Hands up if you hear the word engagement a lot when it comes to Instagram?

Yep, my hand is up as well.

But what I want to talk to you about something more important than engagement. I want to talk about interaction.

To understand interaction, let’s break down the concept and process of why we post things to our accounts.

The reason why we post an image is that we have captured something that we feel is important to us on some level. We are proud of how it turned out and how you did it. When something is important to us, we want to talk about it; we want to interact and share it with others. So when we post, it makes sense to explain WHY it is important to us. And this is where two types of interaction come in; passive and active interaction.

Let’s say you’ve taken a stunning picture of a sunset sky and your caption is just a few words and a couple of emojis; the interaction with your post will be passive. You might get a whole lot of likes and a few complimentary comments, but is there any conversation, is there any connection?

Remember that with your captions you have the opportunity to set the tone and facilitate an active interaction with people. So how would we do this with our sunset picture?
If landscape and sunset photography are things you haven’t tried before, tell them in your caption. Tell them what gear you used, where you photographed it. Talk about all the different settings you tried before you got that shot. Just by doing this you will get people wanting to talk about the process of it and what’s worked for them. They are then sharing THEIR experiences with your subject matter.

If you are ‘active’ in your captions, sharing the why, the who, the what, where and how, people will want to have a conversation with you. Yes, our experience of life is always unique to us as individuals. But our processes and thought patterns are inherently the same. And that’s how we relate, that’s the point where we connect and want to talk and share.

Instagram is no different from any other social media platform in the sense that it has both a dark and light side.

But for me, whether you’re using the platform for personal or business purposes, I want you to have a rich and positively rewarding experience.

I want your experience of Instagram to enhance your life and those whom interact with you.

So I want to know, how do you actively interact with your Instagram account?