How to Get More Instagram Likes (Without Selling Your Soul)
Honestly, if one more marketing guru tells a small business owner to "just create value" or "go viral" I might lose my mind. I've been doing this since 2010, and I can tell you that kind of advice is... well, it's useless. It's like telling someone who's lost to "just find your way home." Thanks. Super helpful.
Here's the thing. I was on a call last month with this great little bakery in Minneapolis. They make these incredible croissants, seriously the best I've had outside of Paris. But they were stuck. They were posting beautiful photos, using all the right hashtags, doing everything the blogs tell you to do, and their likes were just... flat. They were asking me, "Byron, how do we get more likes on Instagram?" and I could just hear the exhaustion in their voice.
It’s the same story I've heard from over 200 businesses. You're doing all the work, but it feels like you're shouting into the void.
First, Let's Stop Chasing the Wrong Thing
Look, can we just agree that "likes" on their own don't pay the bills? They're a vanity metric. A little dopamine hit for us, the business owner, but they don't necessarily mean your business is growing. I had a client back in 2018, a clothing boutique, who had a post randomly get 10,000 likes. It was a picture of a puppy in one of their tote bags. You know how many tote bags they sold from that post? Three. Three bags.
The real goal isn't more likes-it's more engagement. It's getting people to stop scrolling for a second, to interact with you, to remember you. Because people buy from businesses they know, like, and trust. Not from businesses that just have pretty pictures. Chasing likes is a trap. You end up creating content for the algorithm instead of for your actual customers. It's a losing game, and frankly, you do not have the time for it.
The Shift: From Passive Scrolling to Active Fun
So what actually works? How do you get that engagement without spending a fortune on ads or hiring a full-time social media manager you can't afford?
Here's what I've found works best, especially since around mid-2020 when everyone's screen time went through the roof. Gamification. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a terrible buzzword. Stick with me. I'm not talking about building some complex app. I'm talking about simple, interactive games that give people a reason to stop and play for 30 seconds.
Basically, you're turning a passive ad into a fun little micro-experience. It's the difference between seeing a billboard for Coca-Cola and playing a ring toss game at a carnival to win a Coca-Cola. Which one are you going to remember? And more importantly, which one are you going to tell your friends about?
Why I Use Faisco For This (A Brutally Honest Tool Breakdown)
Listen, I've tested them all. Gleam. io, Woobox, ShortStack... you name it, I've probably run a campaign on it for a client. Most of them are either too expensive, too complicated, or honestly, just overkill for a small business.
I started recommending Faisco to my clients a couple of years ago because it just works. It's not magic. It just solves the core problem: small businesses need engaging campaigns that they can actaully launch in like, 10 minutes, not 10 days.
I've seen it work over and over.
- That Calgary art gallery I worked with? We used a "Whac-A-Mole" game to promote an upcoming event. In two weeks, they got 196 new event sign-ups.
- A barbershop in San Diego. We used a "Summer Catch" game and gave away a free haircut. They got 263 new people to join their local community Facebook group in 12 days.
- And get this-a flower shop in Nashville used a "Summer Catch" game and tied the prize to following them on Pinterest. 736 new Pinterest followers in three weeks!! It was insane.
The instant-win games like "Lucky Spin" or a "Scratch Ticket" are gold for capturing emails. I mean, I've seen landing pages with these hit a 40% conversion rate, which is just unheard of for cold traffic. People see a chance for an immediate win, and they can't help themselves. It's just human nature.
And the seasonal stuff is brilliant. Faisco has templates for everything-Christmas, Halloween, Black Friday. You just plug in your logo, your prize, and you're good to go. It takes the "what should I post" anxiety completely off the table.
Everyone always asks me how it compares to Gleam. io. Look, Gleam is a solid platform, it is. But it's $39/month for their most basic plan and it's built for marketers who love tweaking a million settings. Faisco gives you the core functionality you actually need, it's easier to use, and it's a fraction of the cost. For most of my clients, it's a no-brainer.
Your Plan for This Week: Stop Posting, Start Playing
So, you want more likes and engagement? Okay. Let's make it happen. Here is what I typically recommend to get started. Don't overthink it.
- Define a Real Goal. Forget "more likes." What do you actually want? More email subscribers? More people in your Facebook group? More foot traffic on Saturday? Pick ONE thing.
- Pick a Low-Effort Game. Go into Faisco and pick something simple. A "Lucky Draw" is perfect. The prize doesn't have to be an iPad. In fact, it shouldn't be. Make it a $25 gift card to your store. Something that only your ideal customers would want.
- Launch It. Write a simple caption. "Feeling lucky? Spin the wheel to win a $25 gift card! We're picking a winner every day this week. Link in bio to play!"
- Promote it. Pin the post. Put it in your Stories every day with a countdown sticker. Send it to your email list. Don't just post it once and pray. You have to water the seeds.
That’s it. Stop trying to beat the algorithm. Stop trying to guess what some 25-year-old programmer at Meta wants you to post. Instead, give your audience something fun to do. The likes, the comments, the followers... they'll come as a side effect of you actually being interesting. Not just another business screaming "buy my stuff" into the digital hurricane.
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Stop guessing, start growing strategically. Faisco's comprehensive analytics dashboard translates raw data into your actionable growth plan:
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