Instagram Mastery: How To Get More Followers And Likes

I wasn't ever into Instagram that much until I realized it is one of the fastest growing social media sites in the world with over 150 million users and counting. Most people don't realize that Instagram isn't just for fun, but it is also great for building your business brand.

In fact, within just a few days starting to use this powerful platform, I had over 100 followers. When you can get a hundred new followers on social media every few days, you can really boost your brand worldwide.

Whether your goal is to expand your brand or to just meet new people on Instagram for fun, here's how to get more followers and likes on your photos:

Facebook Combined With Instagram

One way you can really boost your following on Instagram quickly is to connect your profile to your Facebook profile. This will help you find out which of your Facebook friends are on Instagram and you can follow all of them at once.

It will then, allow some of them to follow you back and those who aren't on Instagram yet, will be able to find you in the future when they connect their profiles. Did you know that 20% of all Instagram users are also on Facebook?

Sharing Instagram Posts On Other Social Media Sites

You can connect your Instagram to not only Facebook, but Twitter, Tumblr and even Flickr. You can grow 5 different social platforms at the same time with just one post.

If you have a larger following on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or Flickr, you can share your posts with them and increase your popularity on Instagram. The biggest and most popular brands know how to use all social media platforms together.

Related: 25 Instagram Marketing Tips

Use Popular Filters

A lot of users on Instragram look for certain filters on photos. These are somewhat like tags, but have to do with the effects of the pictures posted. Here are the Instagram filters by rank from the Huffington Post:

1. Earlybird

2. Mayfair

3. Amaro

4. Rise

5. Valencia

6. X Pro II

7. Lo-Fi

8. Willow

9. Brannan

10. Nashville

11. Toaster

12. Hefe

13. Sierra

14. Sutro

15. Inkwell

16. Hudson

17. Walden

18. 1977

19. Kelvin

Use Popular Hashtags

Using hashtags on social media is easily one of today's best ways to get discovered or get posts to go viral. Twitter really started making it popular, but now Google+, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram have really caught on to this trend.

To build your brand and get the most likes and followers possible, you have to go with the trends. Here are the top 20  most popular hashtags for Instagram:

1. #love

2. #instagood

3. #me

4. #tbt

5. #follow

6. #cute

7. #photooftheday

8. #followme

9. #tagsforlikes

10. #happy

11. #beautiful

12. #girl

13. #picoftheday

14. #selfie

15. #summer

16. #fun

17. #smile

18. #friends

19. #instadaily

20. #like4like

Interact With Others

Another way to increase your image likes and overall popularity on Instagram is to like others' photos and start commenting more. People are a lot more likely to follow you or interact with your posts if you interact with their's.

Comments are especially powerful on Instagram and can get you discovered by more people as well as help increase your followers. People actually tend to prefer commenting over liking according to some Instagram power users.

Liking is also very powerful though, especially when you like posts from people who aren't even in your Instagram network (neither of you follows the other). This will get you more interaction from other people you aren't already connected with, as well as increase your followers, whether you follow back or not.

Related: 15 Pinterest Marketing Tips

Timing Definitely Helps

According to data collected from Statigr.am and Quicksprout.com, the best time to post on Instagram to get the most activity is at these 3 times:

1. Monday 5 P.M. PST

2. Wednesday 3 P.M. PST

3. Thursday 3 P.M. PST

Monday at 5 P.M. PST is the best time to post of the three options. Plus, if your photo gets around 70% of its activity in the first 3 hours after posting, so if you don't get much going on after the first 3 hours, you can count that post as a dud and move to the next.

The Most Popular Pictures

Although people do tend to like inspiring quotes, funny memes, beautiful scenery, etc., the most popular posts on Instagram tend to be the ones exhibiting a luxurious lifestyle (cool cars, fancy food, big house, etc.).

If you are looking to use Instagram for branding your business or personal brand, you can definitely use this to your advantage by posting about your lifestyle and others' lifestyles thanks to what your business provides.

Conclusion

If you post luxurious lifestyle pictures, comment or like lots of other posts, post on the times given above, use popular hashtags and filters, your Instagram following/brand will be boosted tremendously. You may even reach a few hundred new followers a day like others.

But, keep in mind, as you get more Instagram followers and likes, there will be a lot of fake users or bots you deal with that won't be responsive. Don't worry about it, it's just part of it. Enjoy the rest of your newly found connections and use Instagram to expand your influence all over the globe.

If you want to follow me on Instagram my username is TheRealJustinBryant.