I've used Instagram for a while and I love the community for the most part. I connect with a lot of people and it's great. My page has been "growing" I'd say 100 followers every two months but my likes have been dying lol.

And I can't help but notice that other people I know on Instagram have had their likes explode. People who usually average 80 likes getting 1800 randomly or 300 or 700. Meanwhile I average 120 regularly and have only had random bursts to 300 or 400 twice. And recently, the followers seem to go up and the likes go down.

I do IG mostly to connect and post pics, meeting my goal of always wanting to be a car spotter lol. I try to convince myself that likes don't matter, but when you post at a hot hour of the day and get 2 likes for 10 minutes, it's hard not to feel a little bit annoyed. I'm okay with my 120 avg but lately its been testing me. Some stuff isn't coming near as close and take forever to reach 70. It hasn't been like this before. And to see people have the opposite result, makes me wonder of I'm doing something wrong. Doesn't help when I notice some people I follow have unfollowed. Probably one of my biggest pet peeves because you actually have to go to my account to hit the unfollow button and it's just like, really?

Use tags
They are very useful for get more likes

I have been stuck at around 1,500 followers for over 6 months. I've never gotten over 300 likes and I post daily. How the heck do you get 300-400 likes? I try different hashtags weekly. instagram: @ethanmckinleyphoto

You basically have to post a very "hot" car at the right time it seems, but not sure.

Back when everybody found out San Antonio had a Centenario, I posted it the day I saw it and ended up with 430. The Performante from November was posted last month and it got to 270. The Aventador S I randomly spotted got to 260. And sometimes it's random, my RS7 Performance Akrapovic exhaust pic randomly became my second most liked picture ever at 300 and something. The following full car picture (also my first use of swipe feature) got 200. My future posts were back to being 120.

All of those posts were done exactly the same way I do my other posts so I couldn't tell you. I use max hashtags, max tags of generic big car pages that show who tags them, and post in the evening on weekdays and afternoon on weekends.

1800 likes randomly for someone who averages 100? I'm like how tf does that happen lol!?

I think I average around 90-120 likes typically, but every once in a while I'll post a car where I get substantially more likes (I've gotten between 500-800 on a few shots). But, with those shots, a few characteristics seem to cause it: shot quality, how big the car is pictured in the image, and the type of car. For example, a somewhat recent post of a Martini 918 Spyder (a 'hot' hypercar) was a decent shot, and the car used the space of nearly the whole image. Total likes? 703

But, shot quality doesn't always matter. One of the best shots I've ever taken (this one) only got 95 likes on IG. So, while it's a great shot, the car is hardly comprising a quarter of the image's space, and it's "just" a 570S. So, perhaps the two main factors are the car that's pictured, and how much space does the car use within the image.

But, then again, I posted a C7 Z06 recently (not a very rare car at all) that got 330 likes, so maybe the only factor is how large the car is within the shot. Not sure, but these are my thoughts.

IG: @waddle_spots

It's literally following your followers activity really. I upgraded to the business account which shows you the best times to upload (based on when your followers are active). It's also the tags you use. I upload whenever I can as im full-time working. But 7pm-9pm is the best times to upload normally, plus uploading once a day to once every other day worked for me too. I get an average of about 200 per post :) It's very hard to post something everyone likes, so the last two uploads have been below 200 and a couple before was nearly 400 :) I interact with literally everyone too, that has helped a great deal!!

Instagram: @RandomHeroSpotting

My Instagram:

@dan.carphotography

https://www.instagram.com/dan.carphotography/

LOL reviving my old thread made me realize how much my attitude has changed... for the worst. Instagram has been complete and utter cr*p lately. Let me start out with a comparison first:

- back in March 2016 I had between 500 and 700 followers. I posted unoriginal point and shoot shots that went through brief editing via a cheap app on my phone. Guess how many likes I averaged then? 150-170.
- TWO YEARS LATER, I have 1350 followers, spot far more interesting content, try new angles with much better gear and edit on Lightroom with a new tone curve I did to add the kind of depth you see on more experienced photography pages. When I went through the work of redoing my style yet again and gathering up content, I was hesitant to post but was like, if it's anything like last year I'll be okay. So I finally post and... I can barely get above 100. Some posts barely got above 90. I quickly stopped posting. I used live updates via stories with pictures included, told people when I would be posting, used the appropriate tags and hashtags AND locations and nothing works.
- At least last year I averaged AT LEAST what I averaged in 2016 (150-170 with the greater posts getting 200 and above).

I don't know WHAT the **** happened. All I know is this algorithm, that they claim to be fixing yet haven't followed up on, is pure garbage. I've stopped posting. I've used this app since 2013, it's never been more faulty with posting than now...

...As if likes alone wasn't a problem, more bots keep following then unfollowing. People I mutually follow unfollow me, I guess because they "don't know who I am" or aren't seeing any of my content. They're still block-worthy to me. Story posts are now low-res so I can't post wallpaper worthy material because it looks cr*p now. Certain things won't work sometimes like location tagging. It's becoming a faulty app. And some of these problems only a few people relate on while others are like "I don't notice anything" which sucks because I bet to some people I then look/sound crazy.

If you have a big page, good luck to you. You can post anything and get 500-1000 likes even a blank white post. If you have a small page, lol gtfo. That's basically what Instagram is doing and I want no part of it if this is their agenda. What is the point of posting if only a small fraction of my followers actually see it, and nobody who doesn't follow me sees it no matter what I do?

At this point I do photography because I love cars and design and photography combined and it's a hobby. Sadly, I'm realizing that sharing it isn't worth it. Autogespot is run by morons who are against new people, Instagram is a popularity game that now makes it hard for small pages, Flickr is dead, and this place is dead. There's nowhere else to go.

Any chance you're good at programming? Maybe you could start your own site.

Sounds like something that would be interesting to learn. Currently I have no experience though.

My new IG name is dv.carphotography - https://www.instagram.com/dv.carphotography/?hl=en

I changed the name because I shared the account with my friend, who is new to car spotting. You can probably tell when I post and when he posts because he still is learning the basics.