Believe it or not, Instagram is one of the most effective marketing tools these days. Instagram crossed 3 billion monthly active users in September 2025, and its advertising tools now reach 1.99 billion of them. The current Instagram statistics also show the platform generating more than half of Meta’s US ad revenue, which tells you where the commercial attention has moved. No wonder so many people want to know how to get more likes on Instagram.
Today, both big and small brands use this platform to reach out to their target audiences, show off products or services, interact with customers, and boost sales. Simply put, Instagram presence matters.
However, being on Instagram isn’t enough to get results. It’s also not enough to post eye-catching photos or videos from time to time. Likes are the currency and all users are obsessed with them.
No matter how many followers you have, you want to get more likes on Instagram posts, right? The 2019 experiment that hid like counts is long over. Since May 2021 the public count has been a setting each account switches on or off, and most people leave it on. Either way the like still registers, because for businesses the number of likes signals engagement and reach.
In this post, you will understand why bother about Instagram likes and find 11 tips on how to get more likes. Here is what matters most before you get to the tactics.
Key Takeaways
✅ Likes are still one of the three signals Instagram ranks on. In January 2025, Instagram head Adam Mosseri named watch time, likes and sends as the top three ranking signals, and said likes count for slightly more when Instagram decides how widely to show a post to people who already follow you.
✅ Track likes per reach, not the raw like count. Mosseri pointed creators at three numbers inside Insights: average watch time, likes per reach, and sends per reach. A post that reached 2,000 accounts and earned 200 likes is working harder than one that reached 20,000 and earned 400.
✅ Buying likes puts the whole account at risk. Meta’s Community Standards on spam prohibit buying, selling, or exchanging engagement, and the policy names likes outright. Meta has also taken sellers of fake engagement to federal court.
✅ A hidden like count is a display setting, not a missing signal. Since May 2021, everyone has been able to hide public like counts on their own posts and hide other people’s counts across their feed. The account owner still sees the number, and Instagram still counts the like.
✅ The tactics that earn likes are about the audience, not the algorithm. Knowing who you are posting for, strong visuals, a real question in the caption, tagging the right accounts, and resharing to Stories all do more work than any posting-time trick.
Why Bother About Instagram Likes?
Why should you bother about getting more likes if Instagram is making them private?
First things first: Although Instagram wants to hide likes from your followers, users will still be able to see how many likes they’re getting on posts. Moreover, the number of likes will still affect your user engagement rate that plays a key role in promoting your Instagram account.
All in all, getting more likes on Instagram posts is important for three main reasons:
- Understand your audience loves your content. No matter how informative your Instagram content is, this means nothing unless YOUR target audience finds it useful. Over the last decade, “like” has become a sign of approval. People like your posts when they love your content. Thus, the more likes your post receives, the better as it hints at that you know your audience well.
- Increase user engagement rate and reach. Not only does the number of likes help to boost engagement, but it also motivates users to promote your brand. If your followers find your account useful, they are more likely to spread the word about your brand. This means positive word of mouth. The New York Times research on why people share online found that 68% of them share to give others a better sense of who they are and what they care about, so your Instagram content gives them a solid reason to promote your brand, which means better reach, more potential followers, and higher engagement rates.
- Secure collaboration opportunities with other brands. Whether you’re an influencer who wants to make money on Instagram or a business owner who craves cross-promotion, getting more likes is a proven way to show that your account is popular and it can help to deliver better business results. After all, most businesses pay attention to engagement rates when it comes to collaborating with someone on Instagram.
Now that you know the importance of getting more likes on Instagram posts, let’s find out 11 proven tips that encourage users to tap the heard button.
11 Tips on Getting More Instagram Likes
1). Know your target audience well
With over one billion monthly active users, your target audience is definitely active on Instagram. However, people are different and they have different preferences. It’s nearly impossible to create one-size-fits-all content that works well for all customers. Thus, it’s important to tailor your content and find what suits your potential customers, so understanding your buyer persona is a must.
Ideally, a social media specialist who runs an Instagram business account must know the target audience well. Before creating Instagram posts, you should know what your potential customers love and which references they understand better.
Knowing your target audience helps to understand:
- What type of content your followers like
- Which tone of voice they find more relatable
- What is the best time to post on Instagram
To understand your Instagram visitors better, you can use Instagram insights to get data on your followers or you can include a lead generation landing page as a bio link and promote it in your posts and stories. Once you know your target audience well, you can create Instagram posts that get more likes.
2). Create eye-catching visuals
Instagram is all about visual content, so it’s no wonder this platform is gaining in popularity. The format data backs that up. In Socialinsider’s Q2 2026 benchmarks, carousels averaged a 0.50% engagement rate and Reels 0.48%, while single images trailed at 0.33%. Whatever you post, the visual is what stops the scroll, and a caption that takes effort to decode rarely gets read at all. In short, you need to pay attention to visuals when planning your Instagram feed.
Instagram now has 3 billion monthly active users, and people spend close to two-thirds of their time in the app watching video. That is an enormous amount of content competing for the same attention, so it is important to stand out from the crowd and hook your target audience with images and videos.
Example? Coca-Cola creates eye-catching visuals that make a cohesive Instagram feed:
Or this one from M&M’s:
If you don’t have an in-house team of professional designers, a free graphic design tool covers most of the gap. Adobe Express is the strongest place to start, since its free tier handles templates, brand fonts, and logo uploads, and Canva is the other option worth knowing. Either one lets you build templates that suit your brand identity, which is an easy and effective way to create eye-catching visuals that make followers like your content.
3). Add calls to action in your caption
Instagram marketing is all about a dialogue between your business and customers. If you publish posts, that’s great. But if you invite your followers to join a conversation, that’s even better. The easiest way to do it is to ask questions and use the calls to action. Once you start interacting with your readers, your engagement starts growing.
There’s a great variety of ways on how to interact with your readers, but asking them about their preferences is a proven one to get the conversation started. With an open-ended question and several hints on the image, Oreo invites its followers to join the conversation and discuss their preferences. Since people are focused on themselves, this tactic works well as people are happy to tell the world about their likes/dislikes, needs, and wants.
And here’s how Sephora encourages its followers to share their customer experiences. Not only does Sephora ask followers to leave an emoji in the comment section, but it also lists all mask types to show off its collection of products:
To get more likes, you need to put your followers first and show customers you really care about them. Thus, your Instagram post should include a call to action that encourages users to join a conversation and therefore feel a connection with your brand that gives them a solid reason to like your content. Emojis do a lot of quiet work inside those captions, and my guide on how to use emojis covers where they lift response and where they get in the way.
4). Mention relevant users in posts
It’s no secret that most people are focused on themselves, and research on social sharing behavior puts the share of posts that are about the poster at roughly 80%. This means users pay close attention to posts that mention them, or their favorite brands and creators. Tagging a profile in your post is a straightforward way to get more likes.
Whether you publish fan-made content, team up with influencers, or collaborate with other brands, tagging featured accounts in your Instagram posts increases the chances that these mentioned accounts and their followers will see your content. What is more, people are more likely to interact with content that features them which means more likes.
5). Use geotags and hashtags
If you want to get more likes on your Instagram post, it’s important to make sure that not only your followers see it. How? Add geotags and hashtags to help interested users who don’t follow you on Instagram discover your content. When done right, your post can also help to get more Instagram followers.
At first blush, it seems easy to find a relevant hashtag or geotag and add it to your caption. However, you need to choose these boosters wisely. When you add a hashtag that people use often, your content can get buried in the feed. Thus, you need to create your brand hashtags.
Here’s how Shake Shack tells its following about the grand opening in Mexico with the right geotags, hashtags, and mentions:
No matter what your business niche is, whether you’re an ecommerce or a local business, selling on Instagram is possible if you constantly attract new followers who are interested in your content. When you add hashtags and geotags to your caption, your content reaches more people who can become your followers and customers with time.
Moreover, when people who don’t follow you discover your content and they like it, chances are that these people will be engaged in a conversation with your brand on the platform and like your posts.
6). Interact with your followers
Whether Instagram has hidden likes in your country or no, you can still see the list of people who like your posts. This gives you an opportunity to show appreciation and establish a long-term connection with your fans. How? Like their posts in return!
People are obsessed with likes and they always pay attention to accounts that like their posts. To get better results, interact with accounts who don’t have many followers (up to 5000) as it increases your chances to get noticed by these people. When you show interest in your followers and interact with them, chances are that these people will return the favor twice and give you more likes on your posts.
7). Team up with niche influencers
The best way to promote your Instagram account and attract more followers who are interested in your content is to team up with niche influencers. Opinion leaders help spread the word about your company, and it gives results. The current influencer marketing statistics point the same direction, and so does the engagement data on Instagram itself:
- Creators in the 1,000 to 10,000 follower range average a 1.78% engagement rate, roughly triple the 0.54% of the 10,000 to 50,000 tier
- Accounts past a million followers average just 0.33%, so a bigger partner is not automatically a better one
- Nano creators make up 81.5% of all Instagram creators, which means there is no shortage of them in almost any niche
Since people trust influencers, working with them is a great way to enter an already-established community of your potential followers and attract more fans who are interested in your content. When you team up with the right influencers, your Instagram engagement rate grows which means you get more likes.
No matter what your business niche is, Instagram has a solid number of influencers who can help you reach your target audience with ease. For example, here’s how Menswear Dog, a pet account with 401k followers, teams up with Poly & Bark to promote its business:
8). Promote posts in Instagram Stories
Over the last few years, Instagram Stories have become a fixture of the app. With 65.4% of Instagram users opening the app every single day and the average user spending 1 hour 13 minutes in it, a Story has a real chance of being seen on the day you post it. With a lifespan of 24 hours, Instagram Stories create a sense of urgency that encourages users to watch your short-lived content so they do not miss out on something important.
Moreover, there are many business-friendly features that help to achieve your business goals. For example, if you want to get more likes, you can reshare an Instagram post to Stories and therefore make sure more followers see it. If you use Instagram Stories for business promotion, you stay ahead of your competitors who also hope for the attention of your target audience.
9). Organize a giveaway
Instagram giveaways have been popular among users for over a decade. As a marketer, you should know the benefits of social media contests. Whether you want to grow your following, get more likes, or boost sales, Instagram giveaways help you a ton. Want to know the best part? Tailwind’s study of more than 60,000 Instagram posts found that giveaways get 3.5 times as many likes on average as regular posts, and 64 times as many comments.
Free stuff is irresistible, so Instagrammers are ready to follow your requirements for a chance to win something valuable. When the giveaway closes, you still have to pick a winner fairly, which is where an Instagram giveaway picker earns its keep. Be careful how you word the entry rules, though. Meta’s Community Standards on spam prohibit offering anything of monetary value in exchange for engagement and name like-gating specifically, so check the Spam policy and Instagram’s Promotion Guidelines before you set requirements like the ones in the example below:
10). Use Instagram marketing tools
Starting out on Instagram can be daunting. If you’re not one of the most popular brands like Nike, Sephora, or Levi’s, it can be difficult to attract an army of fans who are not greedy for likes. The competition is high on Instagram and users are demanding, so it takes time and effort to find the right audience who is interested in your content.
What is more, people tend to like posts when they see these posts get likes from other users, and it seems to be a closed circle. That’s why you need to use Instagram marketing tools to better understand your audience, content, and hashtags to increase the chance you get more likes on Instagram. Some of these tools include Tailwind, Later, and Flick.
11). Run Instagram ad campaigns
Doubtless, Instagram is a great marketing tool, so it attracts more and more businesses that want to reach their target audience and promote products in-app. Instagram generated $32.03 billion in US ad revenue in 2025, which was 50.3% of Meta’s US total and the first time it crossed half, so it’s no wonder advertisers keep buying their way through the noise to reach potential customers.
With paid ads, you can set up your target audience and therefore reach more users who are interested in your content. Not only does it help to drive awareness of your business, but it also helps to find people who can like your content.
So, what helps you get more likes on Instagram posts? Tell us in the comment section below.
Frequently Asked Questions About Getting More Likes on Instagram
Yes. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said in January 2025 that watch time, likes and sends are the three signals that matter most for ranking, and that likes count for slightly more on connected content, meaning what Instagram shows to your existing followers. Likes are not the empty vanity metric they are often described as.
No. Meta’s Community Standards on spam prohibit buying, selling, or exchanging engagement, and the policy names likes, shares, views, and follows outright. Meta has also sued companies that sold fake engagement to Instagram users. Bought likes come from accounts that will never become customers, so they inflate the exact ratio you should be reading.f
Because that account chose to hide it. Since May 2021, everyone on Instagram has had the option to hide public like counts on their own posts, and to hide other people’s like counts across their whole feed. The setting changes what is displayed, not what Instagram records.
There is no fixed number, because the figure that matters is likes divided by reach. Mosseri named average watch time, likes per reach, and sends per reach as the three numbers to check in Insights, and all three are ratios rather than totals. A small account with a tight audience can post a better ratio than a large one.
Reshare it to your Stories and reply to every comment it received. Both actions put the post back in front of people who already follow you without asking you to create anything new, and both build on engagement the post has already earned.
In a Word
Instagram posts bombard users from all sides, so it’s no wonder that Instagrammers have become demanding in what they want to consume. At the same time, likes are a proven way to show support and appreciation if followers find Instagram posts useful.
Even though Instagram is hiding likes, they are not going anywhere as likes will still affect user engagement rates. Thus, brands should produce posts that encourage followers and visitors to like your content.
Excellent information, super useful and easy to understand.
Thank so much,
María Caro
Glad you liked it!
Thank you this is very helpful. I am not selling on Instagram. It is a fun way to chronicle some of the interesting things that I used to attend. Now I’m glad I have those photos. While in quarantine I still notice things that are a bit entertaining.