The Instagram Algorithm loves one thing:
Retention.
It means people are staying on your post to:
- Watch your full video, or
- Read your full caption, or
- Scroll through your whole carousel post, or
- Even go to your feed to explore your other posts.
In the backend, the Algorithm takes note that people are staying longer on your post, which means it’s more likely to show it to even more people.
So you want to keep people on your post and account for longer.
How to do that?
Here are 8 tricks (for Reels, static posts and Stories).
Trick #1. Short Reels
If you make a short Reels, people are more likely to watch the entire video, and re-watch it.
Which means you get more watch time, more views and more retention. Amazing.
How long should the video be?
You can make a video that is between 3 to 8 seconds. It’s usually the sweet spot.
Does it mean you can’t make long videos?
No. You can make longer videos if you feel like it. Just make sure your video is engaging, fun, entertaining, or speaks to your audience (you’ll know exactly what that means for you). Like we talked about in the 2024 Instagram Trends blog post, people love chatty videos too.
But if you want to boost your retention rate, make short Reels.
Trick #2. Add text
Another way to keep people longer on your posts is to make them read.
For example:
- Add text on top of an image (static post)
- Add text on top of your Reels so people have to read.
For Reels: You can even use the Stopwatch app to time yourself to see how long it takes you to read the text. Then, make the video the same length, or a bit shorter. This way, people end up “watching” the entire video while they are reading.
Trick #3. Wait for it
Other texts you can add on top of your Reels or in the caption, so people stay on your post longer:
- Wait for it
- It’s the ___ for me (example: it’s the last clip for me)
- The ending 🥹
- Watch until the end 🤍
Trick #4. Caption
Want people to stay longer on your account?
Your caption matters:
- Write a longer caption as long as it’s helpful, personal or a story (people love those three).
- Write “👇 Read this” at the beginning of your caption
- Write “Watch / Swipe, then read this 👇”
- “More info here ⬇️”
- For a Reel, you can write a catchy title, and then add “See Caption” for people to read more information or get the answer
- You can use a Catchy Caption Starter to get people to start and keep reading your caption
If you need help finding catchy caption starters, you can use the “Find Caption” feature in Preview App:
You can also use the hundreds of catchy taglines in the “Content Ideas” PDFs, and just copy and paste what you want:
Trick #5. Comments
People will stay longer on your post if they check out your comments section.
How to get them to look at the comments section?
Simple – Just them to write something in the comments. The majority of people will go in the comments section to see what others have written.
For example, you could ask:
- A question
- “What do you think about …?”
- “Which one is your favorite? 1 or 2?”
- Their advice or experience about a specific topic you want to talk about
- Play a game and let people guess the answer
Tip: If you need help finding question ideas and game ideas, have a look at the Caption Finder in Preview ~ and the Content Ideas PDFs. There’s a LOT of fun and unique content ideas in there.
Trick #6. Carousel tricks
If you’re posting a carousel post, try to get people to swipe until the end of the carousel.
How to do that?
You can:
- Add arrows on each slide to make sure people know that they have to keep swiping
- Write “Swipe”
- Write “Swipe until the end for …” (in your caption or image)
- Write in the caption something like: “Slide number 8 is my favorite” (that will get people curious to swipe until the end and stay longer on your post)
- “Thoughts about slide 7?”
- “Surprise on the last slide 🫢”
- Write in the caption a description of each slide (this will get people swiping, and reading your caption, and re-swiping to see what your description is about)
- Make it a habit to make the last slide the hero: it can be an unexpected photo, video, meme, quote, surprise, candid photo, discount code, sneak peek, or call-to-action
- Last slide call-to-action ideas:
- Link in bio for ___
- Follow me for more ___ (e.g. tips, inspiration, content, daily vlogs…)
- Share this post with a friend
- Save this post
- Write “BONUS” in the comments to find out more / to get the link
- Tap on my photo to follow me
- Look at the last word in my caption 💗
Trick #7. Create a Series
Another amazing way to keep people on your account is by creating a “Series”.
For example:
- Someone finds one of your posts, and sees that it’s “Part 1” or “Part 3” or “Part 9”
- Most people want to see the other parts, so they will naturally go on your account to see your other posts. And just like that, you boosted your retention.
Here are Series ideas:
- Fashion blogger: Recreating celebrity outfits (Part 5)
- Hairstylist: Recreating celebrity wedding hairstyles (Part 4)
- Artist: Art of the Day ~ Day#18
- Coach: Productivity Hack #6
Tip: See hundreds of Series ideas in the “Content Ideas” PDFs.
- We’re creating social media strategies for different industries and businesses (artist, jewellery brand, candle business, and many other small businesses).
- If you don’t see your industry, let us know what your account is about in the comments and we can make a full content strategy for you next.
- We literally, do the whole content strategy with post ideas, series ideas, reels ideas, viral content ideas, graphic ideas, seasonal content ideas for different holidays throughout the year (related to YOUR account).
Trick #8. Instagram Stories
Keep it short (especially if you want to boost or rebuild your Reach).
4 ways to do that:
- Post a photo instead of a video (so people don’t have to skip a long video)
- Post a collage (if you want to show many things at once ~ people will stop to watch)
- Keep it at 1 to 5 slides maximum per day (at least at the beginning while you rebuild your reach)
- Post a video if it’s short, or if you have something juicy, fun, interesting, helpful to say (people will stop their scroll to listen to you)
That’s it!
Quick recap:
- Short Reels (3-8 seconds)
- Add text on top of image or Reels
- Add text like “Wait for it” or “Watch until the end”
- Write a longer caption
- Ask questions to get comments (so people are curious to read the comments)
- Use carousel tricks to make people swipe all the way through
- Create a Series
- Keep your Insta Stories short (image, collage & 1-5 slides per day)
I hope this helps.
Have fun creating your posts, and until next time, see you on Instagram!
