Since being acquired by Facebook, Instagram has surpassed the epic milestone of 200 million active users in 2014.
Now in 2015 sources are reporting that there are now more than 300 million active Instagram users, which makes Instagram a more active social network than Twitter.
Instagram continues to grow and since they are owned by Facebook
(which boasts well over a billion users) their growth doesn’t show any
signs of stopping.
Instagram is a very active network.
By very active I mean to the tune of more than 40 million photos shared per day, 8500 likes pressed per second, and 1000 comments shared per second.
After considering the activity numbers above there is no doubting
that Instagram is a vibrant social media site that you can use to build
your brand in a serious way.
To make the most of Instagram and to get plenty of exposure for your
brand on Instagram I recommend you apply the following powerful ways to Get More Instagram Followers and Likes.
Connect your Instagram account to Facebook
Although this tip is obvious taking this simple step can net you
great results. Sending photos to Facebook is a great way to connect
your Facebook friends as Instagram followers and get likes for your
photos on both Facebook and Instagram.
When you connect your Instagram account with Facebook this does not
mean that every photo will automatically post to Facebook, you will have
the option to send or not send your Instagram pictures to fb on a photo
by photo basis.
Use Popular Instagram #Hashtags
Hashtags
are a huge part of Instagram and using them can enable you to get great
engagement on your content even if you have only a few followers.
And if you use these tags within your photos, they are more likely to be discovered by other users.
Here are the top 10 tags as of February 2015:
#love 806,951,764 posts
#instagood 363,616,733 posts
#me 336,200,408 posts
#tbt 314,063,716 posts
#cute 298,028,146 posts
#follow 294,666,931 posts
#followme 280,961,701 posts
#photooftheday 277,090,910 posts
#happy 263,485,615 posts
#tagsforlikes 260,867,123 posts
Want more? Here are the top 100 Instagram tags.
Get More Likes By Using More Hashtags
Instagram allows a maximum of 30 tags per picture.
TagsForLikes is a free service that you can use to quickly and easily get 30 popular tags for your pictures.
They have three lists of popular tags as well as lists of tags by topic.
Here are some of the topics they have tags for:
Nature Tags
Weather / Seasons Tags
Animal Tags
Social / People Tags
Holidays / Celebrations Tags
Family Tags
Art / Photography Tags
Urban Tags
Food Tags
And More
Follow other Instagram Users
Reciprocity is a powerful force and one of the most effective ways to get more Instagram followers is by following other people first.
Like Plenty of Other Photos
Often when you like someone’s photo they will notice this and follow you, even if you don’t follow them.
I have noticed when I use popular #hashtags I notice that my photos
are liked by people who have thousands of followers but follow only a
few people.
My guess is that these people just like hundreds of photos at a time
in hopes of people following them and liking their photos in return.
Use Instagram Automation Software
The Instagram tool Instagress is arguably the most effective way to get more Instagram likes and followers.
The key with this tool is to use it to facilitate real connections, and not abuse it’s ability automate processes like a robot.
To quote the Instagress about page Instagress is designed to attract attention to your Instagram account and gain more comments, likes, and followers.
It does this by automating Instagram engagement.
To get more specific Instagress is basically a robot that uses your
account to automatically comment and like photos based on any hashtags
you specify without you actually seeing the photos.
This tool is certainly controversial and could get you into trouble
if your comments or likes are inconsistent with what you would like or
say, but the fact remains that this tool has the potential to get
results.
See the image below for a few screen shots of this Instagram automation app.
I recommend acting with caution when using this tool since abuse of
it can lead to a password reset or perhaps even having your account
suspended.
An Excellent Instagram Tips Video
The video below is hands down the best Instagram video I have seen.
Check it out for tips on being awesome on Instagram, which will
undoubtedly lead to more followers and likes.
Keep Your Quality High and Your Frequency Low
If you just post pictures of your food or your feet don’t expect to
light up your Instagram with dozens of likes and new followers, no
matter how many hashtags you use.
Don’t bleed the feed. Posting several pictures of the same thing at once will annoy your followers and cause people to unfollow you.
Try to make each photo unique and cool and space them out over time so that you don’t piss people off.
Combine Images and Use Picture Frames
If you’re an iPhoneographer there are a few different apps you can use.
I paid a few bucks to get the app PicFrame and really like the way it works.
Below is a picture I created using the PicFrame iPhone app.
For the Andrioidographers out there the app that I recommend is InstaPicFrame, which is free.
Although this app made me want to throw my phone a few times before I
got the hang of it I now use it with no problems. The app is pretty
good and it’s free.
Below is an example of a picture I created using it.
Pro Tips from Instagram Experts
Instagram Expert – Brian (@briandowd)
My friend Brian (@briandowd) has built up a highly successful Instagram following, and typically gets well over 100 likes on every picture he posts.
I asked him to share with me some of his best tips and here they are verbatim.
1. Focus on quality pics especially those that are of interest to a wide audience.
I tend to post what I like and am a bit eclectic to keep from making a
boring stream. I also post a variety of different types of pics and use
various edits.
2. Like others pics and comment.
It’s important to develop a positive “relationship” with other IGers.
They tend to comment and like back and most often follow back. Be
engaging.
3. Be selective with posting pics.
Someone who “over posts” can be quickly unfollowed as they flood the
stream of pics in the viewer. I tend to post 2-3 pics a day and try to
make interesting captions that can spark a conversation.
Instagram Expert – Paul (@mcquilz)
My friend Paul (@mcquilz) and I played hockey together growing up so I
have watched his Instagram photo collection and following grow to
become nothing short of epic.
Here’s a snap shot of his profile.
Paul’s average photo gets at least a few
hundred likes and one of his pictures was re-posted by @instagood and
hit the trending page of Instagram, netting over 16,094 likes.
Below is the awesome Instagram advice Paul shared with me for this blog post:
Instagram (IG) is a photography based
social media app intended to highlight our daily activities using some
form of photographic creativity.
Many users miss the creative mark and
simply use Instagram as an extension to Facebook or Twitter; neglecting
the difference that causes Instagram to do so well.
First rule for me, if it’s not something I would want to see in my feed, why would somebody else want to see it in theirs? If you don’t want to look at someone else’s Cheerios or sleeping cat, why would they want to look at yours?
Actually interact with your followers and those that you follow!
This is a social media platform! It’s
intended use is social interaction. If you don’t like or comment on my
photos, why would I like and comment on yours? (Exception, of course, to
the inspirational photographic genius’ that we love to follow – so
seriously, don’t be disappointed if you don’t get a “thank you” for your
one word comment.)
Avoid spammy unspecific hashtags. Some hashtags,
like “love” are the most tagged on the platform nearing 100 million
tags! If you use that tag, it will become irrelevant in less than 3
minutes and the majority of people who use that hashtag will never see
your picture. Instead use more specific, less spammy hashtags to get
more likes, comments, followers and the occasional shout out!
Photo Editing: Some users never edit, others use too
many edits, but maintaining a consistent style while achieving a
creative aspect is the ultimate goal.
Picfx (iOS) is
one of the top used iPhone apps and deservedly so! It offers hundreds
of filters, lighting effects, frames and the ability to apply them all
in a user selected ratio…it’s awesome!
With over 100 Effects,
Textures and Frames Picfx is your go to square format photography app.
Picfx has many different folders grouping certain effect types, these
include: Urban, Classics, Vintage, Cross Process, Premixed, Black &
White, Scratches, Light, Textures, Space, Grunge & Frames.
The next top 3, in my opinion, are:
Afterlight ($.99 | iOS)
Snapseed (Free | iOS and Android)
VSCO Cam ($.99 | iOS)
They all offer a unique user experience, with various editing
options. Having options for variety, increases your overall ability.
Picture Taking Apps: To implement a variety in my feed, other than the iPhone camera, I take my pictures using three different apps.
1) Photosynth (Free | iOS & Windows Phone), takes a 360 degree panoramic image that can create a vivid depth of field.
2) AvgCamPro ($.99
| iOS), takes a series of photos from 2-128 images and blends them
together to normalize the result. Amazing, love this app.
Average Camera
automatically takes multiple pictures (immediately or after a timer
expires), calculates the average picture out of these and normalizes the
result, to make the lightest pixel become white. It is useful for
producing low-noise pictures in low-light situations. Because of the
long exposure time, you should not hold your iPhone in your hands, but
lean it against something to get sharp results.
3) SlowShutter ($.99 | iOS), the best app available to open your cameras exposure time to bring in light or movement.
Hashtag Strategy: My last comment has to do with hashtags. “Thirty hash tags is not a caption!” #tree #sun #leaf #this #is #awful
Add a Follow Badge to Your Site
One way to ramp up your Instagram followers is with an Instagram badge for your website.
Here is an example of an Instagram badge:
Cross Promote With Other Instagrammers
A strategy I commonly see used by people with massive Instagram followings is cross promotion.
Once you have a good sized Instagram following you can contact other
Instagrammers and strike up a deal where you both post a picture of each
other and recommend that your followers follow the other person.
To facilitate these deals send a direct message to the person you want to cross promote with.
This way both of you will pick up new followers and everyone wins.
Embed Your Photos
Instagram recently made it possible for you to embed photos into your
website or blog. This gives you yet another way to promote your
Instagram photos and profile.
To embed a photo simply click the photo, click the embed button, then copy the embed code into your site.
As you can see from the embedded image above this image includes a
link back to my profile, and back to the original image location.
Use a Call to Action
One of the best ways to get followers on Instagram is to use a strong call to action including your username.
For example: You should follow me on Instagram @dondemex