As an Instagram creator or marketer, you have to deal with various tasks, but not all of them are equally important when it comes to growing your account.

What are some top Instagram tips and tricks that will help you skyrocket your performance and grow your followerbase and engagement in 2024 and beyond?

We’ve got you covered.

Outdated Instagram tips and tricks

There are plenty of online guides that list numerous Instagram hacks and tricks. And reading most of them is, honestly, a waste of time. We’ve gone through many, and they usually cover the same outdated tricks.

Some of those outdated Instagram tips include:

• The possibility to archive posts without deleting them.
• Using the ‘return’ button to insert line breaks into your bio and captions.
• Using special characters in your bio, captions, or Stories.
• The option to pin posts on your profile.
• Limiting screen time in your profile settings.
• Saving replies to frequently asked questions in your inbox.
• Taking advantage of user-generated content.
• Posting Reels or other trending formats.

And so much more.

Let’s be honest – these aren’t secret hacks and tricks. They’re common knowledge to every marketer and professional content creator. Or they should be.

Using even all of these tips every single day may help you save time, for example, and will arguably enhance your overall performance.

However, there are also useful and actionable Instagram tips and tricks you should know and take advantage of to grow your Instagram account.

You’ll find them below.

Instagram tip #1: Increase engagement and reach users more directly with Instagram DM automation

Last year, Instagram DM automation started to become popular, and now it’s undeniably a trend.
Not sure what we’re talking about? If you’ve seen creators adding to their captions something like, Comment ‘GUIDE’ and I’ll send you…, Comment ‘START’ and you’ll get…, that’s it.

With Instagram DM automation, you can get much closer to your followers and simultaneously provide them with valuable and useful content.

You can use Instagram DM automation in situations such as:

• Welcoming a new follower to your profile.
• Sending additional materials to what you’ve briefly talked about in your post. 
• Promoting your latest ebook, webinar, event, or workshop by sending a direct link to sign-up/registration.
• Sending a follow-up message to your followers.
• Building up an email newsletter list.
• Asking your followers for their opinion by sending a message with a poll. 

How will you benefit from using Instagram DM automation?

1. The engagement on your profile will increase.
2. You’ll become closer to your followers by having more direct conversations with them.
3. It’ll be much easier for your followers to familiarize themselves with what you want to communicate. They won’t have to go to your bio to find a link or look for specific info on your website. You’ll send them a direct message with all the necessary information, so there is less of a chance they’ll miss it.
4. It’ll be easier for you to achieve short-term or long-term goals – for example, ebook downloads or buys, event registrations, blogpost views, etc.

Sounds like something you’d like to try? Just keep in mind you’ll need an external tool to set up your automation – for example, ManyChat.

Instagram tip #2: Discover your competitors’ ER and top posts by using analytics tools

You can significantly improve your performance by understanding what works for other profiles. That doesn’t mean copying their activities and content but understanding both your target audience’s interests and preferences as well as social media trends.

Even though you can get an idea of what is trending and performing just by looking at competitors’ profiles, that won’t give you the full picture.

That’s why social media analytics tools come in handy.

You can use them, for example, to understand which of your competitors has the most engagement on their profile – something you can’t do manually.

Sotrender will pull this data for you automatically, and it’s a great starting point for further Instagram analysis.

Based on that, you can delve deeper into content and engagement on the profile with the highest engagement rate (ER).

You can also monitor top posts for the selected group of profiles. It’s not always the brand with the highest ER that has the most engaging posts. Sometimes it’s all about regular posting and effective community management.

If you’re looking for an idea of what to post, what your audience will interact with more willingly, or the current trends, you should take a look at competitors’ profiles and consider using an Instagram mockup to visualize how your content might appear.

Instagram tip #3: Reach people effectively by adding relevant keywords

Hashtags are no longer a thing on Instagram. It hasn’t been officially announced, but now keywords are much more powerful. And you can already observe that trend on many accounts.

Instagram SEO (and social media SEO in general) is as important as your website’s SEO. Adding relevant keywords in your bio and posts makes your content more searchable, but more importantly, it helps the algorithm find your content and serve it to the right audience.

That doesn’t mean, though, that you should neglect using hashtags. Just limit yourself to adding up to five. ‘The more, the better’ doesn’t translate here.

Instagram tip #4: Start adding more links in your bio and Stories to reach your objectives faster 

There are many Instagram tips and tricks related to links and redirecting users to your website, blog, or e-commerce store. For many businesses, Instagram is just the first touch point between their brand and potential customers. Building brand awareness on Instagram and interest in your offer is rarely an end goal. If you haven’t created a website for your brand, this is your go to make one with an online store builder right now and spread the link in your profile.

And related to this, as of 2024, we have good news for you. 

The first thing is that you no longer have to use external tools like Linktree to have the option of adding multiple links in your bio section. You can now add up to five links in your bio, which is a huge convenience.

Secondly, for some time now, everyone can add links to their Stories, no matter how many followers they have. The ‘Swipe up’ feature is no longer valid, so you can freely link to anything you wish. However, it’s not advised to add too many links to your Stories. No matter if you add five or fifty Stories per day, you shouldn’t add links to more than just two or three Stories. Otherwise, your Stories’ reach may drop significantly.

Adding too many links will also distract your Instagram followers from what’s most important.

Get the most out of Instagram links, but do so with full awareness.

Instagram tip #5: Discover content categories with the highest potential for high user engagement

Another insight that may not be clear at a glance is how specific content categories on your profile perform.

In your Instagram content calendar, you probably have a few post categories, such as how-to guides, product promotions, memes, or report releases. Not all of them will be equally interesting and engaging for your target audience. And you should know which one drives your profile growth the most.

You can easily discover that using Sotrender.

By using our Content performance chart, you’ll find out which categories (created based on your custom tags) are most effective in terms of impressions and total engagement (Activity Index).

By following this simple Instagram tip, you can start focusing on creating and posting content that really matters to your audience.

Instagram tip #6: Take a peek at your competitors’ ad spending to see if you’re not overspending

Among the many Instagram tips and tricks, we can’t miss those related to advertising.

If you’re investing in Instagram ads, it’s important to spend your budget effectively.

Things you should do regularly include:

• Checking the return on investment of your ads.
• Benchmarking your current ad spend, conversions, and other relevant metrics with past campaigns.
• Comparing your CPC or CPM metrics and the number of ad clicks and impressions with competitors’ stats.

Surprised by the last point?

With Sotrender, you can take a peek at some of your competitors’ ad results. You’ll be able to see the average CPC or CPM in your industry and how your results stack up against competitors.

Based on all this information, you’ll be able to decide if you should invest more money in ads or resign from paid advertising in case your ads aren’t paying off. It’s also a great starting point for optimizing your ads and achieving better results within the same budget.

Start taking advantage of these Instagram tips and tricks

Once you start following our tips, you’ll slowly but surely notice that with just a few small tweaks, your current Instagram marketing strategy becomes much more effective.

First, conduct your Instagram profile audit to identify its weakest points, and only then move to implementing changes and improvements. However, remember that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. You shouldn’t aim to achieve quick results and improve vanity metrics.

That’s all for now! Which of these Instagram tips and tricks are ground-breaking for you?

Read more:

1. How to build a brand on Instagram?
   Building a brand on IG is a combination of a well-thought-out strategy, planning a cohesive feed, and teaming up with relevant niche influencers, just to name a few.
2. How to create content for Instagram using templates?
   You can facilitate your content creation process by using some ready templates adjusted to your brand aesthetics.
3. How to come up with more Instagram content ideas?
   Check our guide with more than 30 Instagram content ideas. This can also be a great source of inspiration for anyone who is just starting their Instagram journey.