How to - Instagram...

How to - Instagram Basics

This is the first of my new 'How To -'  blog articles series. Starting off with the basics of Instagram, running through the different aspects including; 

- Home
- Discover
- Activity 
- Profile. 

If you enjoy visually beautiful things, art, culture and connecting with people then I would highly recommend Instagram. Hopefully this will help all you Instagram-newbies get involved and share your pictures on one of my favourite social media channels.  

Home

Your home icon takes you to a feed, where whenever anyone who you 'follow' posts a picture, this is where it will show up. By showing appreciation to someone's picture, you can simple double tap on the picture to 'like' it and if you want to write something specific you can 'comment' by using the comment button under each pictures caption. 

Discover

Discover section is where you can find new pictures and users to like and follow. Using the search tab at the top you are able to search for specific users, however you need to make sure you have the exact username otherwise instagram won't be able to find them.

Discover Photos 

Finding and discovering new photos is one of my favourite things to do on instagram. 

Instagram has made this section of constantly refreshed pictures based on the people you follow or pictures you like. It's a great way of finding and connecting with people who have similar taste and style to you.  

If you are scrolling and find a picture you like the look of you can just tap on that picture and it will take you to the profile of the person that has uploaded it. You may like other pictures they've posted and choose to follow them.

Discover People

This part allows you to find new people to follow. Instagram uses your other social medias accounts such as Facebook or Twitter, in order to find people that you already know who use Instagram. It also can use your email to find contacts from your address book. 

If you want to follow a contact that instagram finds, simple click on the plus icon and you will be following them. 

Activity

The activity part is where you can see who has liked or commented on your posts and you can see any new followers etc. 

Your Profile

Your profile is where you can see how many posts you have, followers and how many people you are following. Here is where you can view all of your photos and videos you have already uploaded in either a collage or a list view, you can change your settings and edit your profile.  

1. This shows you how many pictures you've posted onto Instagram, your 'followers' are the amount of people that can see your posts and 'following' is how many people's pages you are following.  

2. You can change the way you view your collection of posts. You can either have it's default settings of a grid layout, or if you want to have a closer look and see how many likes and comments you have you can view your pictures in a list view which shows one picture at a time. 

3. If someone on Instagram has uploaded a picture with you in it and they 'tag' you, this is where you can view it. You are able to untag yourself as well once on the profile of the picture source. 

4. Change your settings here including finding people to follow, report a problem, Instagram help centre etc. 

5. Edit your profile allows you to change the following details; the name that appears on your page & username, password, your bio sections and you are also able to upload or change your current profile picture. You can also view/edit your privacy settings here in order to make your profile private or open for everyone to see.

6. This is your Photo Map. When you click on this your photo map icon, this will appear. It shows you and your followers all the different places you've uploaded pictures from. If you don't want this on your profile then refer to no.5 'edit your profile button where you can change your privacy settings. 

Hopefully this has helped some of you with the basics of Instagram and how it works..I will be posting a follow up post, talking about uploading your photos with using the different filters and making your photographs looking really cool and the aspect of using hashtags to gain followers and likes. 

If you want to check out my Instagram for further examples click here...