How to get on Instagram Popular Page

I am addicted to Instagram. It is so fun. I love taking photos, and Instagram is perfect as it lets me share the precious memories with my readers and friends. For those of you who have been living in a cave, Instagram is a free photo-sharing program and social network. It allows users to take a photo, apply a filter, and share it with other Instagram users.

If you are on Instagram, I am sure you would have noticed the ‘Popular’ feed. To put it simply, Instagram’s popular page is where you can see the “most popular photos” by its 80 million registered users worldwide. Note: the key is worldwide. When your photo gets onto popular page, everyone around the world who is using Instagram will be able to see it, like it, and follow you. Which explains why getting on popular page is the fastest way to get more Instagram followers.

Instagram uses a special formula to determine which photos make it to the Popular feed – in short, nobody really knows the exact way to become popular on Instagram. For the past month, I’ve been getting onto Instagram’s Popular Page at least once a day, and from there, I’ve observed certain patterns.

Below, I will share some tips on How to get on Instagram’s Popular Page.

Take good photos. Duh.

Instagram, is first and foremost, a photo-sharing social network. You need to be able to take a decent photo – one that is at least not blurry. Also, you should learn how to match filters with different photos. For example, I like ‘walden’ as it gives a very dreamy look, while other filters like ‘amaro’ and ‘rise’ are good for food, and I find that ‘Lo-fi’ is more for landscape shots.

The 10% rule.

“The goal of the formula is to surface the most recently interesting photos based on a variety of variables. We do not simply count likes. It takes into account much more than that to make sure new people with fewer followers also have the chance of being discovered.”

This is the official statement from Instagram on ‘How the Popular page works’. To be honest, I think this is bullshit. It is highly unlikely that someone with 100 followers will be able to get onto Instagram’s popular page (as compared to another person who has 10k followers). Let’s face it: the reality is we are living in an unfair world, and it helps if you have a substantial following to begin with. However, it does not necessarily guarantee that you will be able to get onto popular page.

From what I’ve observed, you need at least 10% (note: this is just a rough estimate, nobody knows the exact number) of your followers to ‘like’ your photo in the first hour. That means to say if you have 10k followers, you need to have 1k ‘likes’. The first hour is crucial. Once you have passed it, there’s no way for you to get onto popular page.

Everyone loves pretty things.

If you look at Instagram’s popular page, you can see that there are mainly six genres that always appear on the feed: food, travel, good-looking people, pretty things, fashion, and inspiring things. What I want to say is: find your niche, take pretty photos, and people will ‘like’ your photos.

It helps if you are based in certain countries that have many Instagram users.

For instance, I’ve noticed that Philippines and Thailand have many Instagram users, so it’s not surprising to see that there are many Instagram celebrity users – people who are not real celebrities, but have gained a huge following on the social media platform – from the two countries.

Know what your audience wants.

Everyone has different backgrounds. If people follow you because they like your #OOTD (outfit of the day) shots, continue to share more photos of your style. For gluttons like me who post a lot of travel and food photos, people naturally, ‘like’ more of those photos. It is not that difficult to know what people like, you just need to observe. That said, don’t be obsessed with getting onto Popular page just so that you can get more followers. Do what you love, and people will love what you do.

If you like my guide to instagram popular page, please share it with your friends via twitter and facebook. I will also be writing a series – proper rules of Instagram, how brands can make use of Instagram, how you can get more followers on Instagram, how to take better photos on Instagram etc – in the coming weeks.

And by the way, remember to follow me on Instagram: @ladyironchef.