Instagram is a social media network with more than one billion monthly users, making it a hot place for your business to be. If you want to increase the likes on all of your posts, that engagement will help you show the Instagram algorithm that you post quality content that needs to be shown to more people. Here’s how you do it.
- Post at the Right Times
Posting time is everything because the more engagement you get right after one of your posts goes live, the better chance you have of landing on the Instagram Explore tab. Until your Instagram Insights has enough data about your audience to give you specific days and times when your audience is most active, you can use these posting times as a guide.
- Cross-promote Your Posts
Share your posts from Instagram on other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Not only will you get content you can use on those platforms, but you can generate more traffic to your Instagram profile. If people like the image, they will more than likely give it a double tap to like it on Instagram. And many of them will also follow you on Instagram if they aren’t following you there already.
- Boost Your Instagram Likes
Instagram likes are easy to get because they only take a few seconds. If you’re just starting out, you’ll likely get a few from your followers and from people who catch you in hashtag feeds. But you can also buy them to help boost your numbers. Reputable services, like ViralRace, use real Instagram accounts to provide the likes, and they come in slow and steady like natural activity would. This ensures the activity is legit and prevents Instagram from banning your account for the use of bots.
- Use Hashtags
You’re allowed to use up to 30 hashtags per post, but that doesn’t mean you have to use that many on all your posts. It’s best to use relevant hashtags, and keep a mix of generic, niche-specific, and branded hashtags. Before you get too hashtag happy though, check to make sure you’re not using a hashtag that Instagram has banned, and make sure you’re not using ones that are so popular your photos will be pushed out of the feed within seconds after they are posted.
Did you know seemingly harmless hashtags like, #books, #dogsofinstagram, #hardworkpaysoff and #goddess have all been banned because they are targets for spammers? Just because it seems like it’d be a good one to use doesn’t mean it is, so it pays to do some homework in advance. It also ensures the hashtags are used for the type of content you’d expect, and not something else that you don’t want associated with your brand,
You can keep the hashtags from cluttering up your caption by putting some space between the caption and the hashtags, or you can put them in a comment on the post. But, remember, because photos show up in a hashtag feed based on when they were posted, rather than when the hashtag was added to the comment, you shouldn’t wait too long to apply that comment to your post.
- Run Instagram Ads
You can use Instagram Ads to drive people to your profile to like and follow you. Or, you can use them to promote traffic coming from Instagram to your website. You have control over the type of ad, the budget, and the targeted demographics much the same way you do with Facebook Ads since Facebook owns Instagram.
- Use Instagram Features to Your Advantage
Filters have an effect on your likes. Filters known to increase contrast and correct exposure with a warmer tone tend to do best. It’s best to use Instagram’s editing tools rather than their preset filters.
Also remember to vary things by using Instagram’s Boomerang tool to create video loops that play either forward or backward. You can use the Focus tool to blur the background and keep the foreground in focus. You can also use Superzoom to automatically zoom in while playing a dramatic sound.
- Make Sure You’re Sharing High-Quality Content - Photos or Videos
Photos that show a face - whether yours or someone else's increase like odds by 38%. While business accounts aren’t conducive to selfies, you can use them to highlight what’s going on behind the scenes at your company and showcase your top employees.
Pay attention to your colors. Photos that primarily consist of blue get 24% more likes than photos that primarily consist of red, which is wonderful if blue is one of the colors in your brand’s color scheme. It’s also worth noting that single-colored photos get 17% more likes than those made with multiple colors.
Not every single post you share on Instagram will be an instant hit with your audience, and that’s okay. The more you focus on creating high-quality content that your audience wants to see, and the more you pay attention to your audience metrics so you can cater to them and post when they are most active on Instagram, the better off you’ll be in the long run.
Think of Instagram as a long-term strategy and craft a theme and brand image for your profile and feed. Then, keep everything you post in line and consistent with that theme and aesthetic for the best results.