be interested in the kind of content you’re posting.
When it comes to your hashtag strategy, prioritize quality over quantity. Though Instagram does let you put up to 30 hashtags per post and up to 10 hashtags per story, thoughtlessly stuffing your posts with hashtags is rarely an effective approach. Instead, focus on finding hashtags that are relevant to your brand and generate high levels of engagement from your audience. You can try to mix and match different hashtags with various captions to see which one works best.
There are also handy tools that make hashtag research much easier. Rival IQ’s hashtag analytics equip you with the data you need to identify the most engaging terms and track their effectiveness as you use them.
4. Reach multiple communities with Instagram Collabs
One of Instagram’s features — Instagram Collabs — lets you expand your reach by having your posts be exposed to another user’s community of followers. Collaborations in general have long been a popular strategy for reaching a new audience, but this feature makes doing so on Instagram a breeze by eliminating the clutter of duplicate posts.
With Instagram Collabs, a single joint post is shared with each collaborator’s follower base and lives on their profile grids with both accounts tagged at the top. The Collabs post also enjoys combined views, likes, and comments.
As the original author of a post, you can invite up to 20 collaborators and have your post seen by those additional communities of followers. From partnering with other brands to collaborating with influencers or your customers, this feature opens up countless opportunities for increasing your Instagram reach.
5. Encourage engagement with contests and giveaways
Another way your brand can expand its reach on Instagram is by hosting contests and giveaways. Engagement-focused contests can signal to the algorithm that your post is worth serving to others while also boosting your reach by good ol’ word of mouth.
Most effective Instagram contests or giveaways provide an incentive for people to interact with the post by having entries be tied to particular actions, especially those that’ll get more eyes on your brand. Asking your audience to follow your page, tag a friend in the comments, or share the contest to their Story are some popular ways to do this.
Laneige and La La Land’s collaborative giveaway is a perfect example of how these kinds of posts can impact your Instagram performance. With more than 8K comments filled with tagged friends and 17K likes, this post had an engagement rate by follower that was nearly double the average engagement rate of Laneige’s other posts this year (as of this writing).
We also want to point out that Laneige and La La Land smartly utilized Instagram Collabs and made the giveaway a joint post to expand their reach even further. The insight here? Don’t hesitate to combine several reach-boosting strategies to amplify their effect.
6. Use interactive stickers on your Stories and Reels
Instagram’s algorithm is designed to reward engagement. So, what better way to encourage your audience to engage with your posts than by leveraging the platform’s interactive stickers?
Available on both Stories and Reels, these stickers are designed to spark participation from viewers and, as a result, signal to the algorithm that your posts are engaging and should be served more prominently on users’ feeds.
Here are just some of the interactive stickers you can use:
-
- Poll Sticker: Ask your followers to pick between two options with a poll they won’t be able to resist answering.
- Quiz Sticker: Kick it up a notch with multiple-choice questions that test their knowledge or pique their interest.
- Emoji Slider Sticker: Maybe things aren’t as simple as A or B (or C or D…). Let your followers show you how they feel based on a sliding scale.
- Add Yours Sticker: This sticker lets viewers add their choice of photos, videos, and even music to their story according to your prompt.
- Question Sticker: Give your followers free rein to ask questions or answer your prompt through a text box. You can then share and respond to their question in another Story.
- Hashtag & Location Stickers: Make it easy for curious users to discover more posts related to interesting hashtags or locations by adding these tappable stickers. Bonus: using them also helps your post show up in Search results and on the Explore feed.
- Frames Sticker: Add a photo “framed” as an instant print photograph. Viewers have to shake their phone or tap the “shake to reveal” button to develop the image inside.
- Reveal Sticker: Post a blurred-out mystery that followers can only uncover by sending you a DM. Add a hint to tease what’s behind the blur, and only those who message you will get to see what’s hidden.
For your audience, engaging with most of these stickers is often as simple as a quick tap, making it a relatively low-effort yet fun interaction that they’re likely to partake in.
7. Spotlight user-generated content
Posting user-generated content (UGC) is another great way to boost engagement and reach on Instagram. When you share UGC, the original users are likely to return the favor by resharing the post and having their own following engage with it.
Additionally, regularly highlighting user-generated content on your Instagram can encourage others to create similar posts that can be used to promote your brand. We wouldn’t be surprised if a GoPro customer became inspired to post their own epic photos after seeing a GoPro UGC post like the one below.
Moreover, sharing user-generated content can strengthen your brand’s credibility, authenticity, and relatability. Posts from real customers — real people — tend to stand out as trustworthy and interesting amidst generic branded messaging. When people see posts they relate to on a human level, they engage.
8. Interact with your audience as an active Instagram user
It would make little sense for a brand to constantly request engagement just to leave its audience hanging. Communication is a two-way street. As people like, comment on, react to, and share your posts, don’t forget to engage with them right back.
Like or reply to their comments. Interact with those who mention your brand. Reshare relevant posts that would add value to your audience’s experience. In other words, be an active user! Go beyond simply posting by being a prominent and visible presence in your audience’s Instagram experience, and you’ll naturally expand your reach over time.
9. Go Live
Here’s a “hack” to get your profile displayed front and center on your followers’ feeds: go live.
Typically placed at the beginning of the Stories bar and highlighted with a distinct “LIVE” label, live videos are hard to miss. This makes them one of the best ways to get more eyes on your account and boost brand recognition — an effect that occurs even if a follower doesn’t watch the live.
This feature also has the added advantage of automatic post notifications. For users who have this setting enabled, Instagram sends out alerts when an account that they follow goes live. Unlike regular post notifications, where they have to “subscribe” to a particular account, Live notifications can be sent out for any profile that they follow.
Want to maximize your Instagram reach even more? Apply our tip on collaborations here by utilizing Instagram’s Live Rooms feature. Invite other users into your Live to reach their community of followers and partake in conversations for your audience to engage with in real time.
10. Amplify your reach with a boosted post
If you have the budget for it, you can also reach more people by putting some ad spend behind your Instagram efforts.
Referred to as boosted posts, these are Instagram posts that you pay to have shown to more people. They’re different from paid ads in that they’re created from already-published posts and have more customization options when it comes to targeting. This makes them a quick and easy way to have an organic post be seen by more people who are part of a specific audience.
You can head over to our post, How to Boost and Measure a Post on Instagram, for the nitty-gritty of how boosted posts work!
11. Track, analyze, and benchmark your performance
Regardless of which tactics you decide to implement, all efforts to increase Instagram reach must also involve performance and strategy reviews. Your reach should be tracked over time so you can observe trends. It should be assessed in relation to your audience size, as well as in comparison to the industry benchmarks and your competitors’ performance.
Think about it like this. Let’s say that you’ve reached 10,000 users on Instagram this month. Is this number better or worse than it’s been in the past few months? How significant is your reach in comparison to your follower count? Are you outperforming your industry and the competition?
Being able to answer these kinds of questions is essential for assessing whether your social media efforts are working and how close you are to meeting your goals. This is where powerful tools like Rival IQ come into play. With comprehensive reports, competitive insights, and more, we make it easy for you to understand your performance and find ways to be even better.
Wrapping It Up
Instagram has been a powerful tool for connecting with others for over a decade — but it takes more than simply being on the platform to effectively reach your target audience. To truly boost your Instagram reach and grow your follower base, you need to be intentional. That means taking the time to understand your audience, creating content that inspires engagement, and making the most of the platform’s tools and features.
Incorporate these 11 tips into your Instagram strategy, leverage analytics tools to help you make data-driven decisions, and you’ll see your engaged Instagram community grow in no time.
This post was originally published in 2022 and has since been updated.
