If you want your friends and followers to engage with your Instagram content, challenges might be the answer. These give you a fun way of growing your network while also letting you promote your account in the process. In this article, we look at Instagram challenges and how to find the ones that work best for your brand.

This is a lot more complex than just copying the trends that show up on your feed. You’ll also need to understand your audience, as well as the specific formats you’re working with. This has plenty of benefits for your long-term account growth and could even involve creating your own viral Instagram hashtag.

What Are Instagram Account Challenges?

Challenges on Instagram are a way to collaborate with others while creating new and unique content for your profile. They take many forms but usually follow a specific theme. For makeup influencers, this can be as simple as asking your followers to share their favorite skincare products. Adding a hashtag can then make it easier for you to track the posts that people make.

Consider creating your own challenge theme that links with your profile. This gives you space to promote your brand, perhaps by adding it to the theme’s hashtag. Simple prompts and rules are also important, as your followers can then easily jump into the challenge and get creative. If you have enough prompts that fit your theme, you can run a challenge for weeks or even a month.

You could also find success by using a viral challenge that already exists. These are good for showing your personality and building a community with your followers. For example, you might run a month-long music challenge on your story where you share a new song daily. This makes you more relatable to your followers and encourages them to check on your stories more often.

How To Find Instagram Challenges

Your goal with an Instagram challenge is always to connect with your audience. This means you need to find fun challenges that suit both your interests and theirs. There are many ways you can do this, including:

• Checking the Explore page: The Explore page is a haven of trends and common hashtags. The posts you see may include challenges by others or give you an idea for making your own.
• Looking at trending stickers: On your Instagram stories, you can find a number of stickers that show current app-wide trends. You can also search for keywords that are relevant to you.
• Consulting your network: The profiles you follow and keep up with will likely post challenges of their own. Be on the lookout for these, as they will help you connect with your growing network.
• Using Google Trends: With the help of Google Trends, you’ll be able to find popular hashtags that point you in the right direction. This also highlights the challenges that users are looking for.
• Searching online: Simply looking up the keywords you have in mind with the word ‘challenge’ will show you plenty of evergreen options. This includes a wide range of pre-made templates.
• Making your own: Creating a challenge of your own is far more personal and gives you a lot of freedom. Keep your ideas simple, and make sure they fit what your followers usually respond to.

Examples of Popular Instagram Challenges

Online challenges are a key part of social media. In some cases, they even have the potential to make a big difference. For example, the ‘ice bucket challenge’ involved users pouring very cold water on themselves to raise global awareness of ALS. This led to a major boost in research funding, which went towards testing new treatments to fight the disease.

Some challenges are simply a way for accounts to share more about themselves and what they like. This can include a 30-day movie challenge where each day has a new theme. You would then recommend a movie that fits that day’s prompt via your story. You may not be able to easily promote your brand this way, but you can show your fun side.

Fitness challenges are yet another popular format. This might involve setting a specific goal for yourself and making regular posts about your progress. You can then encourage your followers to join in or use their supportive comments to help your engagement. Posting a video of yourself working out could also lead to your followers joining in to improve their fitness.

A social media challenge is also a good opportunity to market your brand. Businesses often use these to ask their followers for reviews, sometimes with prizes for those they share. ‘Throwback Thursday’ posts, for example, can ask them to share their favorite memories of your account. If this works, you can use their responses to prove yourself to new followers.

How To Do Fun Challenges: A Step-By-Step Guide

You must follow certain steps in order to reap the benefits of any popular challenge. This doesn’t end with simply sharing the content; you also need to promote it to your audience. The usual steps for success are as follows:

1. Find or Create a Challenge

The first step is always figuring out how to find Instagram challenges that fit your account. Look at viral and trending challenges in your network. You could join these or use them as inspiration to create your own. Use trends that have plenty of room for your followers to contribute with their own posts and comments.

2. Decide on a Format

You can post your challenge as a photo, video, story, or Reel. The right format depends on which type of challenge you decide to go with. For example, one you keep adding to each day will suit your stories better. This avoids cluttering your profile, and your followers can still respond to the challenge via direct messages.

3. Upload the Post

Add the challenge (and possibly your ‘entry’) to your profile in whatever way works best. Be sure to include text that explains the challenge alongside a catchy hashtag. You need to build a post that informs your audience about how they can take part. This keeps your challenge going for longer, adding to your engagement boost.

4. Engage With Others

On the topic of engagement, you should tag a few of your closest followers. This will encourage them to comment or contribute. For fun challenges especially, you could directly nominate your friends and family to take part in them. To build up your community further, make sure you also repost your followers’ own additions.

What Does ‘Challenge Required’ Mean on Instagram?

Another unique type of ‘challenge’ on Instagram is the Challenge Required feature. This is one of many measures Instagram takes to stop spam and bot accounts. If you log in from a new device or from another country, Instagram may ask you to prove your identity. This can mean solving a short puzzle or manually entering a code they send to your phone.

Bot-like behavior (such as spamming the follow button and liking too many posts) is yet another red flag to Instagram. The app is good at spotting third-party automation tools, especially if they try to get around their limits. Sometimes, Instagram instead limits your account. If this happens, you won’t be able to share creative content or like posts for up to 48 hours.

The error message may also crop up if you have a poor internet connection. This is because the Wi-Fi issues are stopping the app from linking with Instagram’s servers. In these cases, solving the issue can be as simple as checking your connection status. The problem might even lie with Instagram’s servers; restarting the app or logging in again later can also help.

The Importance of Instagram Story Challenges

Your Instagram story might be the best place for your choice of challenge. This again limits any clutter on your profile, but it also fits how Instagram habits change over time. Some users prefer to scroll through stories instead of posts on their feeds. Stories are also more timely and are a good option if you plan to discuss a new product, for example.

Your target audience will be a factor. According to YPulse, about half (48%) of Gen Z Instagram users prefer stories to any other feature. If you want to engage with a younger demographic, it’s likely that story posts will help with this. You can also use the Story Viewers feature to identify which of your followers keep up with your content long-term.

Stories have an Add Yours sticker for challenges, which you can easily access using the app’s sticker tray. This lets you create a story of your own content that directly asks followers to make their own version. There is an Add Yours sticker for photo posts and another for text or GIFs. You can also easily check who has added their own in response.

How Instagram Challenges Help Your Engagement

The main benefit of creating or joining popular Instagram challenges lies in how they boost your account. A good challenge is one that encourages your followers to join in and even share their own content. You can then repost the results onto your profile’s story or use them to inspire your next round of posts. 

For example, a business might ask its followers to review a product through Instagram. When there are enough high-quality responses, the business can share (or even repost) the reviews to boost its brand image. Photo challenges such as these will let you tell your company’s story to new followers and gauge customer loyalty. 

Creating your own challenge helps you directly tailor it to your profile for the best results. You can then make sure the challenge hashtag mentions your brand or a product you want your network to remember. This may encourage your followers and friends to engage more with your posts on these topics while building up a community.

Joining challenges and using the relevant hashtags can help potential followers stumble upon your profile. Those within your sector or niche might use these challenges as a way to find new accounts. This can even turn into a mutual following, one that you both nurture by engaging with one another’s content.

How To Use Reels for Your Challenges

It’s no secret that Instagram Reels are similar to TikTok’s famous format. This includes a strong focus on certain trends, many of which result in popular challenges across both apps. You could even use TikTok to inspire your Reels and get a head start on any viral trend. If you do take a challenge directly from TikTok, you will still need to credit the original user.

Similar to stories, Reels are quite popular with younger users. This is yet another reason to avoid making every challenge a full post in your feed. Varying your content and making sure you pick the right format for each trend you join is essential. In this case, 60-90 seconds of video lets you clearly explain a challenge and even tag people to take part.

30-day Reel challenges are quite popular on the platform. This gives you plenty of time over the course of a month to show your personality to your network. Using Reels regularly will also help your account’s engagement rate, giving your profile more views and attention. Each day can be a new and exciting opportunity to show a different side of your account.

Growing your brand online comes with many questions, such as ‘What does challenge required mean on Instagram?’ and many more. snsflow.com can answer these questions and even connect you with organic followers who will help you develop at a healthy pace.

Taking part in Instagram challenges can boost your profile to new heights. This is especially true if you have active followers who engage with each one you post. With help from snsflow.com, you can make sure your growing network reaches the next level.