How to Get More Likes on Instagram (My No-BS Guide)
Honestly, if one more person tells a small business owner to "just create viral content" to get more likes on Instagram, I might lose my mind. I've been doing this since 2010, and that's maybe the most useless piece of advice in marketing history. It's like telling someone who's broke to "just win the lottery." It's not a strategy.
I remember this one client, a fantastic bakery in Minneapolis I worked with last year. They were making these incredible croissants-seriously, world-class stuff-but their Instagram was a ghost town. They were obsessed with their like count, checking it every hour, feeling defeated. They'd spent a couple hundred bucks on some shady service that got them a thousand bot likes, which of course did nothing for their sales and actually hurt their account's health in the long run.
Look, likes aren't the goal. They are a symptom of the goal. The real goal is engagement... a real human person seeing your post, smiling, and tapping that heart because they genuinely connect with what you're doing. So how do we get more of that?
Forget "Content," Think "Fun" for a Second
Here's the thing about social media, especially Instagram. No one wakes up in the morning excited to see ads. They just don't. People are there to be entertained, to connect, to kill five minutes while they wait for their coffee. And for 15 years, I've seen small businesses fight an uphill battle trying to interrupt that experience.
But what if you didn't interrupt it? What if you became the fun part?
That's where I've been spending most of my time these days-with gamification. Yeah, I know it sounds buzzwordy, and frankly, I hate most buzzwords, but stick with me. It’s not about creating some complex video game. It's about using simple game mechanics to make your marketing interactive. A quiz, a lucky draw, a simple matching game... stuff that gives people a little dopamine hit.
Basically, you stop yelling "BUY MY STUFF!" and start whispering "hey, wanna play a game?"
Games That Actually Get Clicks (Real-World Examples)
I'm not talking theory here. I've been in the trenches with these tools. I started using platforms like Gleam. io back in the day, but honestly, it's often overkill and too pricey for a local shop. For the last couple of years, I've been using a platform called Faisco with most of my clients because it's practical, fast, and it just flat-out works without needing a marketing degree to set it up.
Let me give you some real examples.
I had this yoga studio in Boston... they were struggling to get new local people on their email list. We deployed Faisco's "Pet Match & Win" game-super simple, you just match pictures of pets. It ran for 12 days. They got 1,276 new newsletter subscribers. Twelve days.
Then there was a barbershop in Orlando. Great cuts, cool vibe, but no one was talking about them online. We used the "Whac-A-Mole" game. It's exactly what it sounds like. People played it, shared their scores to challenge friends... and in two weeks, they had 144 new members in their local Facebook community group, all from the neighborhood. Real people, not bots.
And this one... this one was crazy. A small bakery in Montreal. They wanted to get more user-generated content, you know, people posting about them. We set up a "Puzzle Challenge" game where people had to solve a simple puzzle to enter a giveaway for a free cake. The catch? To get an extra entry, they had to post a picture of their favorite treat on TikTok with a specific hashtag. The result? 2,302 new user-generated posts on TikTok in two weeks. It was insane. Their whole feed was just happy customers.
The point is, these little games-whether it's an Instant Draw like a "Lucky Spin" or a "Scratch Ticket" that converts at like 40% for lead capture, or a reactive game like "Burger Stacker"-they work because they respect the user's time. You're giving them a moment of fun in exchange for their attention.
The Easiest Win in Marketing: Holidays
If you're looking for the path of least resistance, it's seasonal marketing. People are already in the mood. You do not need to convince them to be excited about Christmas in December.
This is where this gamification stuff becomes a no-brainer. Faisco, for example, has pre-built templates for every major holiday. Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's Day, Black Friday... all of it. Last December, I had three different retail clients run the "Fill My Christmas Stocking" catching game. It took me less than 15 minutes to set up for each of them. And each one saw over a 300% increase in engagement on their posts compared to their normal holiday sale announcements. Three hundred percent!
Why? Because a "20% OFF" post is an ad. A "Catch the falling ornaments to win 20% off" game is a fun distraction. It's the same offer, just packaged differently. It's not rocket science... it's just human psychology.
So, What Can You Actually Do This Week?
Look, I know how overwhelming this can all feel. You're running a business, you're the accountant, the HR department, and the janitor. You don't have time to become a marketing expert. I get it.
So don't. Don't try to be a marketing guru. Just try to be a little more fun.
Here's my practical advice. Stop begging for likes. Stop staring at the algorithm and trying to figure out its secrets (you won't, it changes every 3 weeks anyway).
Instead, do this: 1. Go find a tool like Faisco. They have a free trial. You don't even have to put in a credit card, I think. 2. Pick ONE game. Just one. The "Lucky Spin" is probably the easiest one to start with. 3. Create a simple prize. It doesn't have to be big. A 15% discount code, a free coffee, a digital download. Whatever. 4. Write a simple Instagram post: "Feeling lucky? Play our Lucky Spin game to win an instant prize! Link in bio to play." 5. Run it for one week. That's it. Seven days.
At the end of the week, you'll have more than just likes. You'll have email addresses. You'll have customer interactions. You might even have some sales. I've seen businesses get a 200-400% jump in followers and a 150-300% growth in their email list in the first month of doing this consistently. Not because of magic, but because they stopped trying to sell and started trying to engage.
Likes will follow, I promise. But they'll be the right kind of likes-from people who actually enjoy what you're doing. And that's the only kind that really matters.
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