You had the most amazing weekend—aka you got the perfect picture of you and your friends at the coolest Saturday night spot and your hair and make-up looks great. You’ve uploaded it to Instagram and now comes the dread of not knowing if (enough) people will like your picture. Follow our five hacks to make sure your likes are always in the double-digits.
1. Pay attention to those hashtags
Are you using the right tags for your photo? Pay attention if you want more likes! Hashtags are key words or short phrases that direct traffic to the post. Include all relevant hashtags to give people an opportunity to discover your photo. Still not enough likes? Use the most popular Hashtags on Instagram to get more engagement, such as #love, #tbt, #instagood and #picoftheday—these have been used millions of times and will draw people to your posts. Also tags show up in chronological order when people search them, so even if you want to go delete them later (so sneaky!), don’t forget to use it before you post your picture.
2. Go ahead and Geotag
Instagrams Geotagging feature adds geographical meta data to your image, which basically means that you are letting the world know exactly where you are and where you’ve been. Use these to your advantage as people often search Geotags before they visit places. Love to click food? Geotag the location of your dessert so whenever other people look up the restaurant, they’ll see (and like) your photo. Also try and use more popular locations as those will be searched more (for example, if you’re eating at a restaurant at the mall, Geotag the mall rather than the restaurant as more people will search for that).
3. Try new filters
Branch out from the boring Instagram filters and download apps such as VSCO, AfterLight and Prisma to edit your pictures and make them more visually appealing. This will not only make you look artsy but also bring in the likes. Tip: try and use the same filters throughout your feed to give it a uniform and cohesive look (download Planoly, a visual management app that can help you do this).
4. Show your audience some love
This is a big one – you have to give to get, so make sure that you engage with the Instagram community so they show you their love too! Don’t just like your friends pictures on Instagram – look through the Discover section and like and follow people that you find interesting and they will reciprocate.
5. Schedule your posts smartly
When you post can determine how many likes you get. Posting at hours when people are at work or are sleeping is ineffective, a peak-hour upload will guarantee those notifications. Think about your audience and the times that they are most likely to be on Instagram – for example, when they are bored on the commute home from work. On average, an Instagram post lasts less than five hours before it disappears from people’s news feeds so timing really is crucial. Whilst Instagram analytic companies think that the best time to post on Instagram is on Wednesdays between 5:00 pm and 6:00 pm, suss out the situation yourself as each follower base is different.
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