45 Instagram Tips You May Not Have Known About

45 Instagram tips you may not have known about. Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social networks and the number of users keeps increasing. A billion people use this app every month. Even though we’ve been posting pictures on Instagram for a few years now, it hides plenty of features that many people aren’t even aware of. Let’s see if any of them surprise you.

Features and Tricks for Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories have a number of advantages. Not only do many people prefer to browse through them rather than scroll through posts, but there’s also less pressure on content quality because they disappear after 24 hours. This also means you don’t need to overthink when to post Stories.

You don’t have to upload everything in real time. You can create Stories from older posts in your phone’s gallery and play around with the graphics. But more on that another time.

Stories with videos have the greatest reach. Followers spend more time on them, and Instagram can then determine that it’s engaging content. Let’s take a look at how you can create and improve your Stories.

What kinds of Stories can you create?

#1 Hands-Free

You can record videos without having to keep your thumb on the screen. Just use the hands-free feature. A double tap will flip the camera toward you and recording continues. While filming, you can also zoom in and out by sliding your thumb up and down on the screen. However, you do need to keep your thumb on the record button.

#2 Boomerang

With Boomerang, you can create 4-second videos that will play on a loop in your Story. Essentially, it creates a gif that can grab your followers’ attention and maybe even make them laugh.

#3 Videos Don’t Have to Be Just 15 Seconds

If you record a video on your phone and save it to your files, you can then upload it to your Stories. If it’s longer than 15 seconds, it will automatically be split into several parts. You can upload all of them or select only some. You save them (they are automatically trimmed) and upload them.

#4 Filters

Stories undoubtedly come with a variety of filters. These can be used with both the front and rear cameras. Instagram frequently updates them — some are seasonal and some were even “created” by celebrities. You can find all of them under the smiley face icon when creating a Story.

When you upload an older photo or video to your Story, Instagram offers you filters named after major cities.

#5 Text

Have a short message that would be better written out? Instagram has you covered. Choose a color scheme, font type, and you’re ready to go. You can now find this option by swiping to the “Create” section when making a Story.

The “Create” Section

In this section, you’ll now find not only the creation of text-based Stories, but also the creation of Stories made up of GIFs, birthday greetings (anniversaries, thank-yous, etc.), sharing memories from past years, polls, countdowns, questions, or quizzes — all without needing to use a photo first (from your gallery or camera) to create a Story.

#6 Layout

In 2019, the ability to create photo collages directly within the Instagram app was added. You can put together a Story using photos from your gallery or take them “live” through the camera. You can choose from six templates, each holding up to 6 photos.

#7 Portraits with Focus

Not every phone has a portrait mode in its camera. However, Instagram offers a “Focus” feature that you can use for photographing and filming people. It only works with people, because it detects a face and automatically blurs the background. You can use the feature for both photos and videos, and with both the front and rear camera of your phone.

#8 Live Streaming

This format is already a bit of a challenge. It’s good to have a sufficient number of followers. You probably won’t be broadcasting to 10 people who happen to be online. You can use live streaming, for example, to communicate with your fans, broadcast from an event, answer frequently asked questions, or introduce new products.

Or invite someone and interview them in the form of a conversation. But be careful — always think about what value the broadcast will bring and whether you yourself would even be interested in such content.

#9 You Can Hide Stories from Competitors

When creating a story, click through the gear icon in the top left corner to “Story Controls”. Here you can set:

who you want to hide your stories from,
whether users can reply to your stories,
whether other users can share them,
saving stories to your phone,
sharing to Facebook stories.

You can also access story controls through settings:
Your profile > ☰ > Settings > Privacy and Security > Story Controls

#10 Insights

What you don’t measure, you can’t manage.

It’s good to keep track of how many people your story reached, who reacted to it, and how many people clicked on a hashtag, tagged location, or person. You can find all of this in the statistics of individual stories.

Just open your story, swipe up, and all the data will be displayed.

How to Spice Up Your Stories?

#11 Stickers

Instagram offers stickers you can use to decorate your stories. Some change thematically (e.g., with the season) and a few can be changed by tapping on them.

#12 Playing with Colors

Use whatever color suits you at the moment. If you press and hold one of the offered colors, the entire spectrum will appear. And when you need to match a color to a photo, you can use the eyedropper tool.

#13 Colorful Backgrounds

Want to highlight only part of a photo? Or would a simple solid-color background work better for you? Use the drawing mode. If you select the highlighter and hold your finger on the screen, the background will be transparent. With the marker, it will be solid instead. You can then highlight a part of the photo using the eraser.

#14 Playing with Text

Every word in your story can be a different color. Just select it with your fingers and choose the color you like. If you really want to stand out, you can try rainbow text. You’ll need two fingers. I recommend placing your phone on a table. Select all the text, gradually deselect it, and at the same time move your other finger across the color spectrum.

Try text shadowing. Instagram doesn’t have a built-in feature that does it for you, but it’s still a simple way to add flair to your story. Just create two identical texts in different colors and the same size (which you can adjust with your fingers or the slider on the left) and place them on top of each other.

#15 Questions

Curious about your followers’ opinions or ideas? Ask a question and find out what you need. Responses will be gathered in one place on your story, and you’ll also receive a notification for each new reply.

You can respond to all replies publicly in another one of your stories. Just add a background and your reaction (using text, or even a video).

#16 Polls

Get reactions and feedback from your followers using simple polls. They can vote on which of your products they prefer, which gift with an order they’d appreciate more, or help you make decisions.

You’ll see the complete poll results in your story’s statistics, including how each individual user voted.

#17 GIFs

You can creatively liven up your stories with GIFs. You’ll find thousands of them in the Instagram library. The possibilities are endless.

A special trick is to use a gif (or sticker) to click through to a post. First, find the post you want to link to from your story, select the “Add to Story” option, resize it, and then add a gif over it, such as Tap here/New post/or something characteristic of your new post. This interactively guides users to your new post after uploading the story.

#18 Music

With just a few clicks, you can bring your story to life with music. The library offers everything you can think of. Music can perfectly complement the atmosphere of a video or photo.

You can use any 15 seconds of a song — simply drag to change the section that suits you best.

#19 Product tagging

For some time now, it has been possible to tag your products in both posts and stories. This gives users the option to click directly through to the product and make a purchase on your website. Tagging works similarly to tagging people, but you need to have products uploaded in Business Manager.

^{Source: www.instagram.com/madewell}

#20 Carousel ad

Take advantage of the ability to showcase multiple products in a single post. Not only as an organic post, but also as an ad. It’s an ideal post format for playing with creatives. How about showing a product from a different angle with each additional click through your next story?

In a similar way, you can also use ads in Stories. They allow you to insert several cards, which give you a better chance of capturing attention (compared to a single story) and, for example, telling a short story. If you’re just getting started with advertising on social media, you might find a few beginner tips useful.

#21 Location, #hashtag, mention, donation

In stories, you can tag your location and add a hashtag. This allows your story to appear in stories from that location, which can be browsed by clicking on the location tag.

Hashtags work in exactly the same way. You can also include a mention in your story. Pay close attention here. Fans often tag their favorite brands in stories. If they tag you, you’ll receive a notification. You should definitely let the fan know you’ve seen it and thank them for the mention. You can also reshare the story to your own profile.

In some countries, non-profit organizations can collect donations through Instagram.

The Czech Republic is not yet on this list, so through your profile you can only support fundraisers for other projects.

#22 Quiz

Test how well your fans know you, your service, or your product.

The latest feature introduced by Instagram is a hit with fans. The goal is to guess the correct answer. You can suggest up to 4 options and then easily track the results.

Features and tips for posts and your account settings

From stories to posts. According to the latest statistics, videos are the most successful with users. On Instagram, videos can be up to one minute long. The longer you keep fans engaged with your content, the better Instagram will evaluate it and the greater the reach. Close behind videos are carousel posts (those where you include multiple photos, giving you a better chance of keeping fans engaged for longer).

#23 How to use hashtags

You can currently add up to 30 hashtags to a post. These should be relevant and connected to the topic of the post. Both local-language hashtags (which target a smaller group of users, but with a greater chance that they’ll come across your post) and English ones work (where it only makes sense to use those that group a maximum of a few thousand posts, otherwise you’ll get lost among them).

Definitely do not use overused hashtags such as #follow4follow, #likes4likes and similar ones. Not only might you hit a banned hashtag and your post (in the worst case, your profile) won’t be shown to other users for some time. These hashtags don’t bring anything useful anyway.

Try to come up with a unique hashtag associated with your brand, service or product that both you and your fans will use.

#24 Archiving Your Posts

If you feel that one of the posts on your profile is no longer needed, doesn’t fit there, and you want to delete it but don’t want to lose it completely, you can archive it. Other users won’t see it and you won’t lose it. Simply click on the three dots on the post and select the “Archive” option. You can find such posts under the clock icon on your profile.

#25 Zoom

As a brand, you can play with your post and place something in it that users have to find using zoom. Not only will you be original and your fans will be entertained by the post, but they will also interact with it — and the Instagram algorithm loves that.

#26 Tags

You can hide photos where you have been tagged. It can happen that someone tags your brand in a nonsensical or, even worse, somehow offensive photo. If the user refuses to delete it and won’t remove your tag, you can work around it by hiding the photo on your profile or removing the tag. Click on the tag — your brand’s mention on the post — and a menu will appear.

If this happens more frequently, you can set up manual approval of tags. You can enable this option in Settings > Privacy > Photos and Videos of You, and turn off the “Add Automatically” option.

On the other hand, if your fans tag you in great content, don’t forget to thank them and show that you care about your fans.

#27 Location

Posts with a location have up to 79% greater reach than those without one. So don’t forget this important point when publishing your next post.

The location works the same way as in Stories. Your post will be displayed whenever someone clicks on that particular location.

#28 See Translation

On every post, you’ll find a “See Translation” option. This makes communication and understanding between users a little easier.

Always communicate in the language that matches the majority of your fans. The few who might not understand can use this feature, and you don’t have to worry about translations.

#29 Post Notifications

Is someone really entertaining but the Instagram algorithm never shows you their posts and you never manage to click through to their Stories? Turn on notifications for that specific user and you won’t miss a thing. You can find this option again under the three dots on a specific post, as well as on their profile.

Do you know that social media has potential for your business, but you don’t know how to handle it?

Try our seminar. We’ll share tips on content creation, communication, and advertising. Social media will allow you to build your brand and reach new customers. MORE INFORMATION

#30 Saving Posts

Instagram has been allowing users to save posts they like using the bookmark icon for some time now. You can then organize them into folders and return to them at any time. Only you can see them. You can find them on your profile by opening the menu (in the top right corner) under the “Saved” tab.

#31 Activity Status

Because Instagram loves keeping track of us, it has started monitoring the activity of its users. In messages, you can see when a user was last active, and your followers have the same overview of you. You can turn this feature off, but be careful. By choosing not to share your activity status, you also won’t be able to “snoop” on others and will no longer see their status either.

#32 Closest Group

If you communicate frequently with a selected group or have special messages for them, you can create a Close Friends list. You can then share Stories exclusively with them. For a brand, you could use this feature with your most loyal fans on Instagram, for example.

#33 Try Fonts That Not Everyone Has

There are several websites that can help you. You’ll find countless text symbols (Emoji) and even fonts (Fancy Text tab). All you need to do is copy and paste. You can use them in Stories, to spice up photo captions, or in your “bio” (profile description).
⇨ Lingojam
⇨ Coolsymbols
⇨ Instagram Fonts
⇨IG Font Generator

#34 Nametag

Perhaps a bit of a novelty, but if your profile (brand) name is complex or you find that it is often mispronounced or hard to search for, try the nametag.

You’ll find it on your profile in the menu in the top right corner. You can style it however you like, using emojis or a photo. Then, anyone who wants to start following you simply scans it with their camera. You can search for and add people the same way. Of course, you can also share it.

Tip: You can place your nametag in a newsletter or printed materials, for example.

#35 Save Mobile Data

If you enable the “Use Less Data” option in settings, you’ll reduce the amount of data transferred over your mobile network. And as they say, a penny saved is a penny earned. Be careful, though — it may affect the speed of loading and uploading data.

#36 Mute Someone Who Annoys You

Don’t want to unfollow someone, but don’t need to see their posts or Stories either? Simply “Mute” that user. You’ll find this option on their profile and in the menu under the three dots on their posts. You can choose whether to mute posts, Stories, or both — and that’s it. You can undo this choice at any time, either on the specific profile or in the list of muted accounts, which you’ll find in your profile Settings under the Accounts tab.

#37 Verification

Verification isn’t just for celebrities. On the contrary, this feature could come in handy for a brand or product. What do you need? Just a username, your name, a category (e.g. Business, Brand, Organization) that your account falls under, and a photo of your ID.

#38 Video Calls

A small detail that relatively few people are probably using yet. In the direct messages section, you’ll find the option to start a video call.

You can call up to four other users at the same time this way.

#39 Managing Multiple Accounts and Switching Between Them

This feature will come in handy if you have a personal account and also manage a company’s Instagram account, for example. Once you add and log in to the second account, you can easily switch between them. Instagram now allows up to 5 accounts to be logged in from a single device.

#40 Where Can I Find Posts I’ve Liked?

Do you remember a photo from one of your followers where your product was beautifully photographed, but the follower didn’t tag you and you can’t find the photo? If you at least liked the post, it’s simple. Go to Settings and check the Account section. You’ll find all the “Posts You’ve Liked” there.

#41 Comment Settings

In settings, you’ll find the option to customize how comments work on your profile. Not only can you block comments from specific users, but you can also set who can comment on your posts (everyone, people you follow and your followers, people you follow, or only your followers).

You can also set filters here — turn offensive comments on or off, or even set up your own custom filter with words you wish to block.

You can also completely disable comments on individual posts. This option is again hidden behind the three dots on a specific post.

#42 Search History

You can delete it in Settings (under Privacy and Security). Why? Maybe you don’t want Instagram to suggest what you’ve searched for before, or you’re interested in more relevant content that Instagram shows you. At that point, it’s a good idea to clear your history and start fresh.

#43 Quick Replies

If you frequently receive the same or very similar questions from your followers, you can prepare replies in advance in Settings. This will save you a lot of time when responding.

#44 Data Overview – Download Option

If you’re curious about everything Instagram knows about you, you can request a download of your data. This includes content you’ve shared, comments, profile information, and more.

#45 Benefits of a Business Account

As a business, make sure to use a business profile. This gives you access to useful statistics about your activity, content, and followers. You’ll have a much better understanding of who you’re talking to and how your posts and stories are performing.

^{Source: influencermarketinghub.com}

#BONUS – when one link isn’t enough

Instagram only allows you to add a single link to your profile. With the tool linktree you can create a page with a directory and all the links you need. Registration and the basic account are free.

Buy Instagram followers

Instagram Followers

Followers Instagram