Instagram Success: These Types of Images Drive the Most Engagement (Infographic)

For many, picking the right Instagram filter can be an agonizing task. With so many options, it's tough to discern what's going to look the best and grab the most attention. But now, thanks to extensive data analysis, one company says it has the hard numbers on what makes a photo virally successful -- or not.

Curalate, a Philadelphia-based visual analytics and marketing firm, says it created algorithms to determine how more than 30 factors -- including color, lightness and saturation -- can effect an Instagram post's performance. For its insight, the company says it analyzed more than 8 million images from the mobile photo-sharing platform.

"By making a few small tweaks, brands looking to connect with consumers on visual sites like Instagram can see their engagement skyrocket, resulting in increased customer loyalty and more importantly, sales," Gupta says. "Likes on Instagram, while incredibly valuable, are hard to come by with 65 percent of Instagram images garnering between zero and 10."

Based on Curalate's findings, which are expected to be announced this week, here are some basic tips to help businesses kick their Instagram presence into high-gear. For more, see Curalate's infographic below.

Keep it cool: Photos dominated by blues and other cool colors tend to garner more likes while photos with warmer oranges and reds do worse.

Master monochrome: The more dominant a single color is on an image, the more likes it could get. Pictures dominated by a single hue receive 40 percent more likes than those that don't.

With color, less is more: It can be tempting to ratchet up the vibrancy, flooding your image with color to make it stand out. But in today's overstimulated world, bright and vibrant colors can get lost. The proof is in the data: Curalate says less saturated images receive 18 percent more likes than their mover vibrant counterparts.

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