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How to Get More Likes on Instagram: What Works Best

Whether likes are visible or hidden, they still matter for the algorithm. The more engagement you collect and the more of your followers like your posts, the higher the chance of reaching users beyond your followers.…

From Social Rocket editorial team

Updated on

This text was created with AI assistance and reviewed editorially before publication. All sources are linked below.

How to Get More Likes on Instagram: What Works Best
Whether likes are visible or hidden, they still matter for the algorithm. The more engagement you collect and the more of your followers like your posts, the higher the chance of reaching users beyond your followers. So how do you actually get more Instagram likes? Of course, there is always the option of buying Instagram likes with the appropriate budget and boosting your own posts, we have already tested our likes. The results will probably surprise you!

How do you get more organic likes?

Use the right hashtags

Always a topic, but never to be underestimated, is the selection of hashtags used. Hashtags are the chance to reach users who are interested in a particular topic completely organically. What matters even more here is that your post is relevant to the hashtag used. If the content of your post has little to do with the topic of the hashtag, you will hardly receive any interactions there and your rankings for this and other hashtags will worsen. The question of how many hashtags you should actually use is quite controversial: some say 11 is the right number, others think you should make the most of the maximum number of 30. Here you should try out for yourself what works best and decide based on tangible results how many you should use to equip your posts.

Tag relevant users and brands

[caption id="attachment_9656" align="aligncenter" width="840"] With the right tag, you make your post more interactive[/caption] Whether you tag the designer of your clothing or bag, or a person connected to the topic of the post, tags are a good opportunity to make the post more interactive and informative for your users. It is also theoretically possible to reach people who look at where the users concerned were tagged, but this is a very small group; if you want to take everything with you, keep it in mind.

Write interesting captions

Your captions should ensure that users spend more than just a few seconds with your post. Of course, the caption is only an accessory to the actual image or video, but if you interact more with your own followers and hold them with a small anecdote or question, you also motivate them to comment and like more. What can you actually write interesting in your caption? Answering that would go beyond the scope of this article, but we have already summarized a few ideas and tips for writing Instagram captions. Overall, it is simply important to enrich the post, provide interested followers with more information and build a personal bond with your followers.

Tag your location

Tagging your location is more than just a flex about which great restaurant you can afford or where you are on holiday again. Tagging your location increases your chance of reaching more users who can then give you more likes. It is of course particularly helpful if you own a physical store, as this allows you to attract new customers as well.

Reach the Explore page

Easier said than done, but the Explore page is more relevant than ever. Reaching it means reaching users who do not follow you but are interested in the topic of your post. This brings many new subscribers and even more reached accounts, which is ideal for strengthening brand awareness. But what lies behind a feature on the Explore page? To appear on the Explore page you need a lot of engagement and an active follower base. Regular posting is in fact also a factor, and many other more or less known factors increase your chance of reaching more users than ever before.

Post at the right time

Instagram does not display posts chronologically, but the first minutes of a post decide how much reach it will ultimately get. This is also why it can make sense to buy auto likes, as this boosts your engagement within the first minutes and signals to the algorithm that the post is interesting and good. To find out when the best time to post is, it helps to look at your Insights; under the Audience tab you will find the times and days when most of your followers are active on Instagram. Align the time you post with that, and you will generate noticeably more engagement in the first minutes from your followers alone and gain more reach.

Run a giveaway

With a giveaway you can easily increase your engagement: have users like your post, comment and ideally tag friends, and you get an extremely high engagement rate that can bring your post to the top of hashtags and onto the Explore page. The prize does not have to be a Rolex straight away, nor worth several hundred euros; it is enough to raffle something that fits your niche and is desirable for your followers, so that as many people as possible take part.

Post good images and videos

Not to forget, and always and everywhere important: the consistent quality of your content. Do not post uninteresting, poor or simply unsuitable content on your Instagram page. Try to stand out from the crowd with your posts, win your followers' attention and motivate them to like. A high-quality post template can make a big difference when it comes to getting your followers to spend more than just a few seconds with your post. Using a uniform look is indeed crucial to help your viewers get to know your new and complete aesthetic. To get likes on Instagram, your followers may expect a certain degree of consistency, and brand-new followers should not be bombarded by a jumble of colours, formats and posts when they look at your profile. Older content can also keep collecting engagement, and your profile becomes all the more relevant if all your posts maintain a high level of quality. Then new followers keep arriving who look through all your previously published posts and like them.

See what works for your competition

It is always good to know what works particularly well in your niche. It is therefore also important to analyse what other accounts with the same or a similar topic to yours get many likes for. Follow your competitors, see when they have a particularly successful post and consider how you could post something similar. Whether it is the format, certain products being raffled or something else. However, be careful not to 1:1 copy their content, as similar accounts often have similar followers and they would quickly notice the source of inspiration.

Conclusion

Many different things contribute to getting more likes on Instagram. As always, here the rule applies: trying beats studying. Test what works for you and build up more likes over the long term through many small or large changes. The more of these you implement, the better; good luck and lots of likes!