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How to go viral on instagram


How To Go Viral On Instagram: The Beginner's Guide

Are you struggling to gain traction on Instagram? Still waiting for your first post to go viral?

It’s hard to know exactly what makes a post go viral on this platform. Instagram’s algorithm is a closely guarded secret.

But it is possible to increase your chances by following a number of specific tips.

In this post, you’ll find exactly what they are so you can implement them in your strategy. And finally start seeing the results your content deserves.

Ready? Let’s get started:

What does it mean to go viral on Instagram?

A lot of brands don’t consider an Instagram post to be viral until it hits at least 100,000 likes. Does that seem like an impossible number to you? That’s because it’s too broad of a rule to follow.

Viral in your niche may look a lot different than what’s considered viral in another niche. Let’s say you and your competitors only receive around 2,000 likes per post. This means a post that reaches 10,000 likes could be considered viral.

Of course, reaching that 100,000 milestone would be nice. More likes means more followers and more click-throughs depending on the campaign you’re using.

To be more specific, when a post goes viral, it’ll have a lot more…

  • Likes than the majority of your posts.
  • Shares than the rest of your posts.
  • Views from unique users.
  • Activity on Instagram than your other posts. This means it receives interactions much quicker and continues to receive interactions long after activity for the majority of your posts stalls.

What you do with the viral traffic you receive is up to you. If you want more followers, insert a gentle “follow us” reminder at the end of your post.

If you want click-throughs to your website or landing page, you’ll need to use a tool that allows you to create a splash page for links on Instagram. Instagram only allows you to insert a link in your profile’s bio section rather than individual posts.

Shorby is a great option for this. It’s simple and affordable. We’ve even reviewed it if you want an in-depth look at the tool before you try it out yourself.

As for going viral, we have eight tips to share with you today.

8 tips on how to go viral on Instagram

Tip #1: Research your audience and your competitors’ audiences

Sure, #fashion and #art may be among the top 100 most popular hashtags on Instagram, but that doesn’t mean your content should target them if your niche is entirely unrelated.

Conduct research on your target market via audience surveys instead. These are short questionnaires that allow you to learn more about the type of people that make up your audience, what their interests are and the struggles they’re experiencing in your niche.

More importantly, discover what types of content your audience interacts with most on Instagram by researching your own and your competitors’ analytics. You can learn a lot about the types of content your audience prefers by reviewing yours and competitors’ most-liked and most-commented posts.

Use a tool like Pallyy to analyze your competitors on Instagram. Check out our Pallyy review to learn how it works.

Tip #2: Recreate your competitors’ viral Instagram posts

You should have a decent-sized list of your competitors’ most popular posts after the last tip. You can use this to get a headstart on the type of content that may help you go viral.

Don’t simply copy your competitors’ content outright. Your audiences likely overlap, and they will catch on and call you out on it.

Let some time pass instead. Then, analyze the post to see how you can create something that’s similar but unique to your brand.

For instance, if your competitor keeps going viral for quick how-to videos, come up with a way to create your own short tutorials in a style that’s unique to you.

Tip #3: Recreate viral content from other social media platforms

This is similar to the previous tip, except you’ll research your competitors’ content on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. TikTok is a great place to look as well if your competitors happen to use it.

What you want to do is see what’s working for your audience on other social media platforms, then recreate that content in your own style on Instagram.

Again, don’t simply copy and paste what your competitors are doing. If their most popular YouTube videos are dedicated to reviews on products in your niche, don’t simply review the same products in the same review format.

Find a simpler way to review and showcase products, then turn your content into high-quality images, videos and Instagram stories.

Tip #4: Use your own voice

When you’re a new blogger or a young startup, you likely do your best to maintain a professional image on social media platforms. This may include never mentioning your personal life and speaking only in an anonymous voice (using we, us and ours instead of I, my and mine).

What you may not be aware of is that you can actually do a lot to improve your chances of being noticed on social media by simply showing more of your own personality. You may even increase your chances of going viral on Instagram by getting personal.

Take Bindi Irwin, conservationist and daughter of famed wildlife expert Steve Irwin, as an example. A lot of Bindi’s posts get around 100,000 likes on Instagram with some receiving a few hundred thousand. Posts featuring only pictures of animals receive even less, around 50,000 or so.

However, when she took to Instagram to announce the birth of her child, she received an astonishing 1.4 million likes, much higher than her average posts.

The post was accompanied by an image of her, her husband and her newborn along with a heartfelt Instagram caption.

It’s proof that behaving more like a real person on Instagram rather than a marketer does a lot to set you apart on the platform.

Tip #5: Be more active on Instagram

Some marketers are lucky. They barely post on Instagram, and suddenly find themselves going massively viral with a single post.

Others aren’t so fortunate. If you’re struggling to gain traction on social media, try being more active on the platform outside of publishing content.

Respond to every comment users leave on your posts, and use a unique reply every time. Never send canned responses on social media. It’s among the easiest ways to aggravate users as they’re able to see you send the same message to dozens of other users.

You should also become more active with your competitors. It’s an easy way to collaborate on Instagram. Respond to their posts and stories more, and even communicate with their own user comments.

You’ll start to become known to them and their audiences over time. They may even start interacting with your content.

Instagram does a reasonable job at keeping you in the loop with notifications but once your account activity increases, it will get harder to keep track of. A social media inbox tool can help you keep on top of your comments.

Tip #6: Run social media contests on Instagram

This is one of the easiest ways to go viral on Instagram. People love free stuff. Others love participating in competitions.

What you want to do is create a contest specific to your niche and have participants send their submissions via photos or videos on Instagram.

For example, if your blog is about web design, give your audience a challenge. Have them create a single web page that teaches people about the moon. They should submit their photos on their own Instagram accounts. Whoever has the best page design with the best functionalities wins.

Even better, make liking the competition announcement post and following your account requirements for winning.

Just keep the number of competitions you run to a minimum. You don’t want to wind up in a position where they’re the only posts of yours that get any activity.

Here are a few resources to help you out:

  • 16 Creative Ideas For Instagram Giveaways And Contests
  • How To Do A Giveaway On Instagram That Grows Your Audience

Tip #7: Market products on Instagram

This tip is similar to the tip where we recommended posting product reviews to Instagram, except this time we have data on why this type of content works.

Influence Central interviewed more than 400 women who partake in online shopping and found the following data:

  • 82% claim that social media recommendations change the way they research products.
  • 81% claim product reviews influence their shopping habits.
  • 72% prefer to use social media as a way to verify marketing claims about products they’re interested in buying.
  • 57% use images and videos on social media to finalize their decisions. 53% use testimonials while 51% use reader comments.

It’s clear that product marketing is an effective way to receive more activity on social media. You can market your own products or products you’re affiliated with.

Be sure to read StartupBonsai’s guide on writing Instagram captions if you want to increase your sales.

Tip #8: Create niche-specific life hack videos

The study we mentioned in the previous tip produced another piece of data that may help you create viral social media content:

42% of consumers claim life hack content influences their likelihood of buying products and services.

It’s true. Hashtags containing the phrase “life hack” are quite popular.

When you plan new Instagram content, especially content for products, come up with content that solves a specific problem your audience experiences in a simple way.

For instance, apps like Uber and Lyft solve the problem of obtaining transportation in a quick and easy way. However, this is too broad of a problem. You should instead create life hacks that teach your audience how to save on rides, how to find hidden features and more.

Final thoughts

Knowing what content to create is only half the battle. Creating and actually publishing that content is where the true struggles of running a successful Instagram account lie.

Do yourself a favor and create your account well ahead of time. You’ll save a lot of time and guesswork in the future, and you’ll never be without content to post to Instagram.

Social media scheduling tools work great for this purpose. It gives you two ways to schedule Instagram content. It’s also quite affordable for bloggers, and you can even try it for free.

Above all, analyze your content as you go so you can understand what’s working and what’s not.

Related Reading:

  • 32 Latest Instagram Statistics, Facts, And Trends
  • How To Get More Views On Instagram Stories
  • Instagram Hashtags: The Complete Guide
  • The Best Times To Post On Social Media
  • 30+ Instagram Tips To Grow Your Audience & Save Time

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means we may make a small commission if you make a purchase.

How To Go Viral On Instagram: 12 Tips & Tricks

So you want to know how to go viral on Instagram. Chances are you’ve seen the benefits viral content can have for brands. And you want that same success for your own business. But going viral can be hit and miss if you don’t understand how it all works.

Therefore in this article, we’ll share our tried and tested tips for going viral. Then you can enjoy the benefits that come with instant popularity.

Table Of Contents

  1. 1. Understand Your Audience
  2. 2. Create a Unique and Creative Voice
  3. 3. Develop a Striking Aesthetic
  4. 4. Like, Comment, and Engage With Other Content
  5. 5. Review Your Competitor’s Posts (and Borrow Ideas)
  6. 6. Leverage Analytics to Learn What Works Best
  7. 7. Run Viral Instagram Contests
  8. 8. Focus on Photos Over Videos
  9. 9. Link Posts to Current Events
  10. 10. Partner With Influencers in Your Industry
  11. 11. Boost Your Post Reach With Paid Ads
  12. 12. Create a Consistent Posting Schedule

But first, what does going viral mean for Instagram accounts?

What Qualifies as Going Viral?

Going viral on Instagram means posting content that rapidly spreads through the platform and is shared quickly by thousands of Instagram users. While that’s pretty easy to understand, how to actually “go viral” is a more difficult concept to grasp.

There aren’t any benchmarks or thresholds for deciding when content achieves viral status. And there are several factors involved to consider, including:

  • The number of shares a piece of content has
  • How many likes the post gathers
  • The number of unique users it’s reached
  • How quickly the content is consumed
  • The amount of link clicks a post has
  • …and the overall lifetime of the content

As you can see, it isn’t very easy figuring out if your post on Instagram has gone viral. Usually, we know something is viral when we see it in our social feeds. So it’s pretty relative.

But there is a general idea of how many hits you need to go viral.

How Many Hits Do You Need to Go Viral?

To go viral on Instagram, you need at least 100,000+ likes and views and thousands of comments, even if your account only has a few hundred or thousand followers.

But achieving that benchmark isn’t easy. You need so many other things working in your favor. Yet the key to it all is how much your followers engage with your content.

How Do Instagrams Go Viral?

The majority of Instagrams go viral through increased engagement. This means you have to do everything you can to encourage and boost engagement fast.

The idea is that a big push in engagement will force your post onto Instagram’s Explore page, which makes it even easier for people to discover and view your posts.

How to Go Viral on Instagram

The following tips and tricks will help you achieve viral status on Instagram with these factors in mind.

1. Understand Your Audience

Like any content marketing strategy, getting to know your audience on Instagram is crucial to creating viral content. You need to know what makes your followers tick, their interests, and the type of content they interact with the most.

The easiest way to understand your audience is to create a buyer persona. A marketing or buyer persona clearly defines your ideal audience so you can quickly determine their interests.

Your persona should include the following details:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Location
  • Occupation
  • Annual income
  • Education level

And specifically for Instagram, it’s good practice to include the type of content they like to consume and the Instagram accounts they follow.

With this information in hand, you’ll be better prepared to create the type of content that’s relevant to your audience.

2. Create a Unique and Creative Voice

The best viral content on Instagram has a unique voice and a clear point of view. Combine this with stunning images, and you’ll have the ideal recipe for a viral Instagram post.

Andrew Knapp has perfected this with his modern take on “Where’s Waldo.” His feed focuses on his border collie in a fun game of “Find Momo.”

Andrew takes followers along on Momo’s journeys and uses the hashtag #momomeditations to describe Momo’s thoughts for the trip.

With this kind of creativity, it’s easy to see how his profile has taken Instagram by storm.

3. Develop a Striking Aesthetic

But creativity goes hand-in-hand with a unique aesthetic and theme for your posts. Striking images have the power to send your content to the top posts section. And getting there results in even more engagement with your content.

A good Instagram aesthetic has a consistent theme throughout all posts. You can achieve this by using the same filters or photo backdrop.

Or you can take a leaf out of Ida Skivenes’ book by building a look around the content of your images.

Ida uses her talent with food art to recreate popular scenes.

Her feed stands out because she’s created a consistent look throughout every Instagram post. And this is what has helped her achieve massive amounts of engagement.

Further Reading: 16 Instagram Story Giveaway Ideas (and how to Create One)

4. Like, Comment, and Engage With Other Content

While we’re on the topic of engagement, it’s vital you interact and engage with your Instagram followers. Instagram is a social network, so the focus should be on being social.

Get involved by liking other posts. And leave thoughtful comments about why you enjoyed the content. But don’t make the mistake of posting half-hearted comments and replies.

One word and one emoji comments are an indication of bot engagement. And this can drive people away from your account rather than encourage them to learn more.

So engage with your followers, but keep it relevant and thoughtful.

5. Review Your Competitor’s Posts (and Borrow Ideas)

One of the easiest ways to make your Instagram posts go viral is to study what other successful accounts do. There’s no rule saying you can’t borrow ideas and use them in your own content. What’s working for them might work for you also.

But don’t copy and paste other people’s work because you’ll risk copyright infringement. Instead, make a list of the elements that get the most engagement.

Successful elements to jot down might be:

  • Clever use of images
  • Interesting post captions
  • How often they post on Instagram
  • Their posting times
  • The hashtags they use
  • Who they tag or mention
  • Their particular type of humor, etc.

You can then compare this list to the persona you created for your audience earlier. And use the elements that overlap with their interests and preferences.

6. Leverage Analytics to Learn What Works Best

You can also look into your Instagram analytics to find out what content works best for your followers. As they’re known on Instagram, Insights provides detailed information on your follower demographics. 

Take a quick look at the information you can learn:

  • Age range of followers
  • Follower gender
  • Follower locations
  • The times your followers are most active
  • How many likes you receive for a post
  • The number of comments each post gets
  • How many impressions a post receives

Here’s an example of how you can use this data.

You published a post at 7 pm but got very little engagement. A quick glance at when your followers are most active might highlight that most of your followers don’t use Instagram at that time. They’re more active at around 9 pm.

So instead, you could experiment with posting around 9 pm with the hopes of reaching those people when they’re active.

7. Run Viral Instagram Contests

Another way to tap into the viral power of Instagram is to run a contest or giveaway. Running a contest is a great way to get the engagement boost you need to quickly go viral.

And if you use RafflePress to run a giveaway on Instagram, you can use the many actions designed to increase engagement on social media platforms.

Take a look at the ready-made template to grow your Instagram following.

It comes with pre-built actions to increase engagement and visibility on Instagram.

And if you combine this with the viral refer-a-friend action and entry methods of your own, you can get your post in front of even more eyes.

But let’s not forget you also need an excellent prize for the lucky winner. The best prizes are items people desire, encouraging them to click and enter.

Here’s a blog post of proven contest prize ideas to get you started. You can then follow these steps to promote your giveaway on Instagram.

8. Focus on Photos Over Videos

Videos are all the rage on social media, so you might be tempted to use them excessively on Instagram. But the truth is that photo content on Instagram gets 36% more engagement than video.

So if you want to create a piece of super viral content, you’re likely better off sticking to images rather than video to get the best results.

9. Link Posts to Current Events

It’s much easier to create viral content on Instagram if the topic is already trending in the news. Current events are at the top of peoples’ minds, so posts relevant to those events will resonate more with your audience.

You could coincide your product launch with a current news event to take advantage of this. Or even show real-world examples of your product being used in a way that’s trending.

Nike, for example, created a video paying tribute to the many faces of Kobe Bryant in “Mamba Forever. ” The video generated over 1 million likes, resonating with millions of fans.

10. Partner With Influencers in Your Industry

Something else Nike does with great effect is partnering with influencers to market their brand.

By getting celebrities and influencers to use their products, they raise awareness and cement themselves into their sphere of influence.

We get that you don’t have Nike’s marketing budget, but it’s a good example of how you can work with influencers to drive interest to your Instagram account and hit viral status.

Take Sweat and Tell, for example. This is a micro-influencer account that’s formed a community of health-focused women. Their posts review workout classes and routines, raising the awareness of the brands they work with.

11. Boost Your Post Reach With Paid Ads

Social media marketing statistics show that over 2 million advertisers are active on Instagram. And that’s because many brands understand that Instagram users are more likely to engage with sponsored content there than on any other platform.

Therefore if you’re interested in creating viral Instagram content, you should consider paying to promote your posts and increase your reach.

And this isn’t just for the bigger brands either. Instagram accounts of all sizes do this to improve the chance of going viral.

But how much does it cost to go viral?

It doesn’t cost much to go viral on Instagram. Most engagement methods are free to implement.

But if you’re using paid ads, expect to pay an average of $0.50 – $1.00 per click. If your industry is competitive, such as beauty or fashion, Instagram ad costs can reach up to $3.00 per click.

12. Create a Consistent Posting Schedule

Our final viral tip for Instagram is to ensure you have a consistent posting schedule. Planning and scheduling posts ahead of time help you manage what’s going out and when.

This means you can time publishing posts for when your followers are most active to maximize engagement. And it also prevents rushing out last-minute posts so that you can keep your content high quality.

Unlike Facebook, you can’t directly schedule posts to Instagram. But there’s a range of social media marketing tools available to help schedule your content outside the platform.

And if you’re wondering when the best time to post on Instagram is, we’ve got that covered below.

Wednesday is the best overall day to post on Instagram. Then you can break it down as follows:

  •  Wednesday at 11 am, and Friday at 10–11 am.
  • Tuesday through Thursday from 10 am–3 pm for the most consistent engagement.

And that’s it!

Now you know how to go viral on Instagram by using the crucial ingredients detailed above. All that’s left is for you to put it all together and create your own recipe for viral content success.

For even more ideas, check out our hacks to get more likes on Instagram here. Or, if you’d prefer to learn how to go viral on Twitter, check this guide out.

And if you found this article useful, then please follow us on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook for even more super helpful tips.

Instagram virus: how to make a popular post

Since the whole world is sitting at home because of one virus, it's time to think about creating your own contagious element - viral content. People are spending more time on social media, so now is the best opportunity to create a post that everyone will share.

A real viral post is, most often, a series of accidents and a fortunate combination of circumstances that allowed the publication to disperse. And although it is impossible to control this, there are aspects that will help your material become quite popular:

Unfamiliar for the target audience

Your subscribers and target audience are used to about the same “tone” of content that everyone follows in a certain niche. Presentation, images, meanings - everything is about the same for everyone. But when clearly different content breaks into this conditional silence, it attracts attention. Remember the same “Pushechnaya” from SETTERS, whose account was not run like a typical bakery. It is not necessary to wait for an occasion and a topic that should burst out all over the world. Getting coverage among your target audience is what is important for commercial social networks, and moving away from the usual foundations will already help to do this.

News agenda

You can take both public news and touch on a topic from your industry. Well-executed situational content always gets enough attention. This works because the news itself already has some traffic and interest, so it would be appropriate to enter this stream and get some of the coverage for yourself. The main thing to remember about three points:

- do not touch "black" topics (or be careful with them, as there is a high risk of running into negativity)

- respond quickly (no one will pay attention to the situation in the old way of information, so do not delay the implementation of such content) Battle with a competitor

This does not mean conflicts and unreasonable attacks on colleagues in the shop, but rather friendly jokes. Everyone is familiar with the confrontation between car brands, fast food restaurants, mobile operators and others. Albeit not on such a scale, but this technique can be used on your own. The audience likes to follow the development of such stories. Therefore, conflicts between bloggers are so popular on the Internet, and most films are built on the struggle of two sides. In marketing, there are even known cases of artificial conflicts for the sake of PR. So the option works.

Post design

Since we are chasing reach, the publication should look attractive. No one will share a post with a worse design than WhatsApp congratulations. Here again we take into account the tastes of the target audience and decide whether we want to stand out with the presentation. If yes, then do not forget to explicitly indicate whose post this is. If you remember about the same “Pyshechnaya”, then the product itself was everywhere in the photo - donuts. If they are removed, then such content will not even be thought that it belongs to a bakery.

Visibility of the post

The title and image should reflect the "sharpness" of the topic and develop it in the post itself. Otherwise, the publication will be scrolled, and your attempt to make a viral post will look like an uncertain answer from a schoolboy in an undertone. How exactly to highlight it is up to you, but the idea itself is worth keeping in mind.

Touch the emotions

Here you should mainly use either joy or anger/indignation. In the first case, people will share because of "look how funny/bold". In the second, the user's personal opinion will serve as motivation, where he will show in every possible way how he does not agree with the author or simply indicates an alternative view. The former are easier to work with, but the latter can bring more reach due to the activity under the post.

Total

The purpose of such a post, most often, is simply to get attention for your brand. But it is much better if the publication also has an additional purpose: to sell, inform, benefit, and so on. Having done all this correctly, the post will not only spread across the network, but will also affect other indicators.

How to create viral content: we analyze successful examples

Advertising is good, useful posts are also good, viral posts are just what the doctor ordered. Many companies have long come to the conclusion that publications that are distributed by users bring good sales and results with minimal investment.

In this article, we will figure out how to create this magical content and learn from successful cases.

What is viral content and why does it go viral

Viral content reaches a huge number of people. It is transmitted in a desktop-mobile way from one user to another. Sometimes, it spreads so quickly across countries and the world as a whole, even declare a pandemic. But unlike bacterial viruses, it is completely harmless.

Viral content is content that:

  • catches the eye in a way that a regular publication cannot;
  • high-quality and unique - no one has done this before;
  • is universal - it is interesting to a large layer of the audience.

Good Examples of Viral Content

To understand how to create posts that go viral, you need to look at successful examples.

An egg with 56 million likes on Instagram*

In 2019, the @world_record_egg account appeared on Instagram*. It contained only one photo of a chicken egg with a call to break the world record for likes, which at that time was set by Kylie Jenner. Simplicity and the most easy and even stupid call did their job - 56 thousand million likes:

The account still exists: it still has one post and 4.6 million subscribers.

Conclusion: if you want to create a viral publication, make appeals and keep it simple.

White or blue dress

In 2015, a Tumblr user posted a photo of a dress and asked her followers about the color of the dress. Thus began a huge hype: someone believed that the color was blue with black, others - white with gold. Scientists, politicians and stars joined the discussions.

Most importantly, all of the designer's dresses sold out within 30 minutes the day after they were published.

But still, what color do you see:

Conclusion: raise a controversial topic in viral publications.

Sad professor post

Several Missouri students tweeted a picture of the sad professor in a decorated office with the caption: "Our professor threw a party instead of an exam, but no one showed up."

The tweet gained incredible popularity 8 million views and about 70 thousand reposts:

Everyone felt sorry for the lonely professor: there were many words of support in the retweets and comments. Although it turned out that it was an experiment as part of homework, and he clearly succeeded.

Conclusion: to make a publication go viral, you can play on emotions.

Reebok company

The Reebok advertising company caused an uproar, due to which it went viral. Everyone remembers this banner?

Here, too, work with emotions, but if, in the case above, they “pressed” on pity, then there was clearly a calculation for a heated discussion. Of course, the company received coverage, but at the same time lost customer loyalty.

Conclusion: if you do not want to lose the trust of the audience, then be careful with the content "on the verge".

"I'm on a Horse" by Old Spice

The Man Your Man Could Smell Like commercial received 60 million views. All thanks to humor and unexpected moments: a man from the soul moves to a yacht, and then ends up on a horse:

Conclusion: use humor and make publications unpredictable.

How to create a viral publication

Now let's collect all the tips in a short and understandable checklist: