Do Instagram Saves Matter?

We’ve all heard the news about how the Instagram engagement rate (a.k.a likes) is down. As Instagram still toys with the idea of disabling like counts, brands are turning to new ways in order to measure ROI.

How are companies measuring what “success” means on Instagram in 2021? It’s simple - and it might be something you don’t even think to utilize on the platform. The answer is saves. The Instagram save feature on posts might be one of the most influential ways you can boost engagement today, despite this feature being largely unused by users since its launch in 2017.??

What Are Instagram Saves??

Have you ever been curious about that little bookmark icon in the bottom right corner of your Instagram posts? That’s the save feature. Saving posts on Instagram is super easy and totally underutilized. After clicking on the bookmark icon, saved posts can be accessed by navigating to the hamburger menu and clicking “saved.” Once a post is saved, you can come back to it and even put it in special folders or “collections” with other similar content that you love.?

Why Should You Care About Saves???

Instagram saves have a hefty effect on how the algorithm views your posts. When a user saves one of your posts on Instagram, this signals to the algorithm that this post must be quality content. From here, the algorithm will position your post not only higher in your follower’s feed but also higher on the Instagram explore page. This increases the chance of your followers seeing your post and thus leads to higher engagement i.e. likes, comments, and shares. According to James Nord who runs Fohr - an influencer marketing platform - saves are essentially a “super like.”?

The other reason to care about saves is what they mean to both your brand and the brands you want to work with. Engagement is everything when it comes to building your Instagram empire and the more engagement you have on your posts, the more brands will want to work with you and advertise on your page.?

How to Get More Saves on Your Posts

Anyone can like a post, but getting your post saved by your followers is much harder, but not impossible. Here are some easy ways to get users to save your posts.?

Use Better Captions

Although there is beauty in the short and sweet, writing a blog-esq caption helps to add more value to your post. Filling your caption with memorable, important, and interesting information makes your followers more likely to save the post so they can come back and read it again.?

Ask Your Followers a Question

Incorporating a question into your post is a great way to include a call to action in your content. Not only does this boost engagement on your post through comments responding to your question, but it also increases the chance that users will save your post in order to come back to it to see the responses from other users.?

Use Quotes

It might seem cheesy, but everyone loves a good quote. Many people love to save quotes into a special collection that they share with their loved ones. The quote can be anything from advice you recently received from a friend to motivating words from other influencers. It doesn’t matter -? just make it quotable.?

Post Evergreen Content

Instagram is a face-paced environment. It’s not crazy to assume that one of your beloved followers will miss your post. In fact, it’s even likely. Posting content that’s “evergreen” or in other words, always relevant and not related to one period of time, will supply your followers with useful content for years to come, no matter when they see it.?

Instagram Cares About Saves and So Should You

Getting more saves on Instagram isn’t rocket science. The more Instagram considers slashing the like counter on posts, the more you should care about getting your followers to save your posts. The next era of social media is here and the memo is clear: quality over quantity. Creating quality content that your followers will save and want to come back to is key to growing your fan base.

Let me know how you are using the Instagram Saves feature.