Understanding Instagram Features for SMM

Hello Friends, Welcome to LearnVern.

In the last topic we saw how to create an instagram profile and also we looked at the types of instagram profile that is a business profile, a creator profile or an individual personal profile.

In today’s session we will see that once the instagram account has been created what all features does instagram has in store that makes it a unique social media platform. These features are used by plenty of instagram users and are creating interesting content on this platform.

We will talk about reels which are Instagram's most popular feature and a characteristic that is liked the Most.

We will talk about stories, post, live and many more features that you should be well aware of.

The very first step is that you need to login to your instagram account. If you recall our previous session, we learnt how to create an instagram account.

So using the same credentials, that is with the same username and password you need to login to your instagram account.

As soon as you login to your instagram account, this screen will be visible to you.

Now what you need to do is that you need to click on this Plus button.

As soon as you click on it,  you will see this dialog box opening up.

In this dialog box, the following 5 options will get displayed:

post, 

reel,

story,

story highlight and

Live

So you may choose either 1 out of these 5 options to create your post format.

First of all, let us look at what an instagram post is. If you wish to publish a single image or a group of images, like multiple images say upto 10 images then on instagram you can publish it as a photo post.

Recommended size as per instagram is ten eighty into ten eighty pixels

And all these photos should be square photos.

As soon as you upload a photo then instagram gives you an option that you can add effects, you can add captions, you can add your location. You can also add many filters. You can also beautify the images.

So, instagram as a social media platform provides you with all of these options to post.

The next important feature is that you can post Stories. What is a Story?

It could be a photo or it could be a video. Right?

So a story can be a photo and a story can be a video too.

In this photo or video, you can add music, you can add effects, you can add filters.

Story usually looks like this.

And the advantage you have here is that it gives you a full screen experience on your mobile.

Many creators and many brands make extensive use of stories. They post stories everyday. They publish stories daily so that their users and audience view from time to time.

Because of the vertical format you get a full screen mobile experience. And that is why stories are the most important and the most loved feature of Instagram.

One main thing that you need to understand here is that stories have a shelf life of only 24 hours. So if you publish storIES, Instagram will remove it after 24 hours of posting it.

Now, If you want the story to stay on your profile for long, then you will have to convert it to story highlights. This way the story will get tagged with your profile and hence the story will stay on your profile for a long time.

So, remember that the Stories that you publish that you upload will get removed from your profile within 24 hours of posting it.

Next we will talk about Reels.

After Stories, the 2nd important and popular feature of Instagram is Instagram Reels.

What are Reels?

Reels are small, short videos. Right?

You can create very short videos, you can edit them and post, or you can shoot and post them or you can even live record the videos and upload them on reels.

The duration for this is 60 seconds. You cannot upload reels of over 60 seconds.

This duration of 60 seconds that I am talking about, is as of November 2021.

When Instagram came up with this feature of Reels that time the duration was of only 15 seconds.

From 15 seconds it went up to 30 seconds and then from 30 seconds it went upto 60 seconds.

After uploading reels, you can add filters, you can add music, songs can also be added. You can add songs from English as well as Hindi movies.

Adding songs gives an additional push to your reels, an additional reach too.

So instagram reels are an important feature of instagram.

The last feature is Live.

So what does instagram live do?

Instagram live enables users to broadcast live streams. For example a particular event can be broadcasted to your followers or users. Or if you are  at a live performance that live performance can as well be broadcasted. If you are opening up something new then you may live stream broadcast that too.

What is the purpose of doing all this?

It establishes a greater sense of connectivity. You will be able to establish a better connectivity with your audience.

And the most important purpose of doing this is that it boosts engagement.            

The users that are the viewers of these live streams can comment on your live stream, they can share emojis during the live event with the creator.

Lastly, we will talk about an important concept and that is Hashtag.

If you are active on social media platforms, then you would have seen that a lot of content creators while creating a post use hashtag as a prefix to some word.

What is the meaning of the hashtag here?

What is the relevance of the hashtag here?

So if i have to define hashtags, then hashtags start with a hash symbol as you can see in this image on my screen. And after the hash symbol the word you write gets considered as a hashtag.

Hashtags are used by people as their posts get wider reach.

What is the utility value of a hashtag?

What does a hashtag do?

Hashtag categorises your post. For example if you posted a content related to travel so

Hashtag travel, hashtag content by doing this your particular post will get categorised.

Right, got it?

So this is the significance of the hashtag.

Hashtags are used across various social media platforms. Not only on instagram but also on facebook, linkedin, twitter hashtags are used for categorisation. And hashtags are the most popular feature across all social media platforms.

That is all in today’s session.

 If you have any queries or comments, click the discussion button below the video and post there. This way, you will be able to connect to fellow learners and discuss the course. Also, Our Team will try to solve your query.

In the next session we will see what a youtube channel is all about. We saw that youtube is the most powerful social media channel and also how many people in India are using Youtube channels.

So how to create a youtube channel and what are the best practices to create a youtube channel - all these we will learn in our next session.

Till then, take care. Good Bye