How to get more shares on Instagram: make it sendable
ยท Ethan Parker, Editor
A post gets shared when it says something the sender would otherwise have to type. What makes a post sendable, and what quietly stops the send.
People share an Instagram post when it says something they would otherwise have had to say themselves, so the way to get more shares is to write a post a viewer can send instead of typing the thought. The exception is the useful send: a recipe, a flight deal or a scam warning is forwarded for the other person's benefit, and says nothing about the sender at all.
The button is the paper plane under the post. Tapping it opens a sheet with recent chats along the top, an Add to story row, and the phone's own share sheet behind Share to. Three actions, one icon. The count sits in Insights on the post, on the row labelled shares, and it counts actions rather than people.
Why does anyone send a post to someone else?
Almost every send is a small act of speaking. One person is telling another person something, and the post does the talking. That is why a post which states a thought cleanly gets sent more often than a post that is merely good: it saves the sender the work of writing the thought down.
The post has to carry what the sender means. That is usually one of four things.
- This is us. The post describes a shared situation, and sending it says you two are both in it.
- This is you. The post fits one person the sender has in mind, and the send is a nudge.
- This is what I think. The post argues something the sender agrees with, and forwarding it is easier than arguing it themselves.
- Look at this. Pure reaction. Funny, strange or beautiful. The sender wants to watch someone else react.
Some posts get sent for the other person, not for the sender
This is the carve-out, and it is a large one. Nobody forwards a set of oven timings to express themselves. They forward it because a specific person needs it. The sender is doing a favour, not making a statement.
The two kinds are earned in opposite ways. An identity post wins by being sharply worded and easy to recognise. A useful post wins by being complete: if the person receiving it has to ask a follow-up question, the sender looks like they wasted somebody's time.
So decide which one you are making before you write it. Trying to do both usually produces a post that is neither quotable nor complete.
Which kind of share are you actually trying to get?
The word share covers at least four separate actions, and they are not interchangeable. What are shares on Instagram pulls them apart properly. The short version matters here, because each one is earned differently.
- The DM send. One person to one person, completely private. This is the bulk of your share count.
- Add to story. Public, and it puts your post in front of the sender's own audience with their name on it. Rarer, because it costs them more.
- The repost. Your post lands on their profile. Rarest of the four, because it sits close to publishing.
- The external share sheet. A copied link sent outside the app. Real, but you will never see where it went.
Aim at the DM send. It is the cheapest action for the viewer, and the other three tend to follow from the same qualities.
What do the posts that get sent have in common?
Four properties show up in the posts that travel. None of them is about the algorithm.
1. It finishes the thought
A post that ends on a tease cannot be sent. The sender would have to add the explanation, which defeats the point. Say the whole thing inside the post, including the part you were holding back for the comments.
2. It names a group
The most forwarded posts are specific about who they are about. People who share a flat with a musician. Nurses on night shifts. The narrower the group, the more strongly a member feels seen, and feeling seen turns a read into a send.
3. It survives the trip
A sent post arrives in somebody's messages without your caption, often while they are half busy. If the point lives on slide seven, the person receiving it will not get there. Put the whole idea where it can be taken in within two seconds.
4. It gives the sender cover
Plenty of things are awkward to say directly. A post says them for you. One that lets somebody raise a subject they would not raise alone gets sent more than a better written post that does not.
What quietly stops a post from being sent?
- The point is in the caption. A sent post is opened inside a chat window and judged on the image, or the first two seconds.
- It needs your account to make sense. An in-joke your regulars follow is unsendable by definition, because the person receiving it is not a regular.
- It is about you rather than them. Announcements, milestones and thank-you posts are worth making and almost never worth forwarding.
- The ending asks for something. A request for a comment or a follow turns the post into an advertisement, and nobody forwards an advertisement to a friend.
Does asking for shares work?
Less well than asking for saves, and asking for saves is already weak. A save is a decision a reader makes alone. A send needs a person on the other end, so the instruction has two jobs: convince the reader, and make them think of somebody.
That is why the version that does anything is not send this to a friend, but the one that does the searching for them: send this to whoever keeps leaving the tap running. Even then it only recovers sends you had already earned.
How do you know which posts got shared?
Open the post, tap View insights, and read the shares row. That number counts share actions, not people, and never tells you who sent anything or where it went. How Instagram counts shares sets out what does and does not increment it.
Two warnings. The number keeps moving for a day or two after posting, so a same-day reading is not final. And no published benchmark for a good share count exists; how many shares is good shows how to build one from your own last ten posts.
A post gets sent when forwarding it is easier than typing the sentence yourself.
Where does a paid month fit into this?
Sends are counted out of the people who actually saw the post. Something that never got past the first small slice of your followers was not rejected. It was barely offered, and its share count is measuring the size of the room.
That room is the part ReachGrows sells. You pick a reach band, give a public username, and every feed post and reel you publish in the month receives reach, views, likes, shares, reposts and saves aimed inside that band, spread across 30 days or 30 posts, whichever comes first. One PayPal payment, no account, nothing that renews. ReachGrows does not sell followers or comments, and says so on its own pricing page. It does not touch Stories either, so the add-to-story kind of share sits outside what a month covers. The FAQ is blunt about all of it.
The limit is worth stating plainly: no amount of distribution makes a post worth sending. If a post says nothing a person wants to say to somebody else, a wider audience is just more people scrolling past. A steady month buys a fair test, because holding the audience level means the differences between posts come from the posts.
- How do you get more shares on Instagram? Write the post a viewer can send instead of typing the thought themselves.
- Which share should you aim for? The private DM send. It is the cheapest action for the viewer and most of the count.
- Does asking for shares work? Barely, unless the ask names who to send it to.
- Can you see who shared your post? No. You get a count of actions, with no names and no destinations.
- How many shares is good? There is no published benchmark. Compare a post against your own last ten.
- What stops a share? A point buried in the caption, an in-joke, or a post that is about you rather than the reader.