Always Wanted To Know How To Go Viral On Instagram?

Our best friends at Shopify (who do not know us at all, like one little bit) have released a post that tells you everything about how to go viral on Instagram.

First up, the typical stats and figures of why Instagram is important:

1. Massive User Base
Instagram has over 2 billion active users, making it a hotspot for reaching a diverse audience. This platform is ideal for businesses in niches like fashion, food, travel, and fitness.

2. Visual Storytelling Platform
Instagram is built for visual content, which is essential for engaging customers. Small businesses in creative industries like photography, art, interior design, and event planning can thrive by showcasing their work.

3. Higher Engagement Rates
Instagram posts have 4x higher engagement rates than Facebook. This makes it ideal for personal brands, fitness coaches, and beauty influencers to connect with their audience authentically.

4. Cost-Effective Advertising
With its affordable ad options, small businesses can run targeted campaigns to specific demographics, interests, and locations. This is particularly useful for e-commerce stores, local cafes, and wellness brands.

5. Great for Product Discovery
70% of shoppers use Instagram to discover new products. Businesses selling handmade goods, fashion accessories, or beauty products can attract new customers organically or via ads.

6. Showcasing Social Proof
User-generated content, reviews, and testimonials posted by customers build trust. Industries like hospitality, skincare, and tech gadgets can use this strategy to enhance credibility.

7. Built-In Shopping Features
Instagram’s Shop tab allows businesses to tag products in posts and stories. Ideal for small retailers, fashion boutiques, and DIY creators to drive direct sales.

8. Reels Drive Reach
Short-form videos like Reels can reach millions. Small businesses in niches like dance studios, fitness coaching, and culinary arts can demonstrate skills, recipes, or services effectively.

9. Local SEO Benefits
Instagram helps with local visibility through hashtags and geotags. Small local businesses, like restaurants, salons, and real estate agents, can use location-specific tags to attract nearby customers.

10. Access to Analytics
Instagram provides insights into post performance, audience demographics, and engagement metrics. This is especially valuable for niches like education, personal development, and consulting to fine-tune strategies.

Shopify states that to go viral on Instagram you need...

Clearly we are not going to tell you everything that they wrote, but we are going to state some of the tips and add our own spin on it. :)

But you have to remember though, viral can be good or bad. You can go viral for having/ doing/ seeing something pretty cool. Or you do exactly the same but it is being spread for being bad. Social media, whilst awesome, can spread negative as well as positive. So be aware of what you actually want to go viral.

Also, viral is a very often used. It is also quite rare regardless of what people tell you. In our mind, getting something to spread organically to 1k-10k+ is considered viral, anything more is a complete bonus. Because you will find that if you have more content then that will lift with the virility of the viral post. This in turn brings more eyes onto your content. Which creates more eyes upon content.

But if a post gets 500 shares then that still is a win. And online- where the playing field is very level, 500 shares is awesome.

Tips and tricks of Insta

1. Just because you have some success in your own country, doesn't mean that it won't be a success somewhere else. A very side example is the influential music group Depeche Mode. Never a number one single in the UK (their birth place) but number 1 singles in Germany, Spain, Italy...

2. Help out an influencer with a similar audience. Don't ask for their audience, help the influencer. You will have a better bet with micro ones first then you can build up. Find ones with the same audience type as you will get better resonance

3. Don't forget trends. If you see "react" videos increasing in demand then make your own- even react to the react videos. This also goes into the main idea that you need to have "shareable content". If it is helpful and useful/ fun/ engaging or direct then the sharer won't be worries to actually share

4- Interact with your audience. This is a big one and rarely gets done- because people are chasing the dollars and forget who got them those dollars in the first place. Reward subscribers, promote that people should like/ comment/ share for XY or Z. Reply to comments and DMs to increase engagement. Use polls, Q&A, and quizzes in Stories to interact with followers. Ask open-ended questions in captions to encourage comments. Your audience is very important.

5- If you have a blog, Facebook then why not cross promote? You have free audience from those entities and people might want to choose Insta over those platforms- now you can give them that chance.

6- When to post. Reels are prioritized in Instagram’s algorithm for discovery. Create short, engaging, and relatable videos (15–60 seconds). Use trending music, sound effects, and challenges to boost visibility. Then use Instagram Insights to find when your audience is most active. You then schedule posts to match peak engagement times.

How to go viral on Instagram doesn't seem all that bad or hard does it?

You will notice that everything is geared towards audience. They are that important. Aim to gain audience.

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