Tried-and-tested Tips and Strategies To Go Viral On Instagram

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Social media is a platform where it is actually possible to become an overnight sensation.

From Addison Rae to Bella Poarch, we have countless examples of such celebrities who kick-started their journey with social media and are now more popular than television or film stars.

But you can not simply rely on luck and wait for that one viral content that will be your breakthrough. Instead, you should follow some sure-shot rules that can increase the chances of your content getting viral.

Today we will walk you through 12 highly useful tricks and three strategies that can help you go viral on Instagram.

How Many Likes Do Your Posts Need To Go Viral?

There is no fixed answer to that. However, there’s a notion that posts having 100K+ likes and 1K+ comments are “viral.”

In the case of videos/ reels, the number is around 100K+ views. Since the inbuilt repost option of Instagram is, by default, temporary (by default, you can only report through stories that disappear after 24 hours), it does not contribute much to making content viral.

12 Tips To Get Viral On Instagram

Here are some tips you can follow to constantly produce viral content for your Instagram handle.

#1 Understand Your Audience Demographics

If you already have a large number of followers but still don’t get engagement on your posts, chances are that your audience isn’t relating to your posts, which is why they are not engaging with it.

If your post does not have much engagement, it will have very few chances of getting viral. So to make content that the majority of your followers interact with, you need to understand your audience.

If you have an Instagram for business account, then you already have an Instagram analytics section where you can dive into the demographics of your audience. It can show you what age groups, genders, and countries follow you and in what percentage.

This can majorly help you understand your audience persona, and with a little more research, you can find out what type of content they might find the most relatable. This way, you can serve right to the majority of your audience and get engagement from them.

If you have just started off, and don’t have a significant audience to cater to, another trick you can use is to understand the audience of your competitors. Chances are that people who they are targeting are also the ones that you want to target. For that, you might need to take help from a third-party app or website since Instagram analytics can only show you insights into your account.

#2 Follow The Trends

Trends on Instagram change with the day, so it becomes essential to keep up with the latest ones. Not every trend goes viral, but there’s no way you can judge if a trend will go viral or not.

What you can do is, follow the majority of the trends so your chances of making viral content get higher.

For example, a major trend on Instagram is making short video content, aka Reels. The majority of the audience prefers watching short and engaging video clips rather than staring at static content.

From micro-influencers to brands, all try to make reels as they bring more engagement and increase the chances of getting discovered on the for you page.

Another major trend is adding text on your reels videos since it is a more effective way of communicating with the audience. Not many will notice the caption you put, but they can hardly ignore it if a message is displayed in the video.

#3 Have A Unique Style

Viral content and overnight popularity are something very unstable. If you want most of your content to get viral and be remembered, you need to have a unique style.

You can use your one-time hits as the stepping stones for boosting your popularity on IG. Just think of it as this – when you see the content you like, you go to the person’s profile and go through their other posts. If you see they have other content that is equally good, there’s a high chance you will hit the follow button.

That way, they not only get engagement on the viral post but also likes and views on the other posts, plus a new follower. Now imagine if their profile is filled with random posts and has no other fun content other than the one that got viral. Will you still follow them? No, right?

So having content with a unique style ensures you gain and retain popularity in the longer run.

#4 Go Over Your Posts Regularly

If you are struggling to figure out what content works best for your audience, then going through your previous posts that performed well can be a good idea.

But don’t consider posts that were made way back since Instagram is a rapidly changing platform, and trends change quite often.

So it is better to go through your post daily and understand what type of content your audience likes the most. Also, regularly going through your content can help you understand how many improvements you have made over time and what gaps are still there that you need to bridge.

If you can’t find what areas you need to improve, you can refer to the posts made by your competitors and compare them side by side.

#5 Understand The Strategies Of Your Competitors

Another thing for which you can refer to your competitor’s profile is some good strategies.

Constantly brainstorming and coming up with content strategies that will be loved by your audience.

Since they are your competitors, your and their targeted audience will be the same, so the strategies they are using might also work on your audience.

So it is a good idea to keep a tab on your competitor’s strategies and try to understand what they are doing right and wrong. You can either learn from their success or recognize where they went wrong and not repeat the mistake. Either way, it is a win-win situation for you.

For reference, you can look for,

Their best-performing posts
Their most used content format
The tone they are using
What special things are they doing to interact with the audience
How often do they post
What time do they post

#6 Do Collaborations

Content that is created by collaborating with brands often gets better reach, so if possible, try to collaborate with brands that are of your niche.

Brand collaborations that get the highest engagements are the giveaway ones. So try planning something around it.

#7 Take Help Of Analytical Tools

If you are unable to find what content worked for you in the past, then you can take help from analytical tools and make data-driven decisions.

In Instagram’s inbuilt analytical tool, you also get the option of tracking key metrics that are related to engagements, such as likes, comments, saves, and story replies. With the help of this, you can track how your posts have been performing over time.

#8 Take Notes From Recently Viral Content

Recreating content that has recently gone viral is one of the best tricks you can try. You may have seen social-media influencers recreate reels on the same tune or members make memes on the recently viral topic.

The sooner you do it, the more chances you will have of becoming viral. So keep an eye on what posts are getting viral and try recreating them in your own way as soon as possible.

#9 Interact With Influencers

Micro-influencers are an important part of platforms like Instagram. So they can really help you go viral in no time. There are a lot of big brands that are nowadays leveraging the power of Instagram influencer marketing.

Collaborate with influencers that already have a follower base that you wish to target. That way, you will get better exposure. Collaboration can be as little as asking for a mention or co-creating content.

#10 Find The Optimum Time For Posting

If you want your posts to get the maximum reach, you need to know the optimum time when most Instagram users stay active.

Besides, posting at an optimum time will let you leverage the app’s algorithm, and your content will have a higher chance of showing up on the For You page.

Depending on different countries and time zones, these golden hours might change. There are quite a few online tools that you can use to calculate the best time for you to post.

These tools will give a complete breakdown of when the majority of your followers stay active or what is the best time for you to post on different days of the week.

#11 Be Consistent

You have to be consistent with your posts to attract more followers and build an overall strong online presence.

Instagram is a highly competitive platform now, so taking long breaks between your posts or posting randomly can hamper your relevancy. Your audience will have no set expectations from you and will eventually forget about you.

If your posts are consistent, the audience will see you as a regular source of entertainment, and that is a great thing for getting more engagement.

If you have a busy schedule, you can take help from third-party automation tools that will organize and manage your content calendar.

#12 Run Contests

Engagements are the key to making a post viral, and posts that have some sort of contest can draw a lot of engagement. Contests or giveaways can help you grow metrics such as likes, comments, and even followers.

You first need to set the goal. Whether you want likes on that particular post or you want to gain more followers etc., then you can work around those goals and set rules that will help you achieve that.

Once your contest plan is ready, you need to post it at the right time and promote it well so that everyone participates in that.

Top 3 Strategies To Make Viral Instagram Content

There are many vague strategies you might find out there that are practically useless, such as creating multiple IG accounts and using them to get more followers.

But these three strategies are completely tried and tested and will give you actual results!

Strategy 1: Crate Life-hack/ Tutorial Videos Related To Your Niche

Apart from funny and entertaining content, what people enjoy the most is the bite-size content that can teach them something new. Audiences love learning something new without it feeling boring.

There are ample subcategories for making life-hack/ tutorial videos, such as sharing tips around your niche and business, do’s and don’t short listicles, DIY videos, or even showing the behind-the-scenes of a process.

Strategy 2: Remake Viral Content

There are three broad categories in which we can divide Instagram reels. That are the informative reels/ tutorials, the entering reels, and the remix reels.

Remix reels are the ones where you pick, take the track from someone else’s reel and remake it in your own style. The other two are comparatively difficult to make since you have to have your original script, record your own audio and do things from scratch. Still, they may or may not get viral.

But if you choose to remake a reel that has recently gone viral, the chances of your remix reel getting popular also increase. This strategy is also followed by social media influencers, so you can be assured that this works!

Strategy 3: Be Original, Be First

Another strategy for making content that has the potential to go viral would be. Making such content that people have never seen before.

There are a lot of elements of a video, such as framing, effects, coloring, and so forth. You can play around with them to give your content a unique touch.

If you don’t have the technical knowledge, you can start making reels that have never been made before.

You can pick a music track that hasn’t got viral yet, choreograph some catchy moves for it, and pass it on to others like a challenge. This way, the chances of your video getting remixed by others and you getting viral will increase.

Final Thoughts

If you plan meticulously and stay consistent, you definitely can go viral on Instagram. But it is hard to deny that going viral on social media has a lot to do with luck, which is not in one’s control.

All these tips and strategies may take a lot of time to show results and require constant effort. On that note, if you are short on time and want to get instant results, you can buy cheap Instagram followers, which will give your account an instant boost.

It is 100% safe and is definitely an investment for growing your brand!

Frequently Asked Question

Q1. What Are Some Of The Viral Hashtags For Instagram Posts?

Some of the most popular hashtags on Instagram include #fashion, #photography, #travel, #repost, #food, #makeup, #dog, #tbt, #instagram, #picoftheday, #instagood, #beauty, #cute, #nature, etc.

Q2. How Does Instagram Pay You?

There are a couple of ways in which you can earn money on Instagram. The monetization policies may not be available for every country, but other ways, such as IGTV ads, brand promoting, and affiliate marketing, can help generate a handsome amount of money.

Q3 Can I See Who Viewed My Profile On Instagram?

Unfortunately, there is no inbuilt feature on the app that can let you see who visited your profile. But you can still use some third-party apps that are available both on App Store and Play Store.

However, almost all of them have very poor ratings and can’t be relied upon. If you have a business profile, you can get an overview of the people visiting your profile, but it will not give you any names.