10 Steps to Get More Likes and Engagement on Instagram 2026

10 Steps to Getting More Likes and Engagement on Instagram 2026

How to get more Instagram likes?
Instagram is a platform with over 500 million daily users who tap the Like button an average of 4.2 billion times per day.

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For a business looking to get more likes and increase engagement, these statistics look promising. However, the problem is not getting likes, but getting enough likes to increase your visibility so more people engage, follow your brand, and invest in it.

To get more likes on Instagram, you need to approach content strategically.

In this post, we’ll show you ten ways to increase the number of likes on Instagram:

Contents

1. Use high-quality photographs
2. Use hashtags strategically and generously
3. Leverage video content
4. Run a contest or giveaway
5. Write compelling captions
6. Share content across social media
7. Tag relevant people and brands
8. Engage others
9. Post content at the right time
10. Ask for likes

Some tips require only minor adjustments, while others require a bit more work. However, all of them can help improve your content so more people double-tap the heart button.

Pro tip: This post assumes you’ve already created a business profile on Instagram, understand the basics of Instagram marketing, and have learned how to reach your target audience on this platform. If not, learn the basics in our Instagram marketing guide for small businesses for beginners.

Before we dive into these tips in depth, let’s look at how Instagram recently changed the like feature and why generating likes is still important.

Why Instagram Likes Still Matter

In 2019, Instagram launched a test phase of hiding likes for users in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Ireland, Italy, and the USA. The goal is to reduce competition and popularity contests, thus motivating a change in posting behavior towards creativity, storytelling, and spontaneity.

As Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri stated: “The idea is to try to de-Instagram Instagram, make it less of a competition, give people more room to focus on connecting with people they care about, and things that inspire them.”

Hidden likes mean that people viewing your posts won’t be able to see the number of likes they have. Consequently, people may engage more frequently with brands they have a genuine relationship with rather than being attracted to brands with high like counts.

For brands, this means that every like you get is deserved by a true fan. In this sense, likes, though publicly hidden, become more influential than ever before.

Although likes are hidden, you still have access to the numbers in the backend. You can still track how your post is performing and adjust your content to appeal to the Instagram algorithm – which continues to favor likes as a rating signal.

Whether or not likes remain permanently implemented in the United Kingdom, they continue to be a key measure of success, and obtaining them requires quality content.

With these things in mind, let’s dive into the tips.

1. Use high-quality photographs

More than 95 million posts are uploaded to Instagram every day. With each post, you’re competing for attention with other brands, influencers, and your followers’ friends and family.

To stand out, your content must stop users in their tracks. This means no blurry, pixelated, or poorly lit photographs.

An Instagram post from Lush Cosmetics
Fortunately, modern smartphones have cameras that are more than capable of creating quality shots.

Whenever you take a photo or shoot a video on your phone:

• shoot in HDR mode
• Use a smartphone tripod to keep the phone stable.
• Create photos 1080 pixels wide

A photography expert has several great tips on how to get the most out of your phone’s camera.

When you’re ready to upload photos, select a filter that will engage users. A study by TrackMaven found that the Mayfair filter performs best for engagement, followed by no filter – which puts greater emphasis on the quality of the original image.

2. Use hashtags strategically and generously

Hashtags have the potential to get your Instagram posts in front of a completely new audience. And for every niche, there are popular terms.

The easiest way to find the right hashtags is to enter a few words related to your image or business into Instagram’s search bar.

List of popular food-related hashtags
Alternatively, you can type # followed by keywords in the caption. This will display Instagram’s most popular hashtags.

Another way to find relevant hashtags is to use a hashtag generator page, such as All Hashtag. Enter a keyword in the search field and the tool will generate the most related hashtags.

Screenshot of the “All Hashtag” hashtag generator
To reach as many people as possible with your post, use the most popular hashtags in your industry.

To reach people in your area, use location-based hashtags. To find them, search Google for “popular Instagram accounts + [your city]” and see what terms the most-followed accounts in your area are using.

How many hashtags should you use?
Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post, but that may be overkill. A hashtag strategy survey by Sprout Social shows that most brands use one to five hashtags, but the sweet spot for engagement is nine.

3. Embrace video content

According to Mention, posts containing videos have 38% higher engagement on Instagram than posts containing images. And in general, video achieves the best return on investment (ROI) for social media marketing activities overall.

There are several ways to create quality videos on a limited budget, including using a smartphone, screen capture software, animated videos, or user-generated content.

We’ve covered each of these methods in detail in our guide to growing a small business through video marketing. The guide also covers the types of video content you can use to engage your audience, including:

• Product demonstration videos
• Events
• Case studies
• Behind-the-scenes videos
• Interviews

According to Wibbitz, how-to guides are the most popular form of video content on Instagram. This is something to keep in mind if you have something you can teach your audience.

Another thing to keep in mind is the technical specifications:

• Format: FORMAT: MP4
• Length: 3-60 seconds
• Video file size: File size: up to 512 MB, but for faster upload it’s better if the file size does not exceed 50 MB.
• Aspect ratio: 1.91:1-4:5
• Square, portrait or landscape

4. Run a contest or giveaway

Contests are one of the easiest ways to increase engagement on Instagram. To increase the number of likes, you can set the entry barrier as simply as “like to win”.

To increase engagement, you can raise the stakes by asking participants to follow you as well and tag a friend, as shown in this giveaway from Diala’s Kitchen.

Example of an Instagram contest from Diala’s Kitchen
To make your Instagram contest or giveaway stand out, make sure the prize is relevant to your brand and target market and specific enough to attract long-term fans.

For example, if you run a restaurant, giving away free food for two or gift cards is something that real fans would be interested in. On the other hand, giving away an iPad or a vacation to Disneyland may only attract opportunists who don’t have a real interest in your brand.

Before launching any contest or giveaway, read Instagram’s promotion guidelines. It’s not exactly thrilling, but it will keep you on the right side of the platform’s moderators.

5. Write compelling captions

Captions give voice to your visual content. They allow you to expand on photos, show your personality, and give followers instructions.

To write the perfect caption:

• Get the tone right. Instagram is fun and light, so your posts should reflect that. If your voice tone tends to be more corporate or formal, add some personality to it to come across as more human and authentic.
• Put important details first. Caption text gets cut off in the Instagram feed after two or three lines. Even though you want people to click “more”, assume they won’t. Put your most important message at the beginning and save hashtags for the end.
• Instagram post feed demonstrating text truncation
• Write a call to action. If you want your followers to do something, ask them to do it. For example, “click the link in bio” or “like if you would” or “comment your favorite XYZ post”.
• Use emojis. Emojis add personality to posts, but they also work to grab attention and break up the text. Where compatible emojis are available, you can even use them to replace text.

How long should your Instagram captions be?

Instagram captions have a limit of 2200 characters, giving you plenty of room to express your opinion.

Yet a recent study of more than 8.9 million Instagram posts conducted by Quintly found that brands with one million followers or less get the most engagement with posts 1-50 characters long. And Sprout Social reports that the ideal caption length is 138-150 characters. So the best thing to do is keep it brief.

6. Share content across social media

If you’re active on other social platforms, use them to promote your Instagram content.

Best tip: If you’re not on other social networks, you should be. More than half of the 97% of digital consumers who used social media in the last month used it to research products. Social media marketing can be a cost-effective and dynamic approach to brand marketing, but you need a clearly defined strategy to establish your brand online. To learn more about how to achieve this, read our guide to creating a social media marketing strategy in 7 steps for your small business?.

Instagram allows you to automatically share posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. You shouldn’t do this with every post, because it’s good to share original content on each platform. However, reminding followers about other channels where you’re active is another way to generate views and likes on Instagram without much effort.

In addition to automatic sharing, you can ask people to follow you on Instagram in posts, email newsletters, or, as FSB did here, in social media bios.

FSB’s Twitter account with a call to action on Instagram
You can also share content cross-platform without leaving Instagram by using the Stories feature, which allows you to direct people to your organic posts.

Instagram Stories are used by 500 million people every day, and 62% of users say they became more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories. This makes it a powerful feature that allows you to attract more attention to posts in your feed.

Diala’s Kitchen used Stories with great effect to promote a contest that we showed you earlier.

7. Tag relevant people and brands

Tagging another brand or person is a way to give them the recognition they deserve and direct your followers their way.

However, the benefits extend to you as well.

Tagging will alert others to your new content. Through the “tagged” section, it also helps display your photos on Instagram on their profile.

Example of tags used in Instagram posts
Also, supporting another brand increases the likelihood that they will show you love in return (more on this in the next tip).

When tagging people in Instagram posts, tag them both in the photo and in the caption. Do this when you are:

• working on a project with another company
• Giving a shout-out to a customer, fan, or collaborator
• announcing a contest winner
• Thanking someone for a case study
• Responding to customer questions
• Sharing someone’s content on your channel
• Tag people only when it’s relevant. And try not to tag the same people every time so you don’t come across as spam.

8. Engage in communication with others

Instagram is a community, and if you are an active member who spends time liking and commenting on content you’re interested in, people will return the favor.

By following these steps, you can increase your engagement rate:

• If someone follows you, follow them back. Clearly, you want to avoid spam account followers.
• If someone comments on your photo, reply to them with a comment directed at them. Mention them in the comment using @.
• Like photos with hashtags that interest you.
• Comment on photos that contain hashtags that interest you.
• Like comments from other people on photos that interest you.
• Send direct messages to people who interest you or who provide great value.
• Tag users in photos that you know personally or that you have built a relationship with on Instagram.
• Ask questions or request feedback in your posts.
• More followers means more eyes on your posts, which ultimately means more likes.

9. Post content at the right time

To maximize the number of likes on Instagram, you need as many people as possible to see your posts. To do this, you must post content when your audience is online.

We covered this in detail in our guide on the best times to post on Instagram in the UK, but here is an overview based on 12 million posts analyzed by Later:

• Monday: 6:00 AM, 10:00 AM and 10:00 PM
• Tuesday: 2:00 AM, 4:00 AM and 9:00 AM
• Wednesday: 7:00 AM, 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM
• Thursday: 9:00 AM, 12:00 PM and 7:00 PM
• Friday: 5:00 AM, 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM
• Saturday: 11:00 AM, 7:00 PM and 8:00 PM
• Sunday: 7:00 AM, 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM
• According to Sprout Social, the overall best day and time to post in terms of engagement is Wednesday at 11:00 AM.

10. Ask for likes

The final tip is perhaps the simplest of all: If you want people to like your posts, ask them to.

When Socialbakers analyzed 350,283 tweets from 3,792 brands on Twitter, they found that asking for “RT” on a post earned people an average of 73 retweets, while asking “Please retweet” earned an average of 64 retweets.

HubSpot found a similar trend when examining Facebook posts. Posts that contain the word “like” receive more likes.

HubSpot study showing the impact of including a call-to-action to get a like.
Data source: Study on the number of “likes” on a page published in 2012: HubSpot
Twitter and Facebook differ from Instagram, but human behavior is the same. If the call-to-action is clear, followers are more likely to comply.

Ask your Instagram followers directly to engage with your posts:

• Like if you agree
• Like if you identify with it
• Tag a friend who would like this
• Instagram post asking followers to tag a friend
• Image: Good quote

Summary

Likes on Instagram are a sign that your content resonates with your followers. When you get more of them, your content reaches a larger audience, which means more eyes for your message and greater interest in your brand.

Following the tips outlined in this post as part of your social media strategy will help you create content that Instagram users want to see, while making it easier for them to find it.

The best part is that all of these tips are free and easy to implement. Introduce them into your posts gradually and measure how your likes increase over time. This will help you determine which tactics work best with your followers and bring long-term success.