Instagram is one of the most successful social networks, but are you taking full advantage of its functions? Here we leave you some tips.
When Instagram was launched in October 2010, it was a quick way to apply stylized “filters” to your photos and then share them with your friends. Six and a half years later (and a billion dollars invested by Facebook in its acquisition), it has 700 million active users and a lot of buy instagram comments.
Nowadays, it is still very easy to share a photo (or video) with just a few touches to the screen of your smartphone. However, if you talk to some of the people who have tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers in this service, you will realize that there is still much to learn to be considered an expert in this application.
Here are some tips that will help you to manage the newy introduced feature of the “stories” to get more benefit from the tags or “hashtags” and polish your shots using other applications, with advice from some popular users and how they manage their Insta –account
Master the editing tools
The most basic level of Instagram is the ability to choose one of its filters: Clarendon, Hudson, Lo-Fi and so on. However, for photos you should also try the edit option, which you can access by touching the edit button at the bottom of the screen.
You can adjust the brightness, contrast and other aspects of your photo, as well as outline it; apply an effect to blur certain sections or play with an option called structure with which you can achieve quite striking results. With that said, think about how the results fit with your publications in general.
“Dedicate yourself to create a personal style of photography that makes your content memorable and instantly recognizable by just viewing one of your images,” suggests Estelle Puleston, who works at the social media marketing agency.
To conclude, Estelle tells us: “Do not change from the clarity offered by the Clarendon filter to a dark and melancholic one like the Hefe filter, from one photo to the other. You should also maintain consistency with the backgrounds and the general style of your photos. ”
Be sure to try the other applications that are integrated to Instagram
Most popular Instagram users use other applications to polish their photos before sharing them. “I really like using Facetune to add details and clarify areas of my photos,” says fashion blogger and personal care, Teral Atilan (@teralatilan) who has more than 122,000 followers on Instagram.
“Then I like to use VSCO to add a filter. VSCO is great because it allows you to create custom filters, then copy and paste them on all your images. ”
VSCO is recommended by many of the influential users within the service. “It helps to make simple editions and also has a very good selection of filters,” says photographer Elena Shamis (@elensham), who has more than 128,000 followers.
“SKRWT is the best application to straighten photographs. Another useful application is TouchRetouch , it is like a portable version of Photoshop that will help you get rid of unnecessary and unwanted objects in your photographs. ”
If you’re really passionate, fashion and travel blogger Scarlett London (@scarlettlondon) recommends Um Un. “This app allows you to plan your posts in advance, discover which are your most popular publications and also save previously edited photos to publish them directly in the application.”
Do not forget that Instagram has its own applications
Instagram has launched three independent applications to help its users be more creative: Layout, Boomeran and Hyperlapse. All three have enough new features to make it worthwhile to take a look.
Layout is a simple way to convert several photographs into collages with different formats that fit perfectly into the typical grid structure of Instagram.
Boomerang takes bursts of 10 photographs and turns them into a video that plays over and over again and has become a very popular tool among Instagram stars.
Hyperlapse lets you record videos for as long as you want, then the countess in a clip while stabilizing the video. Layout and Boomeranestán available for iOS and Android, but Hyperlapse can only be found on iOS.
Use hashtags to reach more people
Many people know how to use a hashtag to tag their images, be it #awn, #gatos_en_Instagram or #tbt (acronym for the Anglo-Saxon expression: “Throwback Thursday ,” which is used in old images). But most of us do not think much about how we use them.
If you are not using hashtags, you are limiting that your images are only seen by your followers. Hashtags help you get exposure in audiences you would not normally reach.
If you want your publications to reach more audiences, make sure to use between 5 and 10 hashtags that are relevant, avoiding the most common or anything too specialized. It was specified but not too much. #Cake? Too generic, #VidaPastelera? A great choice
Instead of placing them within the publication, try to publish them through the first comment. That way, it does not look so intrusive.
Start using the stories
If you use Instagram, you have probably noticed at the top of your initial page, the row of profile photos of your friends placed inside bubbles, including one for “your story”. This feature, copied from Snapchat, serves to post normal photos and videos that can be more natural and without editing, since you know that these can only be viewed for 24 hours. It’s a more relaxed way to use Instagram, although that does not mean there are not some strategies you can use to get the most out of them.
“From my experience, the first story that is shared is always the most visited, so I would recommend that you do not publish too many. I would say that the ideal number would be 10 per day, “Shamis tells us.
The stories were made to be more natural, so the key is not to get too obsessed with their quality, which is in sharp contrast to how agonizing a normal publication on Instagram can be.
“The most visited Instagram stories are those that emerge from moments of pure spontaneity,” says Rod Alvarenga of marketing company BzzAgent. “People do not expect to see a perfectly made image or video; instead, they are looking for bits and pieces of everyday life.” Scarlett London corroborates the latter:” (The stories) allow us to inject a little more realism into the publications. “