8 Tips to Go Viral on Instagram

How many times a day do you come across an Instagram post that begs, “Let’s make this go viral”? Do you stop scrolling and share these posts with your followers? If you do, do you include the request for the content to go viral?

Chances are, you don’t look at these posts twice before moving on. Going viral on social media, including Instagram, isn’t something you can plan or ask for.

Viral marketing relies solely on an online audience’s instant response to a message. When social media users rapidly share it, viral marketing is successful.

If you want a post to go viral on Instagram, you have no guarantee that your efforts will pay off.

The best thing to do is follow these practical tips to increase your chances of going viral and getting over 100,000 views per post.

1. Use Surveys To Establish What Your Audience Wants

You can use audience surveys or polls to determine what your followers want to see on Instagram.

The results can even tell you what your competitors’ audiences are interested in, giving you an advantage.

You can also study your and your competitors’ analytics to discover which posts receive the highest engagement.

2. Recreate, Don’t Duplicate

If you discover that your competitors have the upper hand in viral videos with funny background music, you should find a way to recreate this type of content.

Don’t duplicate any of the existing content. Instead, try to put a fresh spin on the concept.

If your videos don’t have the same viral effect, you can try to recreate trends going viral on other social media platforms.

For instance, say there’s a straightforward book reviewer on Facebook racking up thousands of views per hour.

If you love books, you could add your own twist to the book-reviewing concept on Instagram. However, you should not review the same books or use the same format as the Facebook reviewer.

3. Keep An Eye Out For New Trends

On social media, there are new trends almost every week. However, trends usually don’t last long, so if a new one pops up during any given week, don’t hesitate to use it.

When Instagram introduced reels, the concept quickly went viral because it was already so popular on TikTok.

It doesn’t matter where you find the next trend; it only matters how you implement it on Instagram.

4. Find Your Voice

It’s no secret that Instagram followers love authentic voices and personalities. The more you show your followers who you are, the easier it is for them to share your content. Doing this means sharing your highs and lows as you navigate your way to success.

Many brands find their posts going viral when they share information that evokes a strong emotional response. If you can elicit the same emotion in your audience, you have a much higher chance of creating a viral post.

No one will share boring posts, so your content should be emotional or humorous. Add unique captions to brilliant posts, and you are on the road to viral success.

5. Call In Reinforcements

Going viral means a lot of eyes are on your content. If you’ve tried all the recommended methods for your posts to go viral without success, it’s time to call in reinforcements.

Find an influencer or two who share your niche and ask to partner with them. Influencers come with their own audiences. If you start co-creating content with them, you will instantly have more people looking at your posts.

Your audience will also perk up at the news that an influencer is endorsing your brand, which helps build credibility.

6. Create Valuable Content

Viral content isn’t only about creating a laugh-a-minute video or making people cry. Viral social media posts can do wonders for your brand, so the information you’re putting out there should always be valuable, if not educational.

If your niche is in the wellness industry, you can share a funny moment with an unexpected lesson at the end. Or you can highlight a risky situation in which a lesser-known skill helps avert danger.

Valuable content is often shared in reel or carousel form to encourage interaction and sharing.

7. Know When Your Audience Is Online

Many posts often go viral for no apparent reason. However, this luck cannot befall you if you post your content when your audience is sleeping or at work.

Use a good analytics tool to study engagement behavior so you can post at the most optimal times. These times may include the early morning or late afternoon.

The easiest way to post content on time is to use an automatic scheduler.

You probably won’t get it right on your first go, but the more you study time zones, interests, and locations provided by Instagram analytics, the easier it gets to post content at the perfect times.

8. SEO Can Make A Huge Difference

Just like no one can share your content while sleeping, they also cannot share something they don’t know about.

Your content has to be highly discoverable if you want it to go viral. The best way to make your content visible is to use SEO tactics for your captions and to include SEO keywords in your bio.

When you use relevant hashtags and keywords for every post, your engagement rate will increase as more people come across your content.

When your engagement rate increases, your content becomes visible to more people. The increased visibility makes it easier for one or more of your posts to go viral.

Conclusion

It’s not easy to create a viral social media post. If it were, everyone would be doing it. When you implement the tips mentioned above, it will be easier to create shareable content.

Once you’ve established the times when your audience is most active, you should consistently post during those times.

When you have your content schedule down, you should also engage more with your audience. Engaging with followers will motivate them to like more of your posts and could help you in your quest to go viral.

Don’t let the 100,000-view benchmark scare you. If you keep posting authentic, valuable content, you may soon exceed that number on Instagram.