News flash: Facebook is losing ground … and Facebookers know it. The giant is readying itself by cranking ing up the focus on its partner company: Instagram.

What’s wrong with Facebook? In a word: CLUTTER. The same old, same old, jam-packed newsfeed bogs down our day. It’s beginning to get redundant – nothing but ads and fake news.

Many Facebook users – especially teenagers – are pulling down the blinds and heading elsewhere. eMarketer puts those numbers at a 3.4% decline for 2017, and some see those dwindling user numbers as an ominous sign of imminent trouble.

In this article, let’s take a look at a site that’s shooting up, not down. Here are five tips (plus a bonus) on how to get up to speed FAST with Instagram.

Instagram: The First Stop on the Road out of Facebook

Instagram’s strength is its simplicity. Sure, it lacks many of Facebook’s features (like text posts, and the ability to call your friends or create groups), but Instagram is first of all a photo-sharing application and that’s the focus.

Current stats show 800 million Instagram active users every month. The platform allows you to post pictures, videos, and stories online.

For those who are new to Instagram or are just getting started, here are five Instagram tips that can get you quickly on the road to master status:

1. Here’s how to see a collection of the posts you’ve liked

Liking Posts is the first thing you’re taught to do once you install and login on the app. You can double-click on an image or video, or you can tap the small heart at the bottom left corner of a post (where it changes from an outline to a fully coloured heart).

But did you know that you can see all the posts you’ve Liked in one page? Go to your profile (tap on the human-shaped silhouette on the bottom right corner of the screen) and locate the three vertical dots (for android) or a gear button (for iOS) on the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

Scroll down to the account subheader and you should see a link to “Posts You’ve Liked.”

To create a collection of posts you like, tap again on your Profile button and locate the ribbon on the right most side of the screen.

Then Swipe right to “Collections” and tap the Plus icon on the upper right corner or “Create Collection” link in the middle of the screen.

You can then name the Collection anything you like pertaining to the kind of posts you’re going to add to them!

Now, to add photos or videos to your collection tap the ribbon button on the right side under a post, go back to the collections folder, tap the collection you want, and click on the three dots on the upper right corner and click “Add to Collection”. Now you can add anything you’ve saved. Neat huh?

2. How to see your friends’ activiites

Have you ever wondered how to see what your friends are up to? Or do you want to follow new people, but don’t know where to start?

Tap the heart button at the bottom of your home screen and swipe left to “FOLLOWING”. There you can see the activities of the people you follow including their likes, their follows, and their comments!

3. Edit Photos on Instagram without posting anything!

Don’t you just LOVE Instagram’s Filters, Masks, and general editing software? They look amazing for either photos or videos. You can actually use them as a photo editor … without posting anything to Instagram.

First, turn on “Save Original Photo” in Settings.

And then, turn on Airplane mode in your phone. To do this, go to the Settings on your phone, go to “More”, then tap on “Airplane mode”.

Then upload your preferred photo to the app, edit it as you want and press “Share”. An Error message would say that the it failed to post, but the photo itself will be saved in your phone ☺.

4. Insert Linebreaks

The “Enter” or “Return” button doesn’t appear in all keyboards, especially in an iPhone or iPad. Some Android devices don’t have it either. But there are times when you want to insert a line break in your bio or in your captions, so how do you do this?

For instance: You want to include the name of your company, along with a byline. Instead of “Symphony Placements – Bringing Harmony to Your Staffing,” you want it to look like this:

Symphony Placements

Bringing harmony to your staffing

No worries. You can either change keyboards to make the “Enter” button more accessible, or press the “123” key (this works especially for iOS) in the bottom left corner of your keyboard and the return key will appear on the bottom right.

To change keyboards in Android, go to Settings on your phone or tablet, scroll down to the “Personal” subheader, and locate “Language & Input”. Tap on the setting which says “Default” and choose “English (US) – Gboard.” There, you should have the return key on the bottom right hand corner of your screen.

5. Browse Posts from Geotagged Locations

You can actually browse photos and videos on Instagram from different locations! This is handy when you’re scoping out a place to hang or thinking of going to a place you haven’t been to yet.

Tap the magnifying glass at the bottom of your home screen and swipe right or tap “Places.” There, you can search as I did and click on the place you’re interested in.

You can also browse those posts which are near your current location. Go to “Places” again and tap the search bar, then tap the link saying “Nearby Places”.

There, you can choose the Geotag you want to look at from the options where you can see the recent posts that were tagged at that location.

BONUS: How to get Instagram Visitors to go to your Website!

Instagram is one of the social media platforms with the highest in online Ad Interaction. With that, it’s only sensible that you want to pull traffic from there to your own website.

There’s only one problem though: Instagram only lets you include one link, and that’s in your Bio. You can’t put links on Instagram captions as it’ll appear as just plain text, but there are ways to drive people from your Profile to your website.

First, you’ll have to add the website link to your Bio. To do this, go to your profile, and click the “Edit your profile” button and type your URL into the Website. You can update this daily or whenever you post something new to direct your followers to a new page of your blog or a new video on your YouTube channel.

But to get people to access your Website, they first have to access your profile. One way to do it is to put in your captions a call-to-action text which tells them to head to the profile for more details on the video, blog post, or recipe.

For a look at how businesses do it right, check out the Gazebo Guys Instagram presence.

That’s it! You are now a certified Instagram MASTER. Use these tips and tricks to upgrade your social media savvy-ness. Tap your way to more friends or prospects, or start a new business entirely … and all you need is a phone!

Featured images:

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The author loves travel and photography. Instagram is a perfect match for both. Get more info @boomalive.