25 Cool Instagram Tips and Tricks You Should Try
Mar. 27, 2020If you love using Instagram as much as I do, you should read our other articles. You can learn aboutbest Instagram filters, find out theright time to post on Instagramto get the best exposure,unfollow people who are not following you back, and more. With that said, let’s get to our list, shall we?
1. Post Instagram Photos Directly to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and, More
If you are someone who is posting the same picture on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, or any other social media website for that matter, instead of posting pictures on each website individually, you can set up your Instagram in such a way thatwhenever you post a picture on Instagram, that picture is automatically posted on all your other social media accounts.
To do that, all you need to do isgo to Profile -> Options -> Linked Accounts, and link your social media accounts. From next time, whenever you post a photo on Instagram, you can select the social media platforms on which you want to share that photo, just as shown in the picture below.
Some time back, Instagram added a new activity status feature which allows users to see when you were last online inside Instagram’s Direct Messaging or DM. The feature is quite similar to WhatsApp’s last seen feature and allows users to see when you were last online.
However, if you are like me and hate this feature, thankfully there is a way to turn it off. All you need to isgo to Profile -> Options -> Show Activity Status and disable it. However, remember that just like on WhatsApp, it’s a two-way street. If you don’t want others to see your activity status and disable this option, you also won’t be able to see anyone else’s activity status.
Maintaining a well-updated Instagram bio is the key to make your profile stand out. Of course, you can alwaysadd things like emojis, links to your work samples,etc. to give people a bit more information about you. But did you know that you can use someunique and cool fontsto make your profile look better?
The easiest way to do that is by using websites that customize the texts for you. Here’s how you can do that –
This particular feature is only available forbusiness profiles, but you can easily change your personal profile to a business one with just a couple of steps. You can do so by going to theoptions page on Instagram and tapping on “Switch to Business Account”option. Here, you’ll be asked to connect your Facebook page and once you do that, you will have successfully changed to a business account and get features like analytics, promotion, and more.
Once you’ve switched to a business account, you can use anInstagram scheduling tool like Hootsuiteto schedule your posts. Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media platforms out there, and it makes managing yourInstagram business profile very simple.The options are pretty straightforward when it comes to using tools like Hootsuite, and in the free plan you’ll get the ability to add up to 3 social media accounts and schedule up to 30 posts at a time.
Check out the Hootsuitewebsite
With Story Archives, Instagram also introduced a new Story Highlights feature whichallows a user to share their most important stories on their profile page. To create a Story Highlight, visit the Profile page and then tap on the New Story Highlight button. Here, you will get an option to select Stories from your Stories Archives, which you can share on your profile.Remember that Stories Highlights are not removed after 24 hoursand you will have to manually remove them.
As you may or may not know, Instagram already lets yousave or bookmark your favorite posts.But did you know that you can create a collection of those posts? Yes, here’s how you can do it –
One nifty feature that Instagram introduced for Instagram Stories is the ability to hide them from certain users. If there are users who follow you but you don’t want them to see your Stories, you can do that byopening their profile and then taping on the three-dot menu and selecting “Hide Your Story” option.
As a safe online practice, you should enable two-factor authentication on Instagram and other social media platforms. It will require a user to go through a second authentication method while logging into the Instagram account– either through a one-time verification code, authentication app or a backup code. In case of a data leak,the two-factor authentication will act as a shield to your Instagram account. So to enable it, open the Profile section and move to Settings under the hamburger menu. After that, tap on “Security” and choose the Two-factor authentication option. Next, tap on “Get Started” and then choose your desired security method. That’s it. For more detailed instructions, head over to our dedicated article on how toenable Two-Factor Authentication on Instagram.
If you have been using Instagram for a while, you know that the service doesn’t allow you to save Stories or even take screenshots without notifying the user. However, there’s a workaround that you can use to save Stories from Instagram easily. To do that on your Android device, first download theStory Saver for Instagram, and then login with your account. Now,the app will show all the Stories which is present on your profile and you can tap on anyone to download them.
For iOS devices, the process is a little bit different. First, you will need to download theStory Reposterapp on iTunes. The app allows you tosearch for users by their Instagram username and then download any story which is active on their profile.
Instagram also allows users to share links inside their Stories which comes in handy if you are promoting any product or services. That said,this feature is only available for verified business users right now. If you are one, you can add the link by tapping on the link button after recording your Story.
Instagram’s stories feature has gotten a lot of useful and interesting features over the past couple of years, and one of them is writingrainbow text on Instagram stories.It’s refreshing to look at anotherwise boring single-colored text as every color shows up in a different shade.Here’s how you can do it –
Yes, it’s a little tricky to get but the text looks really good once you execute it properly.
Instagram also makes it really easy to manage multiple accounts. This is extremely important for users like me who have different work and personal accounts. To add accounts,tap on your name in the top left section of your profile taband then tap on “Add Account” button. This is also the place that you will use to switch between multiple accounts.
Instagram has a very nifty feature called Instagram Business which once activated not only gives your free insights into your accounts analytics but also allows you to add direct call and email buttons, promote your posts, and more. To do that, justgo to Profile -> Options and then tap on the “Switch to Business” option. Here, follow the steps to activate your business account which will give you access to all the above-mentioned features.
This is a really handy feature if you never want to miss posts from certain specific users. When you allow post notifications for specific users, every time they post, you will get a notification on your app. To do this, justvisit a user’s profile and tap on the three-dot menu. Here select the “Turn On Post Notification” option and you are done.
Social media has many ways of shaming us and one of the biggest tools in its arsenal is the tagged photo feature. Your friends can tag you in embarrassing photos which you might not want anyone else to see. That’s why it’s better to untag yourself from those photos. However, untagging might be harder than you think. To untag yourself,first, you will have to open your profile page and then tap on the Your Photos button.
Now tap on the photo you want to untag yourself from and tap again to reveal your username. Now, tap on the username and then you will get the option to untag yourself. Hereall you need to do is to select the “Remove Tag” optionand you will be untagged for the picture.
If I have to give you one tip on maintaining your mental health while using Instagram then it would be to take advantage of the newRestrict feature. The company has brought this feature tocurb bullying and harassmentby not-so-close-friends, acquaintances and strangers. While you can use the Block feature to silence a stranger, it’s hard for an individual to block someone they know, like friends and acquaintances.
So with Restrict feature, you can simply choose to not listen to your bullies. They can comment on your posts, message you, tag you in photos, but none of it will make it to your notification log.You won’t be alerted by their activity whatsoeverand it will be kept hidden from your timeline, stories, basically everywhere on Instagram. To use this feature, just open the profile that you want to restrict and tap on the 3-dot menu on the top-right corner. Here, tap on “Restrict” and you are done.
While you can share your Instagram posts on Facebook by just linking your account, recently, Instagram introduced story sharing which allows you to share your Instagram Story as Facebook Story. It willmake things much easier for users who have to post twice on both platforms.To find the dedicated settings, swipe right and go to the Story page. Here, tap on the cogwheel icon at the top-left corner and scroll down to the bottom. Here, enable the toggle for “Share your story to Facebook”. That’s it.
Instagram has finally brought the feature togroup unfollow users with whom you have the least interaction.In addition, you can also remove users whom you have not followed back. You can find the dedicated settings page in your Profile. Here, tap on “Following” and you will get the “Least interacted with” option. Next, switch to the “Followers” tab and you will find “Accounts you don’t follow back” option. Now, go on an unfollowing spree.
Custom Status is a new feature on Instagram that you should totally utilize. It’s just like the WhatsApp About feature where you can mention what you are currently doing: “At work”, “Watching”, “Eating”, “Gaming” and more.This status will show up in your profile icon in the Direct Message section.However, you will have to install the Instagram Threads app (Free) to set your status. But your followers don’t need to install this app to see your status in DM so that is great.
While Instagram has the option to share posts as stories, now the company has also added an option to share stories as posts. But the tricky part is that you won’t find this option in the highlight section. To share stories as post, go to the Profile page and tap on the hamburger menu on the top-right corner. Here,open “Archive” and select your story. Now, tap on the 3-dot menu on the bottom-right corner and finally select “Share as Post”. That’s how you share your stories as posts.
Instagram has finally brought the ability to add music to stories. Earlier, it was restricted to select few countries, but now it’s available in India and many other regions. You canadd background music on a series of images and videos, put music stickersand also publish stories in the dedicated Music mode. When it waslaunched in India in Septemberlast year, the music library was very limited. However, by now, Instagram has got many popular tracks from both regional and international studios so that is pretty good.
Instagram is generally seen as a mobile-first platform and rightly so. However, for some time, the company has been working on a lot of features for its desktop version. There isa dedicated Instagram app on Microsoft Store, a solid PWA on the weband more. Not to mention, you get all the major features like Direct Message and the ability to publish photos and videos right from your computer. So I would recommend you try out Instagram on your desktop and see whether it provides you a different perspective on the bigger screen. You can go through our detailed article onhow to use Instagram on desktopcomputers.
We all know that Instagram is testing to hide like counts in many countries. Initially, the company started hiding like counts in Canada and further introduced the test to Ireland, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand. However,recent reports suggest that Instagram is now hiding like counts globally for many users. So if you have been selected by Instagram for the testing, worry not, you can still view your like count. You can install The Return of the likes extension (Free) on Google Chrome and can view like and comment counts instantly. I know, you will have to use a desktop computer to install the extension but there seems no other way. Nevertheless, go through our guide onhow to install Chrome extensions on Androidand check if the above extension is working on smartphones or not.
If you don’t know how to pause, rewind, fast-forward or skip stories, watching Instagram Stories might become a big chore for you. Since most of the Stories have multiple cards, there will be times when some of them will be boring and some of them will be so interesting that you might want to rewatch them. In such situation, the above-mentioned tricks come in really handy. It’s also really easy to perform all these actions. Justhold to pause a story, tap on the left-edge to rewind, tap on the right-edge to fast-forward and swipe left to right to skip the entire story.
I hope that you learned something new from these Instagram tips and tricks. If you did, do share with us your favorite tip of the article in the comments section below. My favorite tricks are the ability to make rainbow text, and scheduling posts on my account. Lastly, if enjoyed this article, also check out our articles onbest WhatsApp tips,cool Telegram tips, and awesomeSnapchat tricksto learn more.
