Instagram has hundreds of millions of active users. It is one of the platforms where users are more likely to engage with the content by liking, commenting or sharing. So, if you are looking to go viral on Instagram it is very much doable. But that does not make it easy. This is why we decided to create a list that can help you increase engagement on Instagram. You can, of course, buy Instagram followers or likes to get more engagement but did not want to include those methods in this list. We rather focused on more traditional approaches. So, read on.

1. Know Who to Target

The first tip to going viral is to understand who your target audience is. Of course, you can keep trying random stuff and see what works out but that is just going to take a lot of time and the probability of your going viral will be quite low. But if you are consistently providing content to the intended audience the chance of getting a lot of engagement increases. This is why you need to research your audience. Figure out what is the psychographic and demographic information of the bulk of your audience. This will help you know who will likely watch your content and will also engage with it. You can now keep this information in your mind while creating content. This will help you to create videos or posts that will sit well with your audience as this is the type of stuff that they like to see. Knowing your audience can help you consistently keep creating stuff that will have a huge amount of engagement in terms of views, likes, comments and shares. So, before you start making something you need to know who you are looking to target.

2. Be Entertaining

One of the worst things that you can do if you are looking to go viral on Instagram is to create boring content. If you want to increase engagement on Instagram then you have to create something that people will enjoy. If you scroll through Instagram explore page you will quickly find out that most of the content that people enjoy has something to do with entertainment i.e. funny sketches, animal videos, and educational or informative like DIY content, or a list of facts. So, these seem to be the general categories in which people are interested. Whenever you are planning on creating content that you intend on gaining a lot of engagement you have to not only think about your target audience but also about what stuff they think is entertaining. So, create and upload videos based on this info. Also, do not stray too much with each upload. You need to have a creative and unique voice that people link to you. This will help you in gaining a consistently high number of views since people who like your content will keep engaging with it. By having a unique and consistent voice we do not mean to post similar content but the overall tonality or theme should be such that people can link it to you. For example, if you want to be known as a profile that uploads funny content then you can upload a wide range of videos that are really funny and entertaining and still stay under the overall theme of your profile.

3. Engage With Followers

This is something that you can do to ensure that your existing followers keep engaging with your content. You have to interact with them by replying to their comments or their DMs. Replying to comments can make your followers feel that you care about them and they might want to engage with your content in hopes of getting a reply. Another good thing about this is that you can sort of start a discussion or conversation with people below your posts. This way they will keep commenting on your posts to reply to you and thus, you will get a lot of engagement. More comments and views will make the algorithm boost the ranking of your video and more people will be able to find it thus, gaining more views. Also, engaging with your followers regularly will make them loyal to you and you will not easily lose them. If your followers connect with you in a positive way then you can always ask them to share your content and most of them will comply if the video is that good and shareable which brings us to the next point.

4. Make Shareable Content

One way to get a lot of views on your videos is to make content that people would love to share. Make funny videos or entertain or educational videos that people would want to share. We as humans want to share our emotions with other people. This is why memes and other funny videos tend to get viral. Think back to the number of times you have found something really funny on the internet and you have tapped that share button and forwarded it to all your friends. Now, imagine creating content that will make people hit that share button. Now, most of the time this happens with funny videos. There's also a huge percentage of informative videos that get shared around a lot. For example, a video which talks about an amazing fact or shows a really cool DIY can also make people share the videos. But do not stray away from the overall theme of your profile.

5. Use Analytics for Feedback

This step is very important if you want to improve and ensure that you are putting out videos that will increase engagement on Instagram. Using analytics tools like Instagram insights can help you understand how well your profile is performing and how many views, comments etc. your posts are getting. This will help you get tangible feedback to the performance of your strategy. Also, you will find out what type of posts people are engaging more with. Take note of this. Try to build different content that falls under the same category as the posts which are getting popular. Try to post more stuff like this along with other stuff which is also getting good engagement. Feedback is very important to optimize your strategy for growth.

6. Contests and Giveaways

If you have the budget or the right inventory then you can create viral contests and giveaways. People do not usually like to receive stuff from strangers even for free in the offline world. But when a stranger on the internet wants to send them stuff people just love it. So, you can utilize this knowledge to create viral content. There are many companies that can help you conduct giveaways and contests. In giveaways, you can, sort of, create a system where people need to refer or share your content in order to win the prizes. This can help increase your reach. Not only that if you have the budget you can hold crazy contests offline and then upload snippets of it online. This is the shtick of MrBeast. But that is up to you.

7. Work With an Influencer

The last one is probably going to cost a bit. Influencers are online celebrities that have a huge loyal following. If you can get them to promote your content then you may go viral. There are many companies that help with influencer marketing. You can also use this to ensure that the product or service that you are promoting on Instagram gets more eyes and you end up making more sales. So, work with an influencer that sort of falls under your niche.

So, that was our list of tips to go viral on Instagram. We included one paid option. Many people also choose to buy Instagram followers but we did not put it here as these followers don't really engage with your content. If you think you can make it work go for it. We hope we have been able to give you some insights on how to get more engagement on Instagram. We wish you all the best.