WordPress Instagram Plugin: Storytelling Through Instagram

Storytelling through Instagram is a beautiful way to supplement your WordPress blog content. Not only does it accompany your written content with vibrant, customized Instagram media, but it also allows you to reap the benefits of a prevalent form of social media.

Contents

What is Storytelling?
Tips for Storytelling Through Instagram
The Advantage of Connecting Instagram to Your WordPress Blog
How Do I Connect WordPress and Instagram?
WordPress: How to Display an Instagram Photo Without a Plugin?
What is the Best Instagram Plugin for WordPress?
How to Optimize Image When Using Instagram Plugin WordPress?
How to Display Images from an Instagram Hashtag Via WordPress Plugin?
Updated My Instagram Username, How Do I Update My WordPress Plugin?
How to Set Up Instagram Live Video Plugin on WordPress?
WordPress Instagram Plugin Which Allows for Multiple Feeds
How to Use Instagram Plugin in WordPress Visual Composer?
How to Get Instagram Plugin to Show as WordPress Widget?
How to Update Instagram Plugin WordPress?
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What is Storytelling?

When it comes to storytelling, there are two definitions at play here. The first is the more traditional, more literary sense of the word. You want your posts to tell a story. Using your WordPress blog for storytelling seems like the easier way to go about this definition since the written word is how stories have been communicated for a long time.

However, learning how to tell a story visually is a vital skill as the traditional definition morphs with technology. Telling a story in an Instagram post requires knowledge of photo composition and taking your time to generate unique, eye-catching displays to convey a message. If you’re a serious Instagrammer, learning to tell a story through pictures is a must for both gaining followers and mastering social media art.

The second definition falls more along the lines of marketing jargon. Storytelling, in this sense, is a strategic concept that helps marketers target their brands. A successful story will simplify the more significant concepts behind the brand’s post in an interesting visual. It is particularly popular for brands marketing to younger generations since these are the ones mainly on visual-based social media platforms — namely, Instagram.
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Tips for Storytelling Through Instagram

The goal with storytelling through Instagram, then, becomes one of telling audiences what your brand is about without having to type many words. That’s what your WordPress blog is for, anyway!

To do this, there are a few things you want to keep in mind.

Know Who You Are

Understand who you are and what your brand is. Having a sense of what you are selling or telling will help planning your visual ideas a whole lot easier. It also keeps you authentic.

Don’t Cater to Popularity, Cater to Your Audience

Think about it this way. As a teenager, how did you express yourself? Did you express how you felt and your interests through your clothing? If you did follow a subcultural attitude — goth, emo, punk — then most likely your outer appearance clued the world into this attitude. By understanding your state of mind, you were able to find symbols that triggered a response from others. The thing is, you didn’t care how others felt about how you dressed. Part of taking on an appearance like that is staying true to yourself. You may have even found your “people” who dressed and felt just like you.

When you are storytelling, your initial gut reaction will be to cater to what is popular. Do not cater to what is popular! Do not be the Instagram wallflower. This makes your brand inauthentic, and it will show in your posts. Instead, cater to a target audience. There are a lot of users on Instagram (in 2018, there were 1 billion), and your audience is out there. Storytell to them and stay true to you.

Post-to-Image Continuity

Connect the photograph with the post to which you are referring. If your WordPress post is about the importance of saving the bees and a product that is eco- and bee-friendly, don’t post a visual that shows a bee on a flower. This does not tell the correct story.

Instead, incorporate the important elements of the post into the photo. Display the product, someone using the product, and place them in a natural, bee-friendly environment.

Have a Trademark Style

Keep your photos consistent with the look of your brand. Not every photograph has to be the same, but there needs to be an obvious trademark style to them. Consider coloring, lighting, and other aesthetic elements that can make you recognizable.

Create Immersive Photos

Immerse your audience into the photograph. Part of marketing is being able to place those who see the photos into the story itself. If your target audience is 20-30-year-olds, follow the social, commercial, and philosophical trends of that group. Cater your visuals accordingly. The more they can connect with the photograph, the more your brand will be seen and believed.
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The Advantage of Connecting Instagram to Your WordPress Blog

What makes storytelling through Instagram so easy is that you can have text as your back up. WordPress users should not rely on storytelling through Instagram to tell the entire story. In fact, Instagram should be used to connect to followers and generate interest and visually sell the product. Instagram should be the blog preview, so to speak.

Therefore, connecting the two platforms becomes almost essential to any brand or professional blog. This way, you can tell the complete story, not just hand out the “SparkNotes” version.
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How Do I Connect WordPress and Instagram?

Connecting your WordPress to your Instagram is incredibly easy. WordPress loves plugins, and with a paid account, the plugin world is your oyster. All you need to find is a decent plugin. With the Intagrate plugin, you can embed Instagram images into your WordPress posts to bring life to the words on the screen.
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WordPress: How to Display an Instagram Photo Without a Plugin?

Some of you may be thinking that you don’t need a plugin to display Instagram photos on your WordPress. Although this may be true, it is not a streamlined process. It requires manually keeping up with your posts. You also do not have complete post control with this method. It is a matter of copy, paste, and keep up.

You also won’t be able to customize the way the images appear. Your WordPress Instagram gallery will be limited to a static image or video.

However, if you would like to know how to display an Instagram photo on your WordPress without a plugin, here’s what you do:

1. Go into your Instagram post.
2. Click on the three dots that appear right next to “Add a Comment.”
3. Choose “Embed” and copy the code. Select if you want to remove the caption or not.
4. Paste this code into your WordPress post.

Alternatively, you can open the Instagram post in a new tab. This will allow you to embed the URL into the WordPress post, which will give you a post preview.

Although doable, a plugin makes this process easier. Not only does a WordPress Instagram plugin automate this process, but it gives you control over how you want your Instagram photo to appear within the body of the post or on the page.
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What is the Best Instagram Plugin for WordPress?

Intagrate is a pretty awesome Instagram plugin for WordPress. It is designed to be a powerhouse tool for embedding Instagram feeds into your blog, giving you control over what a lot of other plugins cannot. It is the He-Man of Instagram plugins.

In all seriousness, Intagrate is designed to make storytelling through Instagram easier for the user. Their features include:

• Multiple Streams
• Video Integration
• Hashtag Filtering
• Full Content Control
• Hashtags to Taxonomies
• Unlimited Instagram Accounts
• Post Scheduling

….and more! Click here for their full list of features.

What makes Intagrate stand out from the rest, however, is that the user has complete control over the content’s output. Plugins such as Instagram Feed and SmashBalloon allow the user to customize what the feed looks like through preset options. These preset options make for a dazzling display of your photos, complete with sliding galleries and seamless transitions from picture to picture. As much as these are viable options and great plugins in their own right, they still do not give you true ownership over appearance.

This is because the back end editor of Intagrate breaks down the HTML markup for you to play with. If HTML and code is a scary concept to you, it’s okay. Intagrate knows that not everyone is a coding master — so don’t think it keeps you in the dark. Intagrate offers tutorials on how to learn the more complex ways you can manipulate your images.

In a somewhat throwback to the MySpace profile page customization days, you not only learn how powerful of a plugin Intagrate it, you realize your ability to make things look the way you want them to.

Save Media to Your WordPress Library

All videos are fully compatible with your WordPress site and anything you wish to save to your WordPress media library, you can. This means that you can better archive your visuals for easy access and future use.

Intagrate is Not Just About the Photos

You also don’t have to worry about customizing your Instagram post, so it shows up perfectly on your WordPress site. What separates this plugin from others is that it is not just a WordPress Instagram photo editor. You can opt to layout your photo as you wish, but it helps you create a post. This means that you have full post customization control when you head over to your blog.

They Like Multiples

When Intagrate says “unlimited,” they mean it. If you are one of those Instagram users with many accounts, you can merge all of them into your WordPress. No need to pick and choose. And unlike other Instagram plugins for WordPress that may charge you for multiple sites, Intagrate can be used on multisite installs.

Intagrate Will Turn Hashtags into a Different Kind of Hashtag

One of the more advanced and unique features of Intagrate is the ability to generate tag templates and taxonomies through the plugin. Taxonomies in the WordPress world are a way WordPress groups posts together. Similar to Instagram, which creates topic communities through a hashtag, taxonomies create an internal community of your posts. You will be able to find a post based on the tags you used.

There is a light version of the plugin, but upgrading to the premium version will unlock all of these great features and more. Click here to see pricing options and get started with Intagrate today!
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How to Optimize Image When Using Instagram Plugin WordPress?

Intagrate is the plugin that allows you to set up your Instagram images on your WordPress however you’d like. You may not think you will be able to optimize individual images once they are fed into your WordPress, but you can. Thanks to Intagrate’s back end editor, you can access the code of the image to change the image’s dimensions. This is why the plugin is known for its Full Content Control.

When you are on your account page and you have connected with your Instagram feed, there will be a default display of how the image appears in code:

<a href=”%%instagram-image-url%%” title=”%%caption-no-tags-escaped%%” target=”_blank”>

<img alt=”%%caption-no-tags-escaped%%” src=”%%image%%” class=”” width=”600″ height=”600″>

</a>

In this code, you can change and add whatever you’d like. You have control over the HTML markup. The same goes for videos.

You can also use template tags. These tags will allow you to take full advantage of the power of the plugin.
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How to Display Images from an Instagram Hashtag Via WordPress Plugin?

If you want to display your images from an Instagram hashtag through your Intagrate plugin, you’re in luck! In terms of storytelling, this is a perfect way to help consolidate larger ideas of your brand and blog. You will be able to target specific hashtags relating to a particular idea to better tell that particular story. Fortunately, hashtag filtering is one of the things Intagrate was developed to do.

1. Go to the Intagrate plugin on WordPress and start a new post.
2. Your Instagram Settings will appear in a panel on the right-hand side. Once you are logged into your Instagram account, your profile picture and user name will appear.
3. Underneath this, you will see “Media Stream” and “Hashtag Filters.”
4. In Media Stream, select the “All hashtagged media” option.
5. In Hashtag Filters, type in the hashtag you wish to reference. Do not put the hashtag symbol (#) next to the hashtag. You can also include more than one hashtag by separating them with a comma. Exclude hashtags using the ‘-’ before the tag, e.g., turtle.

Doing this will bring up all the photos included in the hashtags you are referencing, creating a “wall.”
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Updated My Instagram Username, How Do I Update My WordPress Plugin?

If you updated your Instagram username, you would have to log into the new account on your Intagrate plugin in WordPress.

1. Navigate to the Intagrate plugin in your WordPress.
2. In Instagram Settings, you will be prompted to log in.
3. Enter your new username and password.
4. If you are already logged in, disconnect and refresh your user name.

Intagrate doesn’t mind the switch!
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How to Set Up Instagram Live Video Plugin on WordPress?

Intagrate allows you to post fully responsive Instagram videos to your posts. However, if you need to stream into a live Instagram video, you can always supplement with other plugins such as Livestream Social for WordPress.
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WordPress Instagram Plugin Which Allows for Multiple Feeds

An important part of storytelling through Instagram is how your Instagram feed appears overall. When a user visits your Instagram profile, do they see a coherent image and brand, or is it jumbled, messy, and nonsensical to what you’re selling or promoting? Creating multiple Instagram accounts is one way to avoid this problem. If you have a brand with different moods that need their own account, then you may want to consider maintaining more than one feed.

One of the great things about Intagrate is that it does not limit the user in how many Instagram accounts it can connect to. This means that you can make as many Intagrate account pages for your WordPress as you’d like and display their feeds simultaneously. Every time a visitor enters your site, the plugin will activate and refresh your feeds.

Multiple Pictures Through Instagram Carousel

Just as you can display multiple feeds, you can also display multiple pictures in one post. Instagram’s carousel feature allows users to add up to 10 photos or videos in each post. You can easily enable this setting when editing your Intagrate account page.

1. Make sure to use the tag %carousel% when in the account editor.
2. You will then be given two options next to the Carousel drop down that appears.
3. “Slider” will result in the carousel display familiar to Instagram.
4. If you select “Individual Images/Videos,” it will show this media in feed style.

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How to Use Instagram Plugin in WordPress Visual Composer?

Visual Composer is another WordPress plugin that takes the place of WordPress’s default editor. The drag-and-drop page builder makes this plugin easy for beginners to navigate, and a rich array of content features keeps WordPress vets satisfied. Visual Composer allows you to seamlessly integrate with social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and the platform of the hour: Instagram.

Visual Composer’s Instagram feature works similarly to Intagrate in that you can post your Instagram photos directly into a post.

1. Navigate to the Hub icon and search for Instagram.
2. Select the Instagram icon that appears to download it to Visual Composer.
3. Once it is activated, you can start adding Instagram images.
4. In a new post, select “Add Element.” Choose the Instagram option.
5. You will then be prompted to insert the URL to the Instagram photo.

The WordPress editor alternative offers an easy way to incorporate your Instagram posts, but it does not necessarily automate the process or give you many customization options for how you would like the image to appear.

Intagrate, because it works both in preset settings and easy-to-learn shortcode, allows you to manipulate these elements. Its flexibility is Intagrate’s guarantee.
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How to Get Instagram Plugin to Show as WordPress Widget?

A widget is a term for an application that allows you to perform certain tasks across multiple platforms. When thinking about WordPress, widgets are those cute little icons that appear on headers or footers on a webpage. Visitors to your site can click on the widget, and it will direct you to where you have specified. Sometimes widgets don’t just direct but allow users to perform certain actions or see particular data.

Many users of Visual Composer and other WordPress editors use the addition of a widget to direct site visitors to their Instagram RSS feed. This usually requires an additional plugin, the more popular example being Instagram Feed. To add the widget to your page:

1. Go to Instagram Feed’s settings.
2. Copy the shortcode in the third tab labeled “Display Your Feed.” The short code in this case in [instagram-feed].
3. Continue back to your WordPress.
4. In the WordPress admin panel, go to Appearances > Widgets.
5. There will be an option, “Text.” Give your widget a title (how the link will display). Paste the shortcode into the text box below.

The same technique can be applied to Intagrate. If you wish to display your Instagram gallery, which can be set up as an RSS feed, or any other aspect of the plugin, you’ll have to use shortcode.

Quick Shortcode Tutorial

Shortcode is just that: a short piece of code. It is easy to work with and understand and gives big directions for how your site should work. WordPress has a set of specified shortcode guidelines you can follow that will enable you to customize pages as you like. Plugins also use specific shortcodes, as is the case with Instagram Feed.

If you want to add your Instagram gallery that you’ve set up through Intagrate on your WordPress, you’ll need the shortcode

. Follow the same steps as you would in the Instagram Feed example.
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How to Update Instagram Plugin WordPress?

To run updates on your Intagrate account, you will need your license key. You can find this on your receipt from the initial purchase.

1. Open your Intagrate settings in your WordPress.
2. Navigate to Settings > License & Support.
3. Activate your license key to receive automatic updates.

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Instagram is a powerful tool to help add story telling to your website. What plugin are you using? Let us know in the comments below.