As one of the most popular social media networks, Instagram is an essential platform for your marketing. Besides providing interesting content, the app itself has many features, some of which you may not be aware of! Here’s are some of the lesser-known capabilities of Instagram:
Instagram Dark Mode
A new feature that’s been added to Instagram is dark mode. If enabled, it will darken Instagram’s colors, which is supposed to save your phone’s battery use, and is especially useful for browsing at night. Get the latest update for your smartphone, and you can turn on the “dark mode” option. Instagram will then automatically adjust to dark mode.
Post Notifications On People You Follow
Are you a fan of certain Instagram accounts? You can follow those accounts, and opt to be notified anytime those Instagram accounts create a new post! To turn on post notifications, go to the Instagram account(s) you wish to follow. Click the “Following” button, and a drop-down menu should appear. Select the Notifications option and you can be notified anytime this account creates a post, story, or live video.
View Your Like History
Did you ever want to show a friend a post that you liked on Instagram, but couldn’t find it again? Never fear! You can view your like history on Instagram. Go to your Settings, then choose Account. One of the options there is Posts You’ve Liked. You can see the last 300 posts you liked on Instagram.
Zoom In
Have you ever seen a post on Instagram, but it’s too small? On the post, just spread two of your fingers apart on the phone screen. You’ll be able to zoom to enlarge.
View How Much Time You Spend On Instagram
Want to know how much of your life you spend on social media? View how much time you devoted to Instagram this week by going to Settings, then clicking “Your Activity”. You’ll see the daily averages for how much time you spend on Instagram. In this section, you can also set a notification if you’ve exceeded the time limit that you’ve set for yourself.
Unsend Messages
Made a mistake in a direct message? To unsend a message, tap and hold the message that you sent. Once you unsend a message, it will no longer be visible to people in the conversation.
Rearrange the order of your filters
Did you know you can change what filters appear for you on Instagram and the order in which they appear? To do so, create a post on Instagram. When it gets to the Editing stage and the filter sidebar appears, scroll to the very end of the section where the “Manage” button lives. You’ll be able to manage your filters there, selecting which filters you want to appear in the sidebar and in their order.
Make Shoppable Posts
If you’re in the retail industry, then look into creating shoppable posts on Instagram. There’s a whole guide on how to effectively make shoppable Instagram posts, but essentially it’s a way for you to allow customers to buy your product by just clicking on your Instagram image.
Hide Offensive Comments Feature
If you suffer from troll comments too often, consider turning on the “Hide Offensive Comments” feature on Instagram. This filter will hide comments that it believes to contain offensive language. To turn on this feature, go into your account Settings > Privacy > Comments and tap Hide Offensive Comments to turn it on.
View Insights
If you’ve ever wondered where those likes on your recent post come from, and you have an Instagram business account, you can find that out! From your profile’s hamburger menu (horizontal lines at top right corner), you can tap Insights. For individual posts, click the view insights sidebar that appears at the bottom of the post. The insights sidebar will let you know what actions were taken from the post (such as site clicks or profile visits), and where the users who liked your posts came from (from your hashtags, explore page, etc).
Need more insights? You can see the number of engagements you have per Ripl post within our mobile and web apps.
Change the cover photos for your videos
Posting a cool video but having a bad thumbnail for it detracts from your post. A good thumbnail can attract countless more viewers. Thankfully, Instagram provides a way to change the cover photos of any video that you post. When you post a video, go into Edit Mode. The bottom sidebar includes the option “Cover”. Tap that button and you’ll be able to manually adjust the thumbnail for your video.
Hands-Free for Instagram Stories
If you want to film an Instagram story, but can’t use your hands, try the hands-free video setting in your Instagram stories. Instagram will film the story without your having to press the record button.
Instagram’s Music Library for Instagram Stories
Finally, don’t forget to use Instagram’s extensive music library to add songs to your Instagram Story videos! To add music to your video, create an Instagram story and go to bottom row where stickers appear. Scroll through the options until you see “Music”. Tap this to search Instagram’s music library to add a brief snippet of a song to your video. You can find a majority of popular songs there, ranging from John Mayer to Drake.
If you don’t like any of Instagram’s song selection, you can also look into the Ripl Pro music catalog to add a music track to your next video.
