Creative Ways to Use Instagram to Start a Conversation With Your Community

Creative Ways to Use Instagram to Start a Conversation With Your Community

Published on 14th of January 2025

One of the best ways to use social media platforms like Instagram is to start a conversation with your community. This will help you stay relevant to your audience and encourage further engagement. You will also be adding another touch point to the customer journey, helping move your audience one step closer to buying your product or service.

Even better, starting a conversation on Instagram leads to more interactions on the platform. Thanks to the platform’s algorithm, more interactions help you appear as a recommendation to more people.

But how can you use Instagram to start a conversation? Keep the following ideas in mind.

Check Your Business Chats

The most basic element of Instagram conversations is your business chats. Be sure to check these regularly and answer the messages you receive.

Collaborate With Other Businesses and Influencers

Collaborations will expand your reach on Instagram and start conversations as well. With collaborations, you reach the audience of the businesses or influencers that you partner with. Each new connection is another opportunity for a conversation.

Use Polls in Your Stories

One of the simplest yet most effective ways to start a conversation on Instagram is via polls in your Stories. Polls enable you to gather feedback easily from your audience.

When you encourage shares and comments, you can even use these as conversation starters on top of gathering feedback. When you ask your audience to share your poll with their answer, you drive interactions and more engagement.

Use Questions in Your Stories

In addition to polls, you can also add question stickers to your Instagram Stories. These can be an even better way to start a conversation as they require a slightly more in-depth answer than a poll. That said, make sure they can answer with just a word or phrase.

Once again, you can encourage sharing on their own accounts with this kind of content.

Use Reaction Sliders in Stories

Yet another way to start conversations in Instagram Stories is with the reaction slider, an easy way of letting your audience express themselves while encouraging engagement.

Ask Questions and Run Polls in Your Posts

Engagement on Stories is helpful, but you are more likely to get a major conversation going with comments on a Post or Video. Ask your followers to answer specific questions, whether specific to your brand or more general topics.

For example, you could ask people to share about the gifts they received over the holidays or their New Year’s resolutions. You can also ask them to share their experiences with your products that they frequently use.

Remember that you don’t have to respond to every comment with full sentences. Even responding with just an emoji will prove fruitful.

Run a Contest

Conversations and engagement go hand-in-hand, and that is why running a contest is one of the best ways to boost both. This is especially true if you require people to comment on your post to participate. Whether you host a 24-hour contest on Stories or a longer-running contest on your Feed, these initiatives can deliver great results.

Tag Your Location

You may not realize it, but including your location in your Instagram Stories or Posts can help with engagement, letting you start a conversation. Many people will search for accounts based on locations. Additionally, if you add a location sticker to your Story, the Story gets added to the official Stories for the given location. This will expand your reach and increase your opportunities for starting even more conversations.

Go Live

Instagram Live may be one of the best methods for starting a conversation. After all, a Livestream lets you directly interact with your followers. While you are Live, your followers can write comments that you can respond to in real time, letting the conversation flow naturally.

You can even invite guest contributors to join your Livestream to build on the conversation. Having a special guest or even one of your brand’s fans join you will naturally lead to more interactions and conversations.

Newsworthy content also tends to be conversation-worthy, which you can use to your advantage. Share recent industry news or trends on your Instagram page and ask your followers for input. Encourage them to leave comments or repost with their thoughts.

As a bonus, sharing industry news also cements your reputation as a knowledgeable resource in your specific field. Potential customers will see that you stay up-to-date on the industry, so they’ll trust in the quality of your products or services.

Talk About Local News

In addition to industry news, consider discussing local news, especially if your brand has a physical location or a smaller geotarget. Content on local updates will help you appear in location-based feeds and stay relevant to conversations in the area.

Start a Respectful Debate

Apart from sharing industry news and hoping for commentary, you can even start a debate. When there is a controversial issue in your industry, you can share your opinion on Instagram and ask your followers whether they agree with you and why.

Just remember to keep the conversation respectful, as you are aiming for a friendly, professional debate. Depending on the topic, carefully monitor the comments to prevent trolls from taking the discussion off-course.

Say Your Thank Yous

Depending on the size of your Instagram following, you can also consider thanking new followers personally. If you can mention something you saw on their Instagram profile, you will add warmth and sincerity to your conversation. This should be manageable when handling small accounts.

For larger accounts, you can get creative with your thank yous. For example, thank someone for leaving a positive review before you share it. To start a conversation, ask your followers how the said review lines up with their own experiences.

Respond to Mentions and Tags

Any savvy business will regularly check its brand mentions and tags on Instagram. When you are mentioned, make sure you take time to respond. You can say thank you or offer tips for the new product that was bought.

Look for Relevant Questions or Posts to Comment On

Even if your brand isn’t directly tagged in a question, you can still respond. Check the hashtags for your industry or location and see if there are random questions that you can answer. If you feel equipped to answer a question, go ahead and comment on their post. You can also apply this to posts that don’t ask questions by simply sharing your observations and best practices.

Conclusion

With these strategies, you give followers more opportunities to participate in conversations on Instagram. The more you interact on Instagram, the more chances you get to boost brand engagement, expand your reach, and move clients further along the sales funnel.

Published by Stormlikes.com

Stormlikes is the ultimate solution to your Instagram growth. We're the pioneers of viral Instagram marketing so make sure to explore our products or venture down the rabbit hole that is our blog. You'll find hours of learning materials related to Instagram marketing and other social media.

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