Hot Tip: To Get More Likes on Instagram, Simply Put a Giant Blue Thing in Your Photo

Carly Aquilino gets it. (Photo: Instagram.com/carylaquilino)

Sometimes, Instagram users' habits can be baffling. Nobody liked that photo of your parents' dog, but 45 people immediately felt the urge to double tap yet another cloud or sunset pic? Whatever.

But the folks at Curalate have figured out what goes into the perfect Instagram pic, VentureBeat reports. It turns out that to get more likes, you need "blueish images with a lot of background, texture, and light," and one object in focus.

"And stay away from red," VentureBeat advises, which is frankly offensive to gingers.

The CEO of Curalate, Apu Gupta, says that Instagram likes are "incredibly valuable" and "hard to come by," so we guess his friends aren't as into brunch pics as ours are? He says 65 percent of Instagram photos get a paltry zero to 10 likes, but that making small tweaks can lead to "engagement," "increased customer loyalty," and "sales," which sounds dubious. Brands, add some blue to your pics and let us know how that affects your bottom line.

This advice differs greatly from Curalate's June directive on how to get the most Pinterest engagement. They advised users that a lack of human faces, multiple dominant colors, and red hues instead of blue were the recipe for Pinterest success, which is actually the only kind of success more pathetic than the kind you find on Instagram.