Uploading Posts to Instagram
Now that you have that perfect photo or video, it’s time to share it with the world! Approve your post to proceed to the upload page. I cover the captions, tagging, photo map, and sharing sections of the upload process in the next few sections of this book. The green or blue check mark is your confirmation to upload the post to Instagram. Once you click this, your post will upload to your gallery and appear in the home feed. Again, the iPhone screen will have the check mark at the bottom of the screen.
Using Captions on Instagram
When posting to Instagram, it’s important that you are using descriptions! Do you know how many times I see a beautiful photo but there’s no description attached to it. Sure I can see it’s a lovely sunset, or flower, or abstract image of skyscrapers. But where was the photo taken? Why did it inspire the photographer? Was there a special meaning behind the image? Is the photographer in their hometown or on travel? You get my point. Use your captions to describe the purpose of the post or the key message you’re trying to convey. Captions can be serious, humorous, inspirational, simple, long, or short. They should reflect you as much as the images do, so don’t be afraid to show your personality. You’ll be surprised how much the engagement on your photos goes up when you include a description.
- Tip for Success: There is no restriction to how many characters you can use in the captions. In theory, you could make your captions as long as you’d like. However, people are not Instagram to read your dissertation. I recommend keeping your captions between 100 and 300 characters.
Captions are tied to the post image and no matter how many subsequent comments arise your original caption will remain in view. Once you have 9 or more additional comments on a post, the most current 5 comments will show and all previous comments will be hidden. There will be a “view all 9 comments” (or whatever number of comments there are) directly beneath your caption. Viewers can click on this to view all comments in a new page. Captions should always include relevant hashtags. These hashtags are extremely beneficial to the reach of your posts. For more information how best to use hashtags, keep reading and check out the chapter devoted to hashtags.
To add a caption to your post, type in your content in the field that says “Add a caption.”
Commenting on Photos
One of the reasons that Instagram is so popular is quite simply because it’s so easy to use. It’s almost lazy! You upload a photo. Done. You double tap to like someone’s photo. Done. It’s just this simple. You can “like” tens of photos in a matter of seconds. How many other social media sites offer that much convenience?
For our largely rushed, multi-tasking society, Instagram is a social media user’s dream!For our largely rushed, multi-tasking society, Instagram is a social media user’s dream!
And to be honest, I fell into this same trap. I scrolled through my feed double-tapping image after image. But then, as my number of followers grew, I noticed people were commenting on my photos. I wasn’t expecting this. But it was awesome! The new level of excitement that came from “talking” to someone about a photo took my obsession with Instagram to a whole new level!
If anyone has ever complimented one of your photos or engaged in a conversation with you, you probably have some idea of what I’m talking about. If you consistently like someone’s photos, they’ll probably notice you and learn to recognize your name in their notifications. But what else do they know about you? Taking the time to comment on their photos and tell them what you like about the image, or why it struck a chord with you, brings an actual human dimension to your avatar. And this is where the connections are really formed.
To leave a comment on a post, click on the little comment bubble beneath the post and previous comments. This will open up a comment box where you can type in your message. Click “send” when you’re done to upload your comment. If you want to stand out from the crowd, generate real engagement on your photos, create relationships with others, and get more followers, then start commenting! It’s really that simple.
Editing/Deleting Captions and Comments
Sometimes, after you hit send, you realize you made a typo or that you forgot to include something. Unfortunately, you can’t actually edit a comment once it’s been posted. But you can delete it and rewrite/repost the comment. When you click on one of your posts in Instagram, it opens up the photo and all of the comments in a new screen. If you scroll to the bottom of the comments, there’s the little comment button. Click on the button to open the comments page in another screen.
To delete a comment on an iOS device, click on the comment button beneath the post to open the comments. Swipe your finger to the right across the post you would like to delete to reveal a trash can icon. Click the trash can icon and confirm the delete. On Android devices, you’ll notice in the top right corner, there is a little pencil icon. Click on that to open up the comments editor.
Now you’ll see all of the comments with little red x’s next to them. Click on the “x” next to the comment you want to delete. The “x” will change to a ” – ” and a red “Delete” button will appear on the right. Click on the red “Delete” button to remove the comment entirely.
Now you can go back to the comment screen, type your new comment and hit send to repost.
- Tip for Success: If there are any comments after your original caption, and you delete the original caption, your new comment will now drop down the list so that it is no longer the first one attached to the image. Now when people look at your image, your description won’t be there for them to see unless they scroll through the comments. Therefore, I don’t recommend deleting your original comment after others have already started to leave comments.
As you can see from the image above, you can delete any comments on your own posts. If someone leaves an inappropriate comment or shares a comment that you do not want represented on your images, you can feel free to delete those comments. However, as with any other social media site, I always advise this with caution. Don’t delete negative or critical comments – engage in a discussion about the issue in a professional manner. And if you are going to delete a post, always advise the user that you are doing so and tell them why. You can mention them in a comment (use the @name of the user) and indicate that their comments are inappropriate and will be removed. If you made a typo or want to delete a comment on another user’s post, you can delete your comments. Follow the same process as above to get into the comment editor. You’ll see little hexagons with exclamation marks on the comments that you can’t edit but your comment will have the little red “x” as mentioned above. You can delete and rewrite/repost your comment as needed.
Even though you can’t specifically edit comments on Instagram, you can delete comments for whatever reason and rewrite them. It’s not a perfect system but it’s better than no editing function, and does provide you with some additional control over the comments on your photos.
Using Hashtags on Instagram
Instagram is all about sharing photos and getting people to see your photos. One of the best ways to do this is to use hashtags on your photos to increase their visibility in searches. If you’re not a big fan of hashtags, I get that. I’m honestly not a big fan of them either. But Instagram is a site that rewards users heavily for the constructive use of hashtags. If you want people to find your photos, every photo and every description should include at least a couple hashtags. Hashtags are how people find your photos. Your current followers will see your posts but if you want to gain more followers, you need to appeal to more people. And the quickest, easiest way to do this is to throw in a couple hashtags that will appear in searches.
Obviously, some hashtags are more common than others. Tagging #sunset will probably get more views than tagging #funeral. I’m not going to go into an extensive list here of what the most common hashtags are on Instagram. You can do a quick Google search and find multiple sites that give you those lists. But you should be aware of what some of these popular words are and think about how you can incorporate them into your photos. There are some hashtags which Instagram determines aren’t searchable (for example #Instagram or #iPhone will not produce search results because they are just too popular to filter).
One of the best things about hashtags is that any hashtag that appears in any comment on your post will bring up your post in searches. If you forget to use a certain hashtag or want to add one after you’ve uploaded, just add it in a subsequent comment on your post.
Use Relevant Keyword Hashtags
If your photo description includes some popular keywords throw a # in front of those words. Incorporate the hashtag into your regular description. You can also add a few more hashtags after the description that relate to the content of your photo. For example, you may write something like this: Walking around the #park today, we spotted these #beautiful #flowers everywhere! #spring #bloom #tulips
If you’re at an event or location that is designated by a hashtag (something like #smmw13), then add this to your posts so that event coordinators and other attendees can find your photos.
Don’t Use Too Many Hashtags
You can see from the example I just gave you, that I listed 6 hashtags. I recommend using 5-7 per photo. There may be certain photos where you can easily justify using 10 hashtags, but you should not be using 20 or more hashtags per image. This is cumbersome, distracting, and what many feel is annoying.
Don’t Hijack Hashtag
One of my greatest pet peeves on Instagram is people who tag photos with completely irrelevant hashtags. I’m talking about people who take a photo of their lunch and then include 20 popular tags just to gain views. They’ll include tags like: #sun, #love, #fashion, #fun, #sky, #cute, #OneDirection, etc. Tell me how your sandwich represents any of these descriptions. Leave these popular tags for related photos. If you want people looking for sunsets to find you – then take photos of sunsets!
Hijacking can also be extended to trending topics. If there’s something current in the news or media, don’t use these tags just to rank on the searches. Unless your photo is related to the latest hurricane, don’t tag the hurricane name in your photos. These tactics may get you more views up front but most people won’t actually like or comment on your photo. And they most likely will not follow you.
See also other related articles :
- How To Delete Instagram Account
- How to Share Instagram Photos
- How to Share Instagram Videos
- Uploading Posts to Instagram
- How to Use Instagram Direct
Originally posted 2022-02-19 21:28:00.
