You may have reached 5000 followers or even 50k on Instagram, but if you’re not getting views, does it even matter? Creators need to offer content that their audience appreciates, and we’re going to outline how to get 1000 likes on Instagram using proven strategies.
And if you’re not willing to put the time and effort into all but one of them, you won’t be successful.
We want to be 100% honest:
- You’ll need to work hard to get 1k views.
- All of these strategies take time.
If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work, let’s start with a simple step that you can follow to be successful.
12 Strategies to Get 1,000 Likes on Instagram
Below, we’re going to walk you through the steps that everyone with fewer than 1000 likes on Instagram should follow:
1. Buy Instagram Likes
What’s the easiest way to get 1K likes on Instagram? Buy them! Influencers, celebrities, brands and marketers all buy likes – and other engagement. It’s a secret they don’t want people to know.
But the truth is that buying likes will give your account a boost and can kickstart your engagement. If you continue to post quality content and engage with your followers, you’ll continue to get more likes and followers naturally.
If you’re going to buy likes, make sure that you choose a reputable and trusted provider like Viralyft. We have a variety of “likes” packages, including 1K likes for Instagram. All of our engagement comes from real accounts, so you can feel confident when making your purchase.
2. Ask People to Like Your Post
Are you asking people to like your post? If not, you’re missing out on an opportunity to get more likes. You can simply:
- Ask people in the description to like the post.
- Ask people in your video to like the post.
And if the content is good, you’ll find that people are more than happy to like the posts that you share.
If you have an account with a lot of followers, this simple trick may be enough for you to get hundreds – or thousands – of additional likes.
3. Run Your Own Like-to-Win Contest
Businesses and creators with the budget can also get thousands of likes by running a like-to-win content. You’ll be asking people to like your post for a chance to win something. Let’s assume you’ll be giving away two free Taylor Swift concert tickets.
You can create a post with the rules being that you’ll choose the winner – at random – to win tickets.
We recommend that you do the following:
- Ask the people to follow you
- Ask the people to LIKE the content
- Provide clear instructions on when you’ll announce the winner
- Add hashtags, such as #competition #giveaway #win
Now, all you have to do is watch the likes start ticking up and choose a winner on the date that you mention.
If you’re an influencer, this strategy works great when you have brand partnerships. The brand will often give you free merch or items that you can offer up when running a contest.
4. Collaborate with Creators in Your Niche
We know first-hand how powerful collaborations are in every niche. In fact, we have a guide on how to collab on posts on Instagram. And if you want to use this Instagram feature, we recommend that you do a few things:
- DM the other creator and ask them if they’re down to run a collab together.
- Get consent so that you can collaborate together.
- Plan on your posts together.
Running collaboration posts is a fast way to get likes on Instagram because you’re leveraging your audience and someone else’s audience at the same time.
If you work with big brands or influencers, this simple strategy can result in a flood of new comments, likes and followers. You just want to be strategic in your approach when posting and try to remain as niche as possible.
5. Leverage Busy Location Tags
Warning: Only do this if you’re really at the location.
You never want to spam locations because it’s a quick way to lose the trust of followers. For example, if you’re a travel influencer, you might want to post while you’re in the middle of Dubai or at a major festival.
The idea is that people will view these location tags a lot, and they will help you get more views and likes.
Professionals can also use these busy location tags at places like major networking or industry events. These locations are receiving a ton of traffic that you can use to get more likes.
6. Post User-Generated Content
Here’s a tip for businesses: start posting user-generated content to get more likes. User-generated content can include:
- Testimonials from customers
- Photo reviews of your products
- Comments or suggestions from your audience
- Questions from your customers
People love content created by everyday users, and they’ll be happy to like your post.
7. Add Captions to Your Content
Captions allow you to cater to anyone with hearing issues. A massive amount of people listen to videos on mute because they’re at work, on the train or just don’t like creators who add blasting music to every Reel they make.
You can add captions using a plethora of tools, but we find this option to be the easiest:
- Create a Reel like normal and go to post it
- On the edit screen, tap the Sticker icon
- Go to Captions
Instagram will create automatic captions for you, and you can edit the text and font style however you wish.
We recommend going through the captions and editing out any of the misspellings or words that the auto generator missed.
8. Post When Your Audience is Active
If you really want to kickstart your engagement and hit that 1K likes goal, you need to post when your audience is online and active.
When is your audience online?
If you have a business Instagram account (and you should), you can view your Insights tab to see when your followers are most active. You can see the best time to post for every day of the week.
Keep in mind that your best time to post will depend on where your audience is located.
The great news is that you can schedule your posts ahead of time to ensure you’re always posting when your audience is online.
What if you don’t have any data on your Insights tab? As a general rule of thumb, the best time to post on Instagram is between 7 AM and 8 AM on weekdays. Surprisingly, weekends are the worst time to post because people are busy spending time with family and friends.
Experiment with your post timing to see which time works best for your followers. You’ll find it’s easy to get 1K likes if you follow this strategy.
9. Master Your Hashtag Usage
Despite what you may have heard, hashtags are still relevant on Instagram. They’re not as effective as they once were, but they still tell the Instagram algorithm what your content is about.
Instagram allows you to add up to 30 hashtags to a post, but remember – less is more. Don’t overdo it and use all 30 tags. We recommend adding 3- 5 hashtags that are:
- Relevant to your niche
- Popular on Instagram
You can also mix in some relevant hashtags that are less popular to reach more people. The key is to make sure that you’re using hashtags that are niche-related and make sense for your content.
10. Cross-Promote Your Posts
Are you active on other social platforms, like TikTok, X or Facebook? If so, you can cross-promote on these networks to get more views and likes to your content.
The concept is simple: when you post something on Instagram, share it on other social platforms. Make sure to direct your followers to your Instagram post, so they can like it and maybe even share your post with their own followers.
Cross-promotion expands your content’s reach and allows you to leverage your followers on multiple platforms.
Using just this strategy alone is enough to get 1K likes quickly and easily on Instagram.
11. Increase Your Post Quality with Editors
There’s so much competition on Instagram today. If your goal is to get more likes and expand your reach, you have to find a way to stand out in a sea of creators.
One way to do that is to use photo editing apps to increase the quality of your posts. There are tons of free apps that you can use to edit your photos. Many even have AI-powered features that allow you to transform your photos completely.
You can use photo editors to:
- Brighten photos
- Enhance colors
- Sharpen details
- Create a portrait effect with a blurred background
- Adjust the white balance
Editing your photos and videos will make your content look more professional. Just make sure that you’re not losing your authenticity when using these tools – especially if you’re using AI. Your followers will know if you’re overediting your photos and they may decide to stop following your account if they think you’re not being your authentic self.
12. Change Your Profile to Public
If you read a lot of our posts, we always mention how creators forget to make their profiles public. While you may not want the world to see your posts on your personal account, it is a detriment when trying to grow your account and get more likes.
Why?
If your profile is private, it:
- Stops you from hitting the Explore Page
- Requires a lot of effort for a potential follower to see your content
You can easily turn your profile public by following these steps:
Step #1: Go to your profile.
Step #2: Tap the hamburger icon > Settings and privacy.
Step #3: Navigate to Account Privacy.
Toggle “private” off, and your profile will be public. Keep in mind that anyone can now view your account and posts, so if you don’t want certain people to see your content, you will need to block them.
Summary
Getting 1K likes on Instagram is easier than you think. The key is to get your content in front of the right people. Use our guide to expand your content’s reach and improve the quality of your photos and videos. Before you know it, you’ll hit your 1K likes goal on Instagram.
