Simple Ways to Get More Comments on Instagram
Ask For Comments in the Caption
Calls to action have always had a positive effect on social media updates. Dan Zarrella found that tweets with the words ‘Please ReTweet’ and ‘Please RT’ got more retweets than those that didn’t have them.
He also found that Facebook posts that contained the word ‘Like’ got more likes than those without the word.
And those with the word comment got more comments than those without.
Therefore, if you want to see similar results on Instagram you can add a caption like ‘Please comment’ or ‘Leave a comment’. If you prefer not to ask for comments directly, you can just ask questions instead.
An example can be seen in this post from Sumome. Instead of directly asking people to comment, they just asked the question ‘What do you choose?’, as the overlay text on the post image mentions the two choices people have when they wake up every morning.
Ask Questions with Text Overlay
If you want your questions to trigger a stronger response, you should add them as overlay text to your Instagram post image instead of just writing it in the caption.
Instagram is all about visuals. People mainly use it to look at beautiful images. This social network is designed to drive more attention towards the images in the posts too. Look at the above post from Sumome for example. The image occupies most of the space while the caption occupies only a fraction.
Hence, if you want even more people to read the question and respond with comments, you should add it to the image itself. You can expand on this question and write a longer version of it in the caption.
Note: Only do this if adding the overlay text will improve the image and get you more comments. If the overlay text ruins the image, you should not add it.
Respond to Comments
As previously mentioned, when people leave a comment, it takes a bit of effort. They need to think and come up with a good answer and then spend a little time typing it.
So, you should appreciate their effort by responding positively. Thank them for their comment and provide answers if they too ask questions. If you respond to comments, it will encourage them to leave more in the future. This will only strengthen your relationship with your followers.
If you don’t have the time to respond to all of them. Respond to a few at least.
Stella Parks of Bravetart regularly responds to comments made on her Instagram posts. This is one of the reasons why she gets a lot of comments.
Run Comment and ‘Tag to Win’ Contests
If you are struggling to get more comments on your Instagram posts, you should run ‘comment to win’ or ‘tag to win’ Instagram contests.
To take part in these contests, all people need to do is leave a meaningful comment on one of your Instagram posts or tag a friend in the comments. Both these contests can instantly get you a lot of comments – especially the tag to win contests, as some of the people who are tagged in the comments will check out your post and leave a comment too.
An example of a tag to win contest can be seen in this post from Cactusclubcafe. To take part in the contest, people needed to follow Cactus Club Cafe on Instagram and tag a shopping buddy. As you can see the post got over 2,700 comments. It actually got more comments than likes.
Work on Getting More Likes
A study by track maven found that on average you get 1 comment for every 33 likes. Therefore, if you work on getting more likes, you will naturally get more comments. So, here are some other stats from the above study to help you get more likes…
Mayfair and #nofilter work best: The study found that images using the Mayfair filter on Instagram get the most interactions.
Those with no filter get the second highest number of interactions and those with Inkwell get the third highest.
Use 11 or more hashtags: You get more interactions on Instagram when you use 11 or more hashtags.
So, don’t be afraid to add several of them. The hashtags you use should be both popular and relevant to get the best results.
