One of my favorite things about Instagram, and the reason why it's still my go-to app, is the fact that it's not like Facebook or YouTube. After our last presidential election, well, I think we've all been scarred from going anywhere near Facebook. And YouTube, I'm not sure why comments on that platform are some of the worst, but they are.
Although more and more smartphones are introducing portrait modes with their cameras, there are still plenty of devices out there — especially devices older than one or two years — that do not. While your particular smartphone might not offer you that bokeh effect, Instagram can, as it gives all smartphones software-based portrait modes.
Although Instagram's summer stickers will only be here for the summer, the ice cream cone is still currently one of the most fun ones to play around with in Stories. It's also one of the stickers that lets you pick your preferred flavor of ice cream, rather than forcing just one type of flavor on you.
There are a few ways to do this, but I'm going to share with you the easiest way that I know how to share an image on Instagram Stories that isn't currently in your Stories queue.
I have nightmares about trying to reply to hundreds of strangers on social media. To prevent the overwhelming feeling of having to small talk with people I don't know, I'm now aiming for more control over the ways that people can contact me. One way is to stop users from hitting me up on Instagram Stories.
This is probably one of the coolest Instagram hacks I've come across. I never knew that there could be an actual formula for creating the perfect feed, but the fact that someone thought of it is really awesome.
As you all journey along with me on my challenge to become some sort of Instagram expert, let me share with you one hack that is currently helping me out a lot. If you've ever wanted to put a line break in your posts, then keep on reading.
With Instagram's archive feature, we have the pleasure of hiding all our stupid photos of #gettingcrunk from back in the day. This wonderful new IG feature will still allow us all to cherish those embarrassing moments in our life, yet hide them from those people we hope would never scroll so far down.
If you've ever made an Instagram story, you probably know you can add stickers to your stories. These stickers are interactive but, like real stickers, they don't move ... until now. In a Jan. 23 update to the app, more action can be added to your stories with animated GIF stickers.
If you are a small account looking to get more followers and likes, then getting past Instagram's 30 hashtag limit may be what you need to increase engagement. While I don't recommend posting so many hashtags in your caption (it looks terrible), there are certain ways to add tags and still make your posts look super clean.
Instagram is no stranger to stealing features from Snapchat. Stories, originally a Snapchat invention, feels more at home with Instagram today. Now, Instagram is attempting to repeat this feat with nametags, a way to quickly add new friends akin to Snapchat's Snapcodes.
If you want to share a video to Stories — but it's over 24 hours old — it may seem like you can't, but there's actually a simple hack on how to do just that.
Geotagging your location on Instagram is one of the most undervalued ways to generate traffic to your profile. The beauty about adding your location to your IG posts is that it allows you to be seen by other users than the ones that already follow you.
Your Instagram bio could always be used to link to other websites or profiles or just to show off your witty personality. Now, you also have the ability to use this section to tag other Instagram accounts as well as add tappable hashtags. Whether you want to link out to your best friend, company, or the latest trend in your city — if it has a profile name or tag, it can be in your bio.
You can retweet on Twitter, and you can reblog on Tumblr, but you cannot regram on Instagram. Until now, that is. For years, third-party apps have made it their business to help Instagram users share content from other users. With some new developments, Instagram looks to render those apps obsolete by adding a native regram button to the official Instagram application.
Hey, all you Instagram lovers, haters, or people who have no choice but to submissively bow down to the social app giant for other reasons, you've come to the right place. Today, I'm going to walk you through a very simple marketing trick to start boosting traffic to your IG account.
Hashtags are the backbone of Instagram. They connect photos from users all around the world and give visibility to users who don't have many followers. Now, Instagram has added more functionality to this indispensable tool, and this new feature lets you follow hashtags in your main feed right alongside all the pics and videos you see already from people or companies you follow.
If you're familiar with Instagram Stories, you know that you can download your story to your iPhone or Android device for offline viewing. Those downloaded stories can easily get lost, and Instagram is finally doing something to keep that from happening with a new archive option for stories, similar to the regular posts archive.
Going live on Instagram is a fun way to interact with your followers. It lets you forgo the usual meticulous editing and framing in exchange for giving your friends and fans a glimpse into your real, unfiltered life. Now, your followers don't need to be separate from that experience, with a new update that will let you invite viewers to join in on your live videos.
I've possibly been really out of it for a long time not to have realized that Instagram has a bunch of hidden filters. Clarendon seems to be by number one filter for pics and videos, but maybe that's exactly what I've been doing wrong.
The Stories feature on Instagram has a pretty great editing program, and it's one that I think is extremely undervalued. Instagram Stories goes beyond just its Snapchat-like features, but also allows you to create more creative and original content to post on your actual profile page.
Instagram Stories is one of the most flexible ways to share creative and original content with your followers. It allows you to alter text, markup images, and add cool graphics and stickers, along with other fun ways of expressing yourself.
WhatsApp is a great app to keep in touch with friends and family across phone brands and countries, but sharing a post on Instagram hasn't always been as easy as it should have been considering Facebook owns both companies. Now, whether you have Android or iOS, all it takes is a few taps.
Facebook, parent company of Instagram, has allowed you to download photos and other account data for some time now, but the data request feature is also now available on Instagram to meet the GDPR data portability requirement in the EU — and it's available worldwide, not just in Europe.
Instagram can be pretty exact when it comes to where you are located. That's why, sometimes, it's best never to geotag your precise location, but a broader area where you are less likely to get, well, um ... stalked?
So, according to Sprout Social, mentioning an Instagram handle in the caption of your posts increases audience engagement by up to 56 percent. If true, that's pretty impressive.
In this article, I am most likely going to humiliate myself by showing you all the horrible hashtagging I am wont to do. When it comes to hashtags, well, everybody knows if you desire any chance at all of getting noticed on Instagram, you got to hashtag.
Instagram integrated Stories back in 2016, and it flew right by Snapchat as a whole, becoming a bigger success itself than the whole entire Snapchat app. Still, the constant bombardment of information can be tiring in Instagram, so much so that you may want to mediate what Stories are shown to you. Fortunately, there's a way to do just that — without unfollowing accounts or hashtags.
A new stories archive feature appeared in the version 25 update for Instagram on both Android and iOS. This means you no longer need to save stories to your phone for later viewing, if you like doing that, but it also means all those stories are saved to your Instagram account whether you want them to be or not.
Instagram is a great platform to share photos and videos with the world, but sharing with smaller groups is near impossible. You can directly message pictures, stories, or post links to friends, but that only works for one person at a time or in group chats you create. To share your content with a small group of people you care about the most, you'll want to use the "Close Friends" list.
For the longest time, the only clickable link you could throw up on Instagram was in your profile's bio, and that's still true for a lot of users. The only way to add a clickable link aside from the aforementioned one is in an Instagram story, where users checking out your story would swipe up to load the webpage before going back to finish your story.
I wanted to post a Live Photo to Instagram of me in front of that donut that got eaten next to the CVS on Houston St. in New York, between Mott and Mulberry. The only problem is that Live Photos aren't supported on Instagram, so I couldn't just tap and post it to my feed without it becoming a regular still image. Luckily, there is an awesome workaround.
I thought eventually that my ex's Instagram account would magically clear from my "Suggested" search history. It's been six months now, and I'm sorry, babe, but enough is enough. It's time to clear out your very cute face. (On Instagram, of course.)
Typing out thirty hashtags on Instagram is always such an annoying process. Figuring out the best hashtags to use to get more likes is also tricky. You can't just keep copying and pasting the same hashtags on every post — that's like attacking the same tribe every time. You got to diversify, which takes a lot of conscious effort to be on top of the current best hashtags to use.
Tired of all those people tagging you in weird stuff on Instagram? Well, there's an easy way to prevent people from ever tagging you in one of those silly posts again. It's simple, too. It only takes a couple minutes of your time, but will probably save you from years of embarrassment (or however tagged photos make you feel).
If I told you to follow as many users as you could possibly follow, in order to get more Instagram followers, that may seem counterintuitive, right? If I told you I'm trying to brainwash/annoy you with how many times I could possibly say versions of the word "follow" in an opening sentence, that would seem weird, too.
There are so many tips and tricks on how to improve your Instagram photos, but one really easy way is to use the HDR camera setting. HDR is high dynamic range imaging and takes three exposures of a photo — overexposed, underexposed, and one in the middle at the normal exposure. The end result is just one image of the three exposures combined.
If you've ever seen me glued to my iPhone, huddled on the corner of the 23rd St subway station fidgeting with my stupid hot pink nails trying to Instagram Story, then now you are about to find out exactly what I've been doing.
Making a custom location on Instagram is one of the best ways to generate traffic to your account. It gives you that extra uniqueness when it comes to standing out amongst other companies. It also allows people to check in at the same location, further promoting your account across other platforms.
The Instagram Explore page is one of the most useful tools available to users. It's also one of the easiest ways to discover new content and, if you use it right, to increase your own follower count.
