Instagram is a social network dedicated to sharing photos or short videos on your account. But Instagram has many other features: IGTV, reels, stories, front page stories, professional account, the “shop” part for those who want it.
As with many networks, you can follow other users and be followed by them. You can also exchange with them in the “chat” part of Instagram.
Instagram is a network that allows you to reach users globally as well as locally depending on your goals and your target.
Instagram is a very popular social network these days, it’s very rare that someone doesn’t know about it. A lot of people are active on Instagram and this can only be good for you.
- Using Instagram when you’re a spot: a watersports spot has a place on Instagram; you can post photos of the spot, videos, share action moments of a pro who would like to be on your page, share in story the exploits of riders on your spot, or even long videos (IGTV) of contests that take place there.
- For a water sports shop: Instagram has created for some time the “store” part for professional accounts that want to have a showcase on Instagram. You don’t have an online shop? No problem, you can quickly create one on spotyride.com and link the products of your Spotyride shop to your Instagram page.
- Watersports school or club can also use Instagram, share their best moments in video pictures or even in story for more ephemeral posts.
To create an account, you will first have to find a username. This one must correspond to you, name of the brand or the shop, region if you want to transmit more precision. You can’t space out the letters in your username, so to separate two words use dashes or dots (“_” or “.” ).
You will then have to enter the classic information that we provide when we open an account:
- phone number or email address
- first name and last name
- password
- date of birth
You will be sent a confirmation email or a message.
Once the account creation is finalized you can choose to switch to a professional account by going to “settings” (on the right side of your profile) and then to “account“.
Click on “switch to a professional account” at the bottom.
The professional account will allow you to have access to data that non-professional or private accounts cannot access.
- statistics: they will show you your evolution and your posts during the last 7 days. If you click on the statistics button, you will see: total accounts reached, interactions with posts, subscribers – each category can be detailed OR you can look at the statistics of a particular post by clicking on it. On each post, you’ll be able to see how many likes, comments, people who saved your photo, the number of sends (people can share content with their friends in private message).
- next to the statistics function, you have the “promotion” button which allows you to bring more visibility to your post, but this option is not free, (a certain amount for a certain duration of promotion).
the mention “contact” is displayed on your profile, this one implies that your Instagram visitors can send you an email or a message – be careful, we recommend you to answer them in any case and as soon as possible.
Description:
Your description represents your brand. It will be at the top of your homepage when the Instagrameurs will click on your account.
Do not make your description too long, put links, to your page on spotyride.com for example (shop, spot..), you can even write it in English if you want to attract international visibility. A short sentence that describes you in a friendly way.
Your description must be harmonious with your profile (put smileys in colors that match with your profile picture) you can change this description at any time.
The profile picture:
As a profile photo, use a simple and pretty photo that catches the eye, a colorful logo, a good quality photo, the photo is important because it is always visible. When you post a story, it will be put on the news feed. When you chat with someone in private message, the photo is visible above each of your posts … (like your nickname)
- Simply press + in the middle at the bottom of the home screen to create a post.
- You can choose to post a photo or video from your gallery, or take the photo/video in the moment.
- Instagram offers different post modules: boomerangs which are short loops of videos, layout which is used to make photo montages.
- You can also select multiple photos/videos that will be played in a scroll with the “multiple selection” option.
- The standard format of Instagram is a square photo but you can choose to keep it in a longer format with the left arrows.
- Then we arrive on the page where you can edit your photo, add filters, change the settings of the photo (brightness, contrast, saturation..)
- After editing your photo, you will have to add (or not) a caption to it, you can also identify other users, add a location and choose if you want the post to be shared (on different Instagram accounts, on your Facebook account, Twitter..)
And that’s it! All you have to do is share!
If you’ve read our article on Pinterest, you already know the importance of the Feed. Well, for Instagram it’s the same thing!
To make your account appeal to users, you can create a feed on all your posts. The fact that all the photos go well together gives an impression of organization and clarity, appreciable for all, so our vision is not confused by an explosion of various colors.
A feed is a thread that will make sure that all your posts are harmonized either by a filter applied on each photo of your account, or by an element that comes back (example: sunsets) … it is you who will determine this feed so that it corresponds to you.
The stories :
- stories are ephemeral posts that you share and that will remain visible for 24 hours to your subscribers: a photo, a video, a link or a survey … many possibilities are available to you.
- these stories will be displayed at the top of the news feed (home icon).
- to add a story, simply click where the purple arrows are on the image above or slide the screen to the right when you are on the news feed.
- The Layout and Boomerang options (explained above) are also available in story. You also have the creation mode (you can add text, gifs etc..) the superzoom mode allows you to add fun effects when you zoom in during a video, and the hands-free mode that allows you to not stay pressed to take a video. If you’re taking a selfie or want to add a filter to a photo, there are many Instagram filters available at the bottom of the screen.
- you can choose to take the story right now or add existing content (from your gallery).
- you can add a link to your story and viewers will just have to drag it up to access the link.(what kind of link?).
- once your photo is taken (or chosen) you arrive at the moment of modifying it: you have access to filters either on the “filters” icon for specific filters or by scanning the screen for simpler filters (black and white..). You can also add text that you type (you can mention someone by doing @ and their nickname), or draw.
- Other options are displayed in the little smiling post-it: you can put your location (places), mention someone in a “box”, put a hashtag, make a poll, a quiz, create a countdown, a question box, insert gifs … These options can be extremely useful and nice to use to give life to your stories.
- You just have to share the story with those you want, either in your story (everyone can see unless you are in private account) or in “close friends” or your story will be visible only by the accounts you have selected.
possibility to make Lives and reels:
– under the button “take picture” you can see “story” in the middle and on the left “live” this mode allows you to make videos in lives. Your subscribers will be warned as soon as you launch a live and can comment on it (very good way to discuss with them).
– to the right of “story” we find the “reels” mode which allows you to make short videos and to modify them (with music, transition effects etc..) these videos will be displayed in the “real” part just to the right of the home page.
Featured Story:
- Featured stories are old stories that you can pin to your account.
- you just have to click on the “new” bubble under your description to create a front page story, you can give it a name and choose what kind of story you want to add, you can have a lot of front page stories.
- to add stories to your “front page stories” just click on the ones you want when you create it or when you post a story click on “front page” at the bottom right.
- each front page story has its own cover photo (which will make the bubble) try to match them, to find symbols in connection with your stories …
- we advise you to classify your front page stories (a story for events, a story for links to your articles, a story where we see sportsmen in action…) that you will name in relation to the content and briefly (example: if you create a story where you share the activity of your surf shop simply mark “surf shop” and choose an adapted cover image).
The instagram private messages are a very basic chat box so it’s very easy to use, that’s why we won’t develop this part too much.
You can send photos, videos and simple messages in DM. This part is important if you want to create links with your community, communication is important.
Instagram Home Map
“HOME”
includes the news feed (publications of your subscriptions photo videos IGTV ..), stories, messages and the category “search”.
“REELS”
We explained in the “story or not story?” category what a reels is. Well, they are all grouped here as a news feed.
“+”
To add a post, Photo, video, IGTV.
“❤”
Here are all your notifications: likes, subscriptions, comments, mentions .
“your profile picture”
Takes you back to your page, your posts, your front page stories … It is also on this page that you will have access to the settings, to the publications that you have saved.
Tips for more visibility on Instagram
Be active! Comment and like posts from your audience or your field, show that you are not a robot, react, interact with your community!
That’s it for this second article on using social networks!
After Pinterest and Instagram do you have an idea of the next network we will cover?
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