Instagram welcomed its billionth member earlier this summer. This is a significant milestone for Instagram, which has become one of the most popular social media platforms. Instagram is not just another place for photos of cats or lunches. click here
Instagram is a powerful tool for professionals, marketers, and creatives. You can share your work and increase brand awareness through Instagram. It is a great way to communicate with your target audience and other professionals.
We’ll be discussing the potential of Instagram to grow your brand. We will also show you how to combine your Instagram account and your WordPress website to take advantage of both.
Let’s get started!
An introduction to Instagram
Posts on Instagram tagged #webdesign
Many people know Instagram as many things. It might be where people post pictures of their cats or what they ate for lunch. You might also consider it the platform where social media influencers share their daily lives and offer product recommendations. Although these types of content are common on the platform, they don’t show all the possibilities.
Instagram has more than one billion users and is rapidly becoming among the most influential social media networks. Sometimes it’s called “Twitter with photos” because users can upload photos with captions displayed in a chronological stream.
We’ll be discussing this later. While the functionality has improved significantly since its initial release, the basic functions remain unchanged. Instagram allows you to share almost anything as long as it is captured in a photo or Gallery. This is why Instagram has such a large user base with many different interests.
Although Instagram is accessible to many, it is particularly popular among younger people. Instagram’s users are overwhelmingly younger than 30 years old, and many are teens. Instagram accounts account for more than a third of adult internet users.
Instagram has it all. You can watch adorable animals, look at makeup tutorials and laugh at funny short videos. Or you can relax listening to people crush soap. Instagram is more casual than Facebook and more creative than Twitter. It offers many opportunities to help you grow your business or brand. Many brands and marketers are taking steps to increase their Instagram use.
How Instagram works
Instagram was originally a simple image-sharing service. The core functionality of Instagram is largely the same today. Let’s begin with the basics of the platform.
Instagram has two major areas: Stories and the feed. Your standard posts will appear in the feed. You can upload one image or up to 10 images in a single post. You can also upload videos up to 60 seconds long.
Instagram post
You can add additional information to a post when you create it.Caption. This is the text you will see below your post. A caption can only be 2200 characters in length.
Location. A post can be “tagged” to a specific place, such as a town or establishment. You could tag a picture of a meal and where it was served.
People. Tag other users in your posts. You can then tag other users in your posts, and they will be notified. You can also notify them by adding their username to the caption hashtags.
These are descriptive tags you can add to your captions. These tags are used to group your posts and make it easier to find them. Each post can contain up to 30 hashtags.
This last aspect is crucial to ensure new users can find your posts. Because anyone can search for and even follow specific hashtags, it is important to add relevant terms to your posts to make them more visible to your target audience.
You can search the hashtag #cats.
These Instagram Stories were introduced in 2016 and were inspired by Snapchat. These stories function the same way as posts but are only visible for 24hrs. You can upload unlimited stories in video and images and add face filters and GIFs.
A Instagram Story.
Stories are not available for long by default. However, you can save them by adding them to Story Highlights in your Profile.
Account highlights: Story highlights
You can see that Instagram is not as simple as it seems. There are many things to do. What does Instagram have to offer marketers and businesses?
Use Instagram to Grow Your Brand
You should already be aware of many of the advantages Instagram has to offer. Instagram allows you to express yourself and your brand visually while engaging with others. Instagram has a significantly higher user engagement rate than other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
This means that Instagram has fewer casual users than other social media networks. The majority of registered users log into Instagram daily. However, more than a third of them use Instagram multiple times daily. Instagram users stay longer on the site than on other social media platforms.
This means you have a better chance of getting your target audience to see and engage with your posts on Instagram than on any other platform. The Instagram algorithm helps to make this happen. It shows users content that is most relevant to their interests.
Social media platform
When deciding whether a social media platform is right for you, it is important to consider whether your target audience is compatible with the platform’s demographics. Instagram is a popular social media platform for young people, with a significant percentage being women. This makes it ideal for businesses that target this type of user.
The Instagram user base is also extremely diverse. The users are equally split between urban and suburban areas by their annual incomes and education levels. The platform is extremely flexible.
Instagram is a great platform for independent artists, small-scale e-commerce stores, and multinational companies. You can build your brand by being creative and targeting the right users.
WordPress and Instagram may not be an obvious match at first. One is a Content Management System (CMS) with full-featured features, while the other is a social networking platform. Both platforms are flexible and offer the best in functionality. Combining the two platforms can provide many benefits.
One of the most important is the ability to share posts on multiple platforms. This allows you to increase your followers and grow your audience. You might have followers on Instagram who don’t know you have a WordPress website. Instead of splitting your audience, you’ll be funneling users across platforms.
Integrations can be used to reduce the time required to post the same content on both platforms. For example, Instagram posts can easily be converted to WordPress blog posts. We’ll then examine how these techniques work.
Three Ways to Incorporate Instagram With WordPress (And Vice Versa).
After we have discussed the benefits of WordPress and Instagram together, let’s now discuss the practicalities. In the next three sections, we will discuss a few ways that you can harness the combined power and Instagram and WordPress.
1. Show Your Instagram Feeds on Your Website
Integrating your Instagram feed with WordPress is the first thing we will discuss. This allows you to display your posts anywhere on your site, including sidebar widgets or dedicated pages. We’ll use the appropriately-named Instagram Feed plugin in our example.
The Instagram Feed plugin
This plugin is easy to use and offers many customization options. The free version will be used, but the premium version offers many more features.
First, install the plugin and activate it. You’ll then see an option called Instagram Feed in your admin dashboard.
The settings page for Instagram Feed.
Here you will set up your Instagram account and configure it. Connect your Instagram account first.
Connect your Instagram account with WordPress
After you log in, you will be asked to authorize the plugin, permitting it to access your posts.Authorizing the Instagram Feed pluginOnce that’s done, you will see your account listed under the settings.
The Instagram account was added to the Instagram feed.
You can add multiple accounts to the same feed if you wish to show multiple accounts. For now, however, we will stick with one account. You can now customize the way your feed appears on your website.
Instagram Feed customization settings
You have many options, so take your time when making your choices. After you have set these settings, you can place your feed anywhere you like using a shortcode.
[instagram-feed]
Paste the shortcode wherever you would like your feed to appear. Here’s an example of how it might look in a sidebar on a blog.
A WordPress sidebar with an Instagram feed.
The shortcode can be customized to make the feed look and function the way you like it. You can play with location and customization until you get the right look.
2. Make an image gallery using Instagram posts
You can display a simple feed on your website and create an image gallery using Instagram. This allows you to gather posts from multiple accounts and hashtags and display them on your site with all the features you would expect from a WordPress gallery (such as lightboxes or carousels).
We will use the Instagram Gallery plugin to achieve this.
The Instagram Gallery plugin
This plugin is easy to use, just like the previous one. It will allow you to create a functional, clean photo gallery quickly.After activating the plugin, navigate to Settings > Instagram Gallery to access all its options.
The Instagram Gallery settings.
As you can see, there is not much available right now. This changes once you click on Add new Gallery. At that point, you can customize your Gallery.
How to create an Instagram gallery
You can choose which hashtag or account you wish to include. There are many options for how your posts will appear. You can choose to display your posts in an image gallery or use a carousel. You can add hover effects to your posts or remove the Instagram branding entirely.
Once you have set up the settings, you can use a shortcode for your Gallery. Copy the shortcode from the Gallery and paste it anywhere you like. Here’s an example: We have added the Gallery to a standard webpage.
A WordPress page with an Instagram gallery.
You can also use the 10web Instagram feed plugin to make it more personal. To get the best out of it, however, you must sign up for a premium plan.
3. Share WordPress Posts on Instagram
Getting your Instagram posts in front of your website visitors is important. However, it’s equally important to share your blog posts and your Instagram followers with them. There are many options, including the WP Instagram Post and Widget plugin.
For this example, however, we will use a solution that allows you to share simultaneously on other social media platforms. Blog2Social will be our solution.
The Blog2Social plugin
Although this plugin can be used with many social networks, we will focus on Instagram. Once you have activated the plugin navigate to Blog2Social >Networks and scroll down until you find the Instagram option.Instagram in the Blog2Social settings
Then select Profile. Next, select Profile.
Authorizing your Instagram account via Blog2Social
Once your account is approved, you can share your posts. Navigate to Blog2Social > Share & Post.
Blog post in the Blog2Social interface
You’ll find all your posts there, ready for publication on other platforms. Next to any post you want to share on Instagram, click Share on Social Media. This will open a screen that allows you to customize your post.
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