Do Instagram Carousels Get More Engagement?

We lately launched direct Instagram carousels scheduling in Buffer. Now you’ll be able to scheduled carousel posts to be printed routinely in Instagram—no want for reminders.

Buffer clients have been asking for carousel direct scheduling for some time (it was essentially the most requested characteristic in our final buyer survey), and we’re not stunned! There’s numerous proof suggesting that carousel posts generate extra engagements than picture or video posts.

However is that this actually the case?

To search out out, we analyzed the 184 posts @Buffer printed on Instagram over the previous 12 months.

TL;DR, listed here are the outcomes:

• Engagement charge for carousels was 2.37% increased than different posts.
• Our greatest performing publish of the 12 months was a carousel publish.
• That’s regardless of only one/4 of posts that includes carousels.
• Carousel posts had been additionally saved 2x greater than different posts.

Seems nice, proper? Effectively, it’s somewhat extra complicated than that.

On common, our carousel posts acquired fewer feedback and likes. However that’s seemingly as a consequence of our posting schedule moderately than the carousel itself. Learn on to study extra. 👇

Deal with engagement charge, not common engagement

The engagement charge for our carousel posts was 2.37% increased than different posts.

• Engagement charge for carousels: 3.45%
• Engagement charge for different posts: 3.37%

And but, on common, carousel posts acquired fewer likes and feedback.

• Common likes for picture posts: 129
• Common likes for video posts: 128
• Common likes for carousel posts: 87

How can this be?

Effectively, it’s necessary to have a look at impressions when analyzing engagements. Your viewers can solely like and remark in your posts in the event that they see the publish within the first place. In case your viewers can’t see it, they will’t have interaction.

However, why would possibly somebody miss your publish? Effectively the Instagram algorithm received’t present each publish, to each follower. As a substitute they’ll present a customized feed based mostly on when posts had been printed and how posts carry out.

This implies our viewers would possibly miss our carousel posts if we don’t publish persistently, or if we publish on the mistaken time of day. That’ll cut back the impressions, and the engagements.

So, as an alternative of measuring common engagements, we measure engagement charge:

• Engagement charge = (feedback + clicks + likes + reactions) ÷ impressions

As a result of the engagement charge takes into consideration impressions we are able to see how our viewers acts as soon as they’ve seen the publish.

Now we all know that if our viewers sees a carousel publish (vs. a video or picture), they’re extra prone to have interaction with it.

Persistently creating carousels

Earlier than Instagram carousel direct scheduling was obtainable in Buffer, we needed to set reminders to schedule carousels on Instagram—opening up the Instagram app each time we needed to publish.

Reasonably than making carousels a core part of our social media calendar, we needed to shoehorn them in after we discovered time.

With this rare posting schedule, we expect our carousels weren’t all the time printed on the optimum time. That means they didn’t get the impressions they deserved.

Immediately, we are able to immediately schedule Instagram carousels.

We will add them to our Buffer queue to verify they’re printed on the optimum time for engagement. Reasonably than publishing every time we’re on-line and obtainable, we are able to let Buffer maintain the scheduling and publish at a time that’s proper for our viewers.

We’d love your suggestions

Do Instagram carousels carry out higher in your account? Will you employ add carousels to your queue? Do you’ve any options for what we must always construct subsequent?

Tell us by sending us a tweet @buffer or by dropping us a observe, utilizing our characteristic request kind.