I have had multiple posts from the same account in the top 9, but it seems to only last in really low competition hashtags. From my experience IG limits you to 2 posts in the top 9 in more popular ones and it helps if one is a picture and one is a video.
Hey @jzjz Happy to hear you like it 
Interesting, I have not paid close attention to this. I remember less than a month ago, one picture was featured on the top posts on way more than just 1 hashtag. Your account may currently have limited exposure which is causing this, or Instagram rolled out a new update limiting 1 feature/account/day regardless of how many posted pictures.
If its true, that you can only get 1 post in the top 9, then maybe post 1 picture/day or 1 picture / 2 days so it remains there longer. You can also try choosing hashtags with little competition.
I just decided itās really time to focus on hashtags to see if it will improve my growth, because Iāve been having a not so great time. Iāve been pretty lazy and just using a combination of stuff from multiple sources and it probably hasnāt helped much.
Starting tomorrow my #% will be:
50% <100k
25% <200k
25% <300k
Iāve got around 1700 followers with about 250-300 likes per photo in a 24 hour window, on averageā¦ so weāll see how that works out.
1 Like
Sounds like you got a plan! Best of luck!
1 Like
Just want to jump in here. I am testing out the hashtag strategy as well. My acc only has 6k followers. So what I have been doing is:
I take a high competition hashtag which I would have used in the past
Go to Websta.me, type in that hashtag and it will give you all the lower competition hashtags (I only choose hashtags between 1K - 14K)
I then use these
I did decide to go with very low competition hashtags (mostly 1K - 14K), But I dont use all low competition hashtags. I think when I do this I will get even better results.
Using this method I found that my posts are getting into the feature section.
At the moment I am doing a massive unfollowing (so I am only getting 400 likes per image on average), but usually with this method I get 500+ likes per image and good engagement.
Happy to hear the advice that was shared was crystal clear! I always strive to share information in a way that anyone can understand. Thanks for confirming that 
FANTASTIC! Thats great to know you had a big difference to your engagement and likes.
I just setup the automatic follow/un-follow settings and let MP deal with the rest. Your follows and un-follows will be more random, and therefor making your account look more natural. If you are setting up automatic follow/un-follow then you need to enable it in both the Follow tab and the Un-Follow tab.
2 Likes
Thanks for this! Am about to send support an email on how exactly to set this up! 
1 Like
Thanks Brandon for the insight
1 Like
Initial results from one post so far using entirely different hashtags: lower likes and engagement 
Could just be a fluke, probably didnāt choose the best hashtags, but Iāll have to see how the second half of this 24 hour cycle goes.
Comparing the current lowest featured post by likes, it was a good 100 over mine, so Iām not going to hit the featured section unless I rope in more. Guess I have to start finding some with lower like counts, which is damn hard for the under 100k hashtag category. That or an ā¦ āengagement groupā 
Hashtag strategies take time.
you should do it for 2-3 weeks and only then analyze the results you got.
its not that the first time you post you should get to top 9 of any #
Itās like SEO stuff, IG Will take into consideration a lot of variable to decide what posts will get the glory.
Such as Engagement rate, how old the account, number of followers etcā¦
1 Like
Interesting thought, I guess the algorithm for discovery canāt purely be based on like numbers because it would definitely rotate the featured photos faster. Thereās potentially no way out of 100,000 pictures that only 9 of them are liked between 300 and 1000 times across all of Instagram.
So yeah, I mean, thereās definitely more to itā¦ I think your theory is accurate, wish we knew what made the biggest difference beyond using the same ones, over and over.
Perfect reply. This was exactly what I was going to say.
3 Likes
This is what Instagram looks for in order to feature your picture in the top posts:
-
Steady increase in daily followers
-
Steady increase in daily likes / views
-
Steady increase in daily comments
-
Uniqueness in hashtags
Rotating hashtags will acheive this -
Steady amount of likes from specific hashtags
You will notice your picture will rarely (if ever) get featured under un-related hashtags when used in your caption. This is because Instagram will only feature your picture under specific hashtags that resulted in your picture gaining more likes. This helps keep the top posts relate to the specific hashtag
Instagram used to rank just based on likes, but to many people just purchased likes to get their pictures featured. Now they make it harder to manipulate.
2 Likes
News from the Instagram team about the hashtag issue (guess itās about the so called shadow-ban, that actually is an algorithm issue).
They basically admit thereās a problem they are trying to fix. They say you should develop a strategy with no hashtags (I do not understand how to be found by new users without the use of hashtags). And ultimately they say " At the moment, we donāt have the available resources to fix the hashtag issue. We really appreciate your understanding and patience in this matter. "
Interesting how a billion dollar company says it doesnāt have the resources to fix a major problem.
At least they spoke publicly about it, after months of user reports asking to fix the issueā¦
6 Likes
Facebook is too focused on the failings of Oculus, and busy covering up the fake news algorithm to put their Instagram team to work as they probably shifted all the resources to the former.
4 Likes
it would be an interessting strategy to test ! now i have another view on hashtags utility
1 Like
There is an Hashtag Problem
http://mpsocial.com/t/instagram-admitting-there-is-an-hashtag-issue/6780
Thanks for sharing this!
Its true, there is no ethical way of gaining followers other than to use hashtags.
There are other methods such as following/unfollowing however they obviously do not like users who follow thousands each day (they will ban you), so how the hell are we to grow our accounts then!
I think they are wanting to (non-directly) force business to pay for IG advertising since they are unable to promote them self using any ethical way.
They can easily fix this problem if they chose to, however they are making a killing when selling advertising, so there is no motivation for them to fix it.
3 Likes
Just wanted to give an update here on using the hashtag strategy of @BrandonBerner. I am not sure how/if the hashtag issue atm is affecting my posts but here are the results from the last 2 days. Just to give some background into my IG acc has 6.5k followers. I was too lazy to do the hashtag research myself but Mr Berner did an awesome job!
I have used this hashtag strategy as outlined in the post, put them into dynamic hashtags and |COMMENT|. My last 2 posts on IG. Here are the stats from one of the posts:
19 - Top post
11 - Top 9 posts
1 - not top 9/top
2 Likes
I am so happy to hear the hashtags I provided are getting your pictures featured under the Top Post section under lots of the hashtags.
It was a pleasure to do business with you @Mojo 
1 Like