Instagram Likes and Followers

You have probably googled “How to get Instagram likes” before and found hundreds of guides or websites offering to give you thousands of likes and followers for a small fee. Well, guess what, this guide is free, and it does not include any payed software or website. This is the real way growing your Instagram organically. It wont give you thousands of followers overnight, but if you hang in there and stick too it, thousands of followers a month wont be impossible.

 

First things first, your niche!

Your niche can be important when getting more Instagram likes and followers. Don’t know your niche? Check your posts, do you post mostly food pictures? Are your Instagram full of bearded selfies? Do you upload lots of pictures of your animal? Well, that might be your niche. Also, check your old posts to see which ones who got the most likes. Did selfies get more likes then a food post? Then there’s a big chance your followers are there for your face and not food… You get the point.

Facebook page and statistics

Getting a Facebook page for yourself, brand and/or food/animal pictures is a great thing, because you can link your Instagram feed to your Facebook page to get really great insights and statistics. Since I don’t use payed (or free) third party websites to see statistics, I solely rely on the Instagram Company profile. Remember, you need a Facebook Page to be able to use the Instagram Company profile. In the statistics you can see your top posts in any give time frame, you can see what times during the day your followers are most active etc. It’s really great!

Hashtags, do you need them?

Yes and no. Hashtags are a great way to reach new followers, and you can use 30 of them. Before I used to use the same hashtags over and over again, no matter what kind of picture I was posting, and it worked at first, but I slowly started to notice a decrease in likes and followers as time went on. I don’t know if that is some kind of diminishing thing Instagram implemented or not, but using the same hashtags over and over seemed to hurt my account more then help. So what I did was that I started using around 1-5 hashtags that my picture related with, then in the first comment, I posted around 20 random (but chosen) hashtags to get more spread. That way, with every picture, there were about 1-5 new hashtags, which did not diminish my posts. Also, do not use generic hashtags, not applicable to your feed. Rather you should look up hashtags that relate to your picture. Also check out the competition. Look at a feed with tons of followers/likes and borrow some of their hashtags, if they relate to your pictures. Also try to change your hashtags now and then, not all of them, but switch out 2-3 for new ones every few weeks.

Like, comment and follow

This should be first on the list to be honest. It’s very important to stay active, not only uploading pictures, but also liking, commenting and follow other users. Most of the times they will return the favour and follow back. And it will build your Instagram even more. And try to comment things that show you care about the picture. A generic comment like “nice one”, “great picture” etc, makes you sound like a bot. Instead, comment “Great picture, how long have you been growing your beard?”. That way you show that you really looked at the picture, and also asks a question, which might yield you a new follower, a comment etc. Other people will also see this, and might follow you based on your comment.

Tagging tons of feeds and people?

Same goes for the hashtags. Tagging the same people over and over again sucks. Also, if you try to get featured on a big Instagram feed that relates to your niche, try to DM them, or only tag the page you want to get featured on. Tagging too many people will make you look needy, and the pages tagged wont feature you, because you tagged their competitor. Keep the tagging to a minimum, or send a DM asking for a feature. Try to build a friendship or a connection with the pages. And know that you are not the only one tagging them, so don’t get upset or sad if they wont answer. Be persistent and cross your fingers! Also, VERY IMPORTANT. Do not tag for example, a Beard feed in your food pictures or your food pictures in a animal feed. Be selective!

 

In conclusion, look at your statistics, the best time to post. Like, comment and follow other people. Comment interesting things. Don’t over tag, don’t over hashtag and be humble. You wont grow your Instagram in a day, it takes hard work, time and perseverance. I hope this will help you and don’t forget to comment with your thoughts!

Also, this post might get updated as time goes to improve the guide on how to get Instagram likes & followers!

 

If you want, give me a follow on Instagram – @freeradical666