This document provides tips and best practices for using Instagram effectively. It discusses key Instagram features like posting, Instagram stories, highlights, Instagram live, and insights. The main points covered are how to post engaging content, use hashtags and tagging, create compelling stories and highlights, go live, and analyze metrics with Instagram insights. Proper use of these features can help grow an audience and engage fans on Instagram.

1. Instagram
Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices

2. • Introduction
• Posting
• Best Practices
• Key Settings
• Instagram Stories
• Highlights
• Instagram Live
• Insights
• IGTV
• Additional Apps
2
Contents

3. Instagram now has over 1 Billion monthly active users with 500 million daily Instagram Story
users per day, making it the second most used traditional social platform after Facebook. With
an ever growing user base, Instagram keeps expanding what they offer and last year wasn’t
any different!
Last year we saw the addition of new IGTV features, the new IG AR filter availability, new
Instagram Story stickers, and so much more! Let’s hop in on how you can most effectively be
using Instagram!
3
Introduction
*stats via hootsuite

4. Instagram’s primary purpose is for posting photos or videos. Using either your own camera
app, or the built in Instagram camera. You can take photos or record a video up to a minute
long. Choose the size and filter, adjust the edit applications, add a caption, and you’re good to
go!
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Posting
How it Works

5. Now that we’ve covered the basics, here are some tips to make your Instagram really shine!
5
Best Practices
Instagram Posts
Check out The Daily Rind for more tips on perfecting your content
Before After

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• While Instagram can be used to post promotional photos and videos
from press materials to clips of official music videos, this content
doesn’t always make for the best fan experience
• Aim for at 70% authentic, non promotional photo and video posts.
Fans get excited by candid insight into the lives of their favorite
artists
• Use the multiple photo/video feature to show a plethora of content
from events, tours, meet and greets, and more
• Both Instagram and Facebook are making video content a priority in
their algorithm, embrace video content
Best Practices
Types of Content
@kelseaballerini

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• Be sure to take well composed, well lit
photos that catch the viewer’s attention
• Consider adding a theme to your photos
through color and filter choice to catch
the viewer’s eye and distinguish yourself
in their feed
• Try different angled photos to vary your
gallery layout
Best Practices
Quality Check
@maxmusic

8. It’s best practice to upload photo and video natively to each social platform
• Though at times sharing content from your Instagram to Facebook and/or Twitter can be
a great way to cross promote your platforms
• Both services have great Instagram integrations, and by sharing may let your fans know
where to find you
8
Best Practices
Social Sharing

9. • Posts using features like location tagging and hashtags tend to over-index in engagement
• Hashtags help users from different communities find content they’d be interested in
• Try expanding your community with some of these:
• #TBT (Throwback Thursday): An older photo
• #OOTD (Outfit of the Day): Fashion
• #justgoshoot: Great for any high quality shot
• #colorgram: Great for any high quality colorful shot
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Best Practices
Hashtags

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• Tagging location on posts adds them to
the feed for that spot, boosting
discovery and reach
• You can tag cities, neighborhoods, even
businesses
• Try including venues for tour promo in
advance
Best Practices
Location

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• Tagging accounts on photos and video
will add your content to their tagged
section. This is great for expanding your
reach
• Tagging accounts in your captions and
comments will just notify the person you
tagged.
• Be sure to like a few comments and reply
to keep your audience engaged
Best Practices
Tagging & Comments
@jorjasmith_

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• Decide whether to be a regular or
business/creator account –
business/creator accounts have access
to analytics
• Fill in all information in the bio
• The website field is the only place on
Instagram that allows a functioning
hyperlink for unverified account under
10k followers. Don’t leave this field blank
Key Settings
Profile
@musicpronoun

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• In Options you are able to link to multiple
social media accounts through “Linked
Accounts”
• When linking Facebook you’ll link to your
personal account, and from there you
can choose to switch to your fan page
• While linking accounts is a good idea,
always post natively when possible
Key Settings
Options

14. Instagram Stories is a feature that lets you share all the moments of your day through pictures
or 15 second videos that disappear after 24 hours. Just swipe right to open your camera,
shoot, draw or type, add stickers, and post! Your stories are then archived if you want to add
them to a Highlight later on.
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Instagram Stories
How it Works

15. • Just like tagging a post, type @ and the person’s handle to tag
them on your story
• Choose from an assortment of fonts, or freehand draw over your
story
• You can choose from different face filters and visual effects such
as: Boomerang, Superzoom, Focus, Rewind, Hands-free, Type,
and Music
• Film up to 1 minute worth of footage (splits into 15 second stories
automatically)
• Select multiple pieces of content from your camera roll
• Read more about interesting ways to play with the Stories feature
on The Daily Rind 15
How It Works
Part 2

16. Now that we know the basics, let’s go over some ways to make your Stories engaging and…tell
a story!
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Best Practices
Instagram Stories

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• Poll: Get your audience’s opinion on Stories with Poll. Check out The Daily
Rind for some fun Poll ideas.
• Hashtag: Have your stories join a community hashtag page by including the
hashtag sticker
• Link: Verified accounts, or accounts over 10k followers, can add links to their
stories, making it seamless to redirect Instagram followers to products
• Stickers: Add a GIF, countdown, quiz, donation, poll, question, or chat sticker
to your story. You can upload your own sticker to your GIPHY page to use.
Read about optimizing your Stories on The Daily Rind
• Music: Add music by your artist or others up to 15 seconds long
• Location: Have your story join other stories taken in that location
Best Practices
Instagram Stories (Instastories) – Stickers

18. • Countdown Sticker: Create a countdown to an event
that fans can then share onto their own IG Stories
• Quiz Sticker: Use this sticker to multiple choice quiz
your followers
• Chat Sticker: This sticker allows followers to request
access to a private DM group of up to 32 people. When
you’re done chatting with the fans you can end the
chat, but everyone will still keep the history. Read more
about this feature on The Daily Rind
• Music Response to Question Sticker: Now you can
have fans respond to Question Stickers with music
• Read about these features and more on The Daily Rind
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Best Practices
Instagram Stories (Instastories) – New to Stickers in 2019

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• Spotify: While listening to a song on Spotify, you can click the “Share”
option button for the option to share the song to your Instagram story
• Users can click the “Play on Spotify” option to listen on their own
• Soundcloud: Click the “Share” option while listening to a song to share it to
your Instagram Story
• This feature is not only great for showing off your catalogue, but to also
highlight fan created remixes
• Read more on this feature on The Daily Rind
• Pandora: Tap the “Share” option from the Now Playing screen on the app
and select “Instagram Stories”
Best Practices
Instagram Stories (Instastories) – Sharing Streaming

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• On your own post, or someone else’s,
click the share button for the option to
add the post to your story
• Make the post take up as much or as
little space as you want
• It’s best to have a call to action: new
post, click through, etc.
Best Practices
Instagram Stories (Instastories) – Sharing Posts

21. • Show off some of your best Instagram
Stories with the Highlight feature
• Create different buckets as an introduction
to your brand for new followers, and to
catch up older followers who might have
missed important Stories
• Check out The Daily Rind for more Highlight
ideas!
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Highlights
How it Works

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• Create highlights that make sense with
your brand: Tour, New Music, etc.
• Create and add custom Highlight covers
for each Highlight bucket
• Don’t create too many – this feature
should show a new user who you are and
what you’re about as easily as possible
• Have multiple stories in a Highlight –
build out your stories
Best Practices
Highlights
@theunlikelycandidates

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• Live allows you to connect with your
followers in real time
• To go Live just swipe right to open your
camera and tap the “Start Live Video”
button
• You can go live for up to an hour, and
once you finish the Live you can choose
to add it to your story
Best Practices
Instagram Live
*image via Instagram

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• You can request to join someone else’s
Instagram Live to create a joint
broadcast
• You can share photos and videos from
your camera roll while you’re going Live
• Use the Sticker question during your Live
to ask fans a question or to have them
ask you questions to answer
• Read more about Instagram Live
features on The Daily Rind
Best Practices
Instagram Live - Features
*image from
Instagram-press

25. Instagram offers an array of stats for you on Instagram as a business/creator account. To
become a business/creator account you’ll need a Facebook Fan Page to connect your account
to. Go to your profile and tap the menu bar, tap settings, and then ’switch to Business Profile’
or ‘Creator Profile’. We suggest becoming a Business Profile as Creator Profiles have limited
functionalities when running advertising campaigns.
Current Instagram breaks down their Insights into 3 categories:
• Activity
• Content
• Audience 25
Insights
Measuring Success as a Business/Creator Account

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• Interactions – Measures the actions people
take when engaging with your account
• Profile Visits
• Website Clicks/Email/Anything else you
set up for your account
• Discovery – How many people see your
content and where
• Reach – Number of unique accounts that
have seen any of your posts
• Impressions – Total number of times all
of your posts have been seen
Insights
Activity
*image from animoto

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• How many post you’ve made this week
• Posts – measuring your posts by: Comments, Engagement, Follows, Impressions, Likes, Profile Visits, Reach,
Saves, Shares, and more
• Can view from 7 days up through 2 years
• Stories – measures by backs, exits, link clicks, along with all the same measurements as posts
• Can view from 24 hours, up to 14 days
• Promotions – measures visits to profile, how many people viewed the promotion, impressions, engagements,
demographics, and money spent
Insights
Content

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• Top Locations – by city or country
• Age Range – in general or by sex
• Gender
• Followers
• Hours – Average times when your
followers are on Instagram for that
day
• Days- The days of the week your
audience is most active
Insights
Audience
*image from WordStream

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• IGTV is a beast of its own, you can either
access your channel through the IG app
or through the IGTV
• IGTV is meant for longer form, high
quality content. This function could be
used for a series, interviews, vertical
music videos, acoustic sets
• Check out The Daily Rind for more IGTV
ideas
IGTV
How it Works

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• You can now share a preview of your
IGTV videos to your Instagram feed.
• Sharing both vertical and landscape
videos on IGTV are available. Viewers can
click landscape videos to expand to full-
screen or simply rotate their phone.
IGTV
New Features
*image from IG Music
Partners

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• You’ll now be able to organize your IGTV
videos into a series with a consistent title
and theme. Unlike Feed, Stories or Live,
IGTV allows you to brand and create your
own series that your audience can look
forward to.
IGTV
New Features
*image from
IG Music
Partners

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• Engagement
• Views
• Likes
• Comments
• Retention Rate – how much of the video
the viewer watched
Insights
IGTV
*image from later

33. Instagram has also created their own photo tool apps to help you create great content:
• Hyperlapse: Create your own time-lapse videos
• Boomerang: Make gif-like video posts
• Layout: Create photo collages and comparisons
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Additional Apps
Apps Created by Instagram

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Not in the Instagram family, Later is an
external app that allows you to plan,
schedule, and publish your content to
Instagram. It’s a great app for when you’re
on the go, or want to work on gallery theme
Additional Apps
Later

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Repost, another external app, lets you share
content from other galleries while still giving
credit to the original photographer. This app
is a nice way to give fans or partners a shout
out on your feed
Additional Apps
Repost for Instagram

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• Instagram is all about quality content. Editing really comes down to what works best for you. Here are some
free apps worth checking out:
• VSCO
• Snapseed
• Darkroom
• Afterlight
• Enlight Quickshot
• Lightroom
• Unfold – for Instagram Stories
Additional Apps
Editing Apps

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Thank You
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