How to become “most popular” in Instagram? 
Appearing in “most populars” list it is without a doubt the most efficient way to gain rapid and massive social recognition in Instagram. It must be really exciting!
Imagine yourself receiving a congratulation message direct from Instagram´s team back in san Francisco, a message which is then followed by a rapid increase in your number of followers. I have never experienced it til today but a couple of my “Most Popular” listed Instagram friends assure me the feeling is great.
How to become a “most popular” is probably the most recurrent question you will find in comments.
I will try and resume here the best strategies in my opinion are the best to attain this objective. Of course, as always, your best tips and your IG best practices are more than welcomed.
What is the “Most Popular” Secret formula?
Like CocaCola´s secret formula, no one really knows how the “Most populars” algorithm although one important factor seems to be the amount of “likes” you get during a period of time, the more you get during the shortest period of time, the better chance you have.
We do think that receiving lots of “Like” in one minute makes allows you to enter in this valued chart.
That means the number of followers is fundamental, probably the most important criteria. Nevertheless, Ibelieve that nothing can beat genuine interest in working on your profile and of course a large amount of sympathy from your part.
As in Twitter, the simplest way to have “followers” is to follow loads of people and by “deference” a percentage of them will also add to you. Nevertheless, I repeat, the most natural way to get new followers is to do a good work, to be patient and constant.
In my opinion, the current formula is something the IG team will have to improve soon. Today the amount of users potentially “awarded” is reduced to a small circle of people having a lot of users.
That way discovering new users is impossible. And “Populars” will remain in few hands.
(add October 2011: Now Instagram Popular gives a chance to new people introducing changes in its process)
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Best practices to promote your Instagram profile.
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We posted the basics in our previous post “How to boost your Instagram profile”
1) Who you are.
Your name, your nick must be originals and easy to remember, easy to mention.
2) Your profile picture.
All the good looking girls and handsome guys have strong asset here but people like me can use tricks. Nice sun glasses, sun tanned skin on summer and use a lots of “beauty” filters!
3) Sense of humor, humility and humanity and all the elements I mentioned in the previous post.
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More Boosting effects to get in the “Most populars”…
1) In the long term, it´s the quality of your pics.
Time you spend editing, your creativity, originality…
2) The information about it.
Titles, effects used, the human touch you give to your pics.
3) Where is it?
You can use Geo-Tagging and link your account to Foursquare.
4) The knowledge you are transmitting to your users.
How to use an app. Your users will follow you with higher interest if your pictures are adding value to their lifes.
5) The interest you put in your users.
Community is important. That why the bigger your group is, the more time you will need to spend in communicating with them.
6) Use emoticons in your nicks and comments to be original and recognised.
7) Organize original contests.
That takes quite a lot of time but it´s a good method.
8. Celebrate your “hits” and thanks your followers!!! Don´t forget to congrat your followers as well.
This pic is a good example of how to celebrate a specific number of followers. When I reached 300 followers I decided to thank them it with them with a short text thanking all of them.
Remember the importance of your location and the world globalisation of ” app”
In the world there is more than one million Instagramers yet.
(add October 2011: We are now 10 million!)
There are countries that have higher acceptation and use of the app and being ranked as “most populars” is probably easier if you live in a Massive Instagram User Country” like USA or Japan.
It will not be long before Instagram creates a “most populars” ranking that takes into consideration more local factors, different thematics, different countries and regions. For the moment, this has still not happened.
Your location is as important as the time you post, just like it´s the case with Twitter.. If you want to be followed by people that are in your time zone it´s the best to post in the morning when people are waking up and consulting Instagram from their bed, having a coffee, taking the train or the subway to work, or later at night. Forget 3.00 in the morning if you want to get the “Most Populars” allthough it is a godo way to have followers from everywhere in the world.
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Patience and good photos!
The best way to have one of your photos appearing in “most popular” list is to be patient and work hard.
Patience is one of human kind´s main virtue.
Patience is also about dedication. You will have to answer, to think and to help others. A network is not only created in one shot! (except if you post sexy girls in bathing suits, you are already famous or you have a funny pet)
We will keep adding tips and information to facilitate your daily usage and activity in Instagram.
Cheers,
@philgonzalez
Sorry for my english. Really! I swear i will try to improve!
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Sent from my Iphone the 27.11.2011.
