How to Respond to Instagram Comments? 8 Golden Rules

Responding to Instagram comments is key to keeping your audience engaged. In the last 30 days, Djerf Avenue got 69 mentions on Instagram, reaching 45,770 people and 1,896 interactions. The best part? All the mentions were positive, with zero negativity.

Knowing how to respond to Instagram comments should be a must in your strategy for maintaining strong engagement and a positive online presence. Focus on the important ones first, reuse positive mentions, and keep up with replies.

By staying active in your comments, you can build stronger connections and boost your brand’s reach! 

And here’s how to respond to Instagram comments to make the most of it!

How to quickly find the most important Instagram comments?

Finding Instagram comments under your posts is super easy. You just go to the notifications tab and keep scrolling to find all the comments.

But that’s the basic way to do it (and very time-consuming)!

Plus, you should also respond to comments about you that appear byeond your own profile. Someone might talk about you, and without a tag – you’ll have no idea.

These mentions are valuable to:

• Understand the sentiment towards you or your brand
• Get user feedback on your products or work
• Address issues related to you or your products and brand
• Improve your further engagement on the platform

So, my tip to effectively track Instagram comments is to use social listening tools.

Such a tool will gather your mentions (also those not tagged directly), analyze their sentiment, importance, and so much more!

You won’t have to spend hours on dummy scrolling the emoji comments to find the important ones. Just use the filtering options and get straight to the important ones.

Brand24 allows you to filter your mentions by:

• Sentiment
• Influence score 
• Importance 
• Intent

Here’s how I quickly found a happy client of Djerf Avenue:

1. Went to Brand24 and filtered sources to Instagram. (YES, you can track different platforms too)

2. Scrolled to the filtering option and chose “Positive”

3. And finally – switch to the “Important Mentions”

And here’s the mention with the positive comment for Djerf Avenue:

Positive comments are a pretty obvious benefit. You could use them to:

• Improve your Instagram post engagement by responding with a personal response
• Create a community by using the comments on your socials
• Get valuable feedback
• Use the content for future Instagram posts (find UGC content ideas)

But you should do the same to find negative ones and address them. Deleting comments is not the best option nowadays. Why?

Here’s why you shouldn’t delete negative Instagram comments:

• Keeping negative comments shows you’re honest and transparent.
• Responding lets you turn bad feedback into something positive.
• Even angry comments boost your post’s engagement.
• Deleting comments can backfire and make you look bad.
• How you handle criticism can improve your brand’s image.
• Respectfully replying promotes a better community vibe.

Same for the neutral ones – as a fashion brand, I would definitely reuse this photo:

The great thing about using an external tool is that it also saves you from constantly checking for social mentions yourself.

For example, Brand24 provides storm alerts (which notify you of a spike in mentions) or sends email updates. You can even integrate it with Slack, so you’re always in the loop.

But that’s not where it ends. If you’re seeing a surge in mentions and want to know why? The Anomaly Detector feature can help.

This AI-powered tool automatically figures out the reasons behind the increase in mentions.

Check it out:

How to Respond to Instagram Comments? 8 Golden Rules

01 Focus on the most important Instagram comments first

This tip is especially important if you get a lot of comments. If you can manage to reply to all of them – just go to the next tip.

But if you struggle to manage them all – here’s the idea.

Before responding, you should analyze the comments you get and prioritize the most influential ones (especially negative ones). Addressing comments with the most social media reach is crucial for your brand reputation.

Ignoring high-visibility negative mentions could lead to larger problems. Why? 

These comments have the potential to influence a bigger audience and go viral. By focusing on these first, you can take care of the issue before it escalates.

02 Stay calm and professional

When responding to negative reviews, always stay calm. Don’t react emotionally, even if the comment is harsh. A composed, professional response can turn criticism into an opportunity to show your brand’s maturity. 

For positive reviews, reply quickly to show appreciation and keep the good vibes going!

03 Find topics that attract Instagram comments

Some topics naturally attract more Instagram comments and are worth keeping an eye on.

For example, posts about new product launches, promotions, or controversial issues tend to spark conversation.

Monitoring these topics closely helps you understand what resonates with your audience and gives you the chance to join the conversation quickly, keeping the buzz going or addressing concerns before they escalate.

04 Be quick to respond to trending topics

When you identify a topic that’s getting a lot of attention, don’t wait too long to jump in.

For example, if your post on a new product is blowing up with comments, responding quickly can keep the engagement levels high. Acknowledge compliments and handle questions right away to keep engagement high and maintain positive interaction.

05 Keep up with your followers

People love to have a real connection with brands and influencers. That’s why replying to just one comment and calling it a day might not work.

Make sure you’re consistently engaging with your audience via your Instagram account.

Whether it’s an Instagram comment under your post, a direct message about your story, or chatting on live stream – your presence and interaction are a must. It shows that you’re attentive and care about your audience’s opinions.

This helps build trust and encourages future interactions.

06 Share the positive comments on your Instagram account

Sharing positive comments on your Instagram can be a powerful way to build trust with your audience. When people see real users praising your brand, it adds credibility and authenticity.

It also encourages others to share their thoughts, knowing there’s a chance their feedback might be featured.

Plus, it doubles as user-generated content (UGC), which is great for showcasing genuine customer experiences and keeping your feed fresh without having to create new content from scratch.

This kind of engagement helps foster a supportive community around your brand.

07 Keep an eye on the sentiment of Instagram comments

It’s important to conduct a sentiment analysis of your Instagram comments over time.

I suggest monitoring whether comments are generally positive, neutral, or negative. It helps you spot trends and shifts in audience perception.

By keeping an eye on sentiment, you can adjust your strategy to keep the tone positive or address underlying issues before they become bigger problems.

The easiest way to do it is by using media monitoring tools. Here’s a chart that shows Djerf Avenue sentiment over time.

I got such data from Brand24 and highly recommend you check yours, too!

Just go to the Brand24 mentions tab and switch the main chart to sentiment.

08 Use humor to defuse negative comments

A more unconventional approach to handling negative mentions is using humor (ofc when appropriate!).

Sometimes, a lighthearted response can defuse tension and show your brand’s personality.

It’s a great way to turn an unhappy customer into a fan by showing that you don’t take yourself too seriously and can handle criticism with grace.

However, this requires careful judgment. It works best when the comment isn’t too serious or when the situation allows for a playful tone.

Example response to an Instagram comments

Here’s how these tips look in action (with examples).

For a positive comment, you want to embrace it and show appreciation. So, you could say:

“You just made our day! 🫶 Thanks for the love, you’re the real MVP!”

For a negative comment, stay calm and offer a solution:

“We’re sorry you had this experience! Please DM us so we can make it right.”

For a neutral comment or question, provide clarity:

“Great question! We’re launching that product next month, stay tuned! 👀”

And here’s my pro tip to reply to Instagram comments. The idea is simple – use AI.

Particularly you can use Brand Assistant to help craft these responses.

For instance, here’s a prompt I used: “Find an important negative mention and generate a response I could use to reply to it.” And this is what I got:

The Brand Assistant found this negative mention and also provided me with a ready-to-use response.

Here’s the same thing for a positive mention:

You can also find a particular mention in the Brand24 Top Mentions panel and then ask the Brand Assistant to help you craft the response.

Here’s the mention I found. It has a 3.5B reach, so it’s super important to address it.

And that’s the reply the Brand Assistant crafted:

Why should you respond to Instagram comments?

1. Responding to comments builds trust. It shows transparency and that you value your audience’s feedback.
2. Engaging with comments increases engagement, helping your posts reach more people.
3. Addressing negative comments early stops issues from escalating publicly to a PR crisis.
4. Personalized replies make your followers feel heard and appreciated and build community.
5. A thoughtful response to criticism can flip the script and win back unhappy customers.
6. When Instagram users see you’re active in the comments, they’re more likely to join the conversation and boost the Instagram algorithm.
7. Consistent, professional replies enhance how people perceive your brand.

Conclusion

Let’s face it – if you want to keep your Instagram audience hooked and your brand thriving, responding to comments is non-negotiable.

The way you handle comments directly impacts your brand’s reputation. I’ve seen many times how staying active in the comments can work wonders for growth on Instagram and boost its algorithm.

Key takeaways:

• Prioritize high-reach or influential comments. Ignoring these could lead to a PR headache, but tackling them early helps you stay in control.
• Stay calm and professional, especially when negativity pops up. A thoughtful, professional response can flip the narrative in your favor.
• Repost positive comments on your feed or stories to build trust, encourage more feedback, and create a flow of user-generated content (UGC) that keeps your brand relatable.

The key is to stay consistent, prioritize wisely, and use every comment as an opportunity to engage. Start with the Brand24 trial and manage Instagram comments with ease!