Answer: YES! You should be liking and commenting on your own posts. 👍

There’s a reason that people who work for tips add a few dollars to the tip jar before their shift! It “primes the pump” and gets things going! It has some kind of psychological power…if someone else has already liked and commented, then it makes it easier and more likely that someone else will too! You should NEVER feel bad or weird for engaging with your own content!

Engagement is engagement. So if engaging with your own content can encourage other people to engage with it more – and it doesn’t harm you…then why wouldn’t you?!

I’ll even take this a step further and say:

You should also be sharing your reels to your stories and saving them.

Why? Here’s a simplified explanation:

Instagram has a few ways of measuring how good a piece of content is: likes, views, comments, shares, and saves.

Based on a post’s performance, the algorithm decides who to show the content to, and WHERE they will see it.

The main ways that Instagram gets your content in front of people is through your main feed, the Explore page or Reels feed, and through stories.

Often, these are different “audiences” and your content may show up in a user’s feed but they may never see or watch your stories. The same is true for stories – people may always look at what you post on your stories, but not see your content in feed. You want to show up in ALL the places, if possible!

Now – there is one caveat that I will mention – I don’t recommend just pushing the share button on your reel or post and posting it to your stories without any additional context or value. Add a sticker, a slider, or a poll. Add a comment that tells people why you care about the post or why you decided to share it. Introduce it with a short video story and then share the post on the next frame. This is valued more by the algorithm and by your viewers.

The same goes for commenting on your posts – try to add an additional thought, commentary, or even compliment yourself! Don’t just use emojis!

The more your followers engage with your content, the greater your chances of showing up on the explore page and getting shown to brand new audiences.

Now, I can’t say for sure that Instagram considers YOUR engagement activities on your own content with the same “weight” as when someone else does, but I know for a fact that it doesn’t hurt. At the end of the day, it’s another mark of engagement that can help get it in front of more people.

Whenever I get asked this question, Ru Paul’s voice is in my head asking: If you can’t love yourself, how in the h*ll are you gonna love somebody else?! 😉