Instagram Hacks for Creating a Killer Instagram Feed:

If you’re looking to convert your viewers into followers, you need to put time aside to plan your Instagram feed in advance and deliver a standout feed. 

Some of the best brands on Instagram have gorgeous, curated aesthetics that show off their unique style — and that isn’t by accident. 

From nailing a brand aesthetic on your feed, to incorporating grid art, and repurposing photos as videos, we have tons of hacks to create a killer Instagram feed: 

Instagram Hacks #9: Use Presets to Edit All Your Instagram Images

If you want to gain followers and build your brand awareness on Instagram, you need to have a strong and recognizable Instagram aesthetic across your feed and stories.

But editing photos so that they all look and feel the same can take time and effort to get right. Especially if you’re new to editing software like Photoshop.

Enter: Time-saving, photo-editing presets! 

Presets are one-click photo editing tools that can dramatically speed up your workflow and give your Instagram photos a professional look. 

For no-fuss editing and quick-and-easy set up, VSCO app is a firm favorite with influencers and brands. It has lots of free presets (called filters in VSCO) to choose from so you can start experimenting straight away and choosing your favorites for your brand. 

They even have curated preset packs of complementary filters making it a cinch to edit your photos and create a beautiful Instagram feed.

Another option is to edit your photos with the Lightroom CC app and presets!

While Photoshop takes time and effort to master, the free Lightroom app allows you to use mobile presets to quickly edit your images on the go.

You might even have spotted your favorite Instagrammers releasing their own preset collections, making it easy for you to achieve the same look and feel for your feed: 

Want to learn more about how to save time on Instagram and quickly and easily edit your photos with Lightroom presets? Check out our blog post and free video guide with Instagram influencer Maddy Corbin on how to use Lightroom for Instagram! 

Instagram Hacks #10: Create Grid Art Across Your Feed

Ever wondered how to achieve this “grid art” look on your Instagram feed? 

We’re here to reveal all! 

The trick is to plan your feed and vertically stack your grid art images — with 2 posts in between your vertically stacked images, your images will always stay together: 

And the trick to doing this is by using a visual planner like Later! 

Later’s Visual Instagram Planner tool shows you exactly what your Instagram feed would look like with your scheduled posts, and lets you easily rearrange or swap out photos to find the perfect balance for your Instagram feed. 

Or in this case, more your images around so you can get the perfect grid art set up! 

Then once you’re happy with your layout, your posts are ready to be scheduled and posted to your feed. 

Want to try out Later’s visual planner for yourself? Sign up today — it’s free! 

Instagram Hacks #11: Turn Photos Into Video Content 

Recently, we wrote about the power of Instagram video and how it stands a better chance at appearing on the Explore page. 

But creating video content from scratch can be time-consuming, and if you have tons of great photography, you don’t want to waste it.

Thankfully, there are a few hacks to help create dynamic “videos” for your feed and stories without too much hassle.

#1: Create a Stop-Motion Graphic From Still Images

A simple way to create a graphic from your still images is to layer your static shots to create a stop-motion effect for your images.

Take a look at how Jo Malone created this stop-motion graphic for their feed that received tons of likes and comments:

You can use Adobe Photoshop to layer still images together to create GIF-like video. Just follow this tutorial from Adobe to create a GIF from photos.

If you’re worried about navigating around Photoshop, you can easily create something similar with apps like Life Lapse.

#2: Add Motion to Your Still Images

Using apps like Enlight Pixaloop, you can upgrade a still image into a video post by adding some subtle movements, like the clouds in this post on Later’s feed: 

#3: Add an Animated Element to a Still Photo

Something a simple as this twinkle in a post can elevate your engagement and help you appear on the Explore page! 

And the good news is that this is the easiest hack of all! 

Start by uploading your photo to Instagram Stories. Then add simple GIF sticker (search: twinkle for this one) and then save it to your camera roll instead of posting to stories. 

Then, you can use InShot app to crop the video file to be the correct dimensions for your feed! Easy! 

Want to discover more easy ways to get more viewers on your posts? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Getting on the Instagram Explore Page! 

Instagram Hacks #12: Create a Cover Photo for Your Video Content

Now that we have you thinking about Instagram videos, here’s our favorite hack for maintaining your Instagram aesthetic while posting more video content: 

Start by using apps like Canva, Over, Adobe Spark Post, or any other design software to create a still image to attach to the beginning or end of a video clip. 

Then you can select this clip to be the cover image when you’re publishing your video post or IGTV. 

Creating a branded video cover has become even more important now that IGTV videos can be shared on your Instagram feed as a preview!

There are a few different ways to create a cover image, and insert it into your videos, so we have the step-by-step guide ready for you in this blog post! 

Instagram Hacks #13: Post When Your Audience is Most Active 

Knowing when your audience is online is a great way to hack into their home feed and make sure your posts are always seen. 

And there are two easy ways to do this! 

Firstly, take a look at your Instagram Insights to learn when the peak times for your audience. 

Under the Audience tab, you’ll be able to see spikes in your Instagram engagement from your audience and you can pinpoint the days of the week or the times of the day that your audience is most active. 

Or, if you want to completely remove the guesswork, you can use Later’s Best Time to Post feature! 

Later’s Best Time to Post feature automatically calculates your 7 top posting times based on your best performing posts from the recent month:

So you can plan to post your Instagram content at time that you know will deliver the highest engagement! 

Instagram Hacks for Creating Great Instagram Captions:

While it may not be as important as the images you choose to share, having good Instagram captions alongside your images and videos play a critical role in building a community around your brand.

Plus, good (and pretty!) Instagram captions are important because it could be the key to having your post seen by more people! 

Here’s our favorite hacks for creating great Instagram captions for your posts: 

Instagram Hacks #14: Add Line Breaks to Your Captions

You can pour a lot of love and energy into creating the best captions for your Instagram posts, but isn’t it annoying when Instagram removes your line breaks from your text?

Well, we have some good news for you: you can add line breaks with the Later app!

Previously, you had to add individual symbols, like stars or dashes, each on a new line of text to create line breaks in your captions. 

But adding line breaks with Later couldn’t be easier: All you have to do is press the return key while writing your caption and you’ll have lovely, spaced out captions for your Instagram posts!

Don’t believe us? Sign up for Later if you haven’t already and give it a try!

Instagram Hacks #15: Hide Your Hashtags in Your Caption

As you already know, adding hashtags to your posts can really boost your engagement!

Instagram allows you to have up to 30 hashtags per post, but having them bunched up next to your caption can look messy. The good news? There’s a simple solution.

If you’re using the Later app, all you have to do is add enough returns (about 5-6 should do it)  to move your hashtags further down and away from the rest of your post’s caption. 

When you post your photo, Instagram will only reveal the first few lines of your caption so your hashtags will be hidden.

But if you’re not scheduling your posts with Later, you’ll need to manually add in some line breaks to move your hashtags to further down in your caption: 

How to hide your hashtags in your Instagram caption:

• After you’ve written your caption on Instagram, you need to add a series of symbols — dashes, asterisks, or dots, each on a separate line
• This will shuffle your hashtags down and make your post a lot neater when it’s published

Instagram Hacks #16: Collect and Save Your Best Hashtags

Posts with hashtags get 12.6% more engagement than posts without — so you want to be strategically thinking about using hashtags in your caption every time you post! 

With Later’s Saved Captions feature, you can now create multiple hashtag lists based on your frequently used hashtag categories, all from your Later account.

For example, let’s say you run a spa in San Diego, and your Instagram feed is a collection of beautiful California-based travel photography, and images of your spa and treatments you offer.

Instead of trying to remember (or find) relevant hashtags for every post, you can use Saved Captions to keep them all organized, so you can quickly add them when scheduling in the future.

If you want to schedule a photo of a beach in San Diego, since you’ve already saved hashtags for different categories, you can we can insert relevant hashtags for beaches, California, travel, and San Diego with just the click of a button!

After you’ve written your caption, just click on “Saved Captions” and then click on the appropriate hashtag list to instantly add those hashtags to your caption! 

Instagram Hacks to Boost the Engagement on Your Instagram Stories:

Instagram Stories are a fun, free, and effective way to engage with your audience, even if they aren’t seeing your posts in their feed.

And with over 500 million people watching Instagram Stories every day, you want to get them involved and engaged with your business!

So to help you stand out from the crowd, we’re sharing the best Instagram hacks to nail your stories style, and get more eyes on everything you post: 

Instagram Hacks #17: Use Instagram Stories Templates to Maintain Consistency and Save Time 

Instagram Stories templates are a growing trend on Instagram — businesses and influencers are carefully creating their own branded stories that have a uniform color, tone, style, and format.

And one of the massive benefits of having an Instagram Stories template is that it makes creating on-brand content super easy so you’ll never fall behind on posting to stories and growing your business.

From creating your own unique templates using Instagram’s design styles, fonts, GIFs and colors, like GoTo Skincare, or using design apps like Over, UnFold, and Made to use pre-designed templates to edit your images — templates really speed up the process! 

Instagram Hacks #18: Creating Backgrounds for Instagram Stories Stickers 

Instagram Stories stickers are a great way to boost your engagement and get your audience interacting with your posts. 

But you want to make your stickers stand out from the crowd and grab your audience’s attention. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to create an outline, or background image for your sticker! If you don’t have them already, you’ll want to download the Background Eraser Remover and Over apps for this hack! 

Here’s how to hack Instagram Stories and make your stickers stand out: 

• Start by creating a dummy Instagram story with the sticker you plan to use. In this example, we want to create a background for the countdown sticker, so we’ve created this fake Instagram Story with a simple green background (we’ll explain why in a minute!) and added in the countdown sticker: 

• Save this dummy story to your camera roll. 
• Now open the Background Eraser Remover app — this is a great app for removing any background colors (like this green color) and saving an element (in this case our countdown sticker) as a .png file with a transparent background! 
• Using the eraser button, erase all the green background around your sticker and save this image to your camera roll. 

• Now, open up the Over app and add this .png image to your Logo folder! 
• Once you have that saved to your Logo folder, you can start editing an Instagram Stories post with Over and use this dummy sticker as a placeholder for when you post the real deal on Instagram!
  
• Using shapes, graphics, bold lines etc you can design elements that will sit around your sticker post. 
• Once you’re happy with your finished Instagram Story design in Over, save it to your camera roll and post it to Instagram or schedule with Later.
  
• When it’s time to post, your sticker can sit perfectly on top of your dummy sticker you used to create the post in Over and your followers will be amazing at your design skills! 
• Just remember, you’ll need to do this for every Instagram Stories sticker you want to use, but once you have all the “dummy stickers” created and saved to your Logo folder in Over, it’ll be a cinch to edit in the future! 

Instagram Hacks #19: Access Even More Colors for Your Instagram Stories Text

This hidden Instagram Stories hack lets you access every color imaginable for your text, so you can match it to the aesthetic of your post or even your brand colors! 

All you have to do is open your Instagram Stories and select the brush tool. 

Now tap and long-hold any of the default color options at the bottom of the screen to open the color slider.

From here, just swipe across the slider to pick a custom color for your story.

You can also use the color picker tool to pinpoint the exact color from your template, or the image that you’ve uploads to share!

Instagram Hacks #20: Create Rainbow or Color Gradient Text for Instagram Stories 

You’re probably feeling really creative right now and ready to take your Instagram Stories text a step further! 

Well, with this simple hack, you can create the “rainbow” effect on the fonts for all your posts! 

Once you’ve typed what text you want to use, select the color picker tool to create a color gradient (or rainbow) effect with your text!

Then tap on your text and tap “Select All” to highlight it.

While your text is highlighted, press and hold one finger down on the color palette tool at the bottom of your screen (like you did before) to open the entire color spectrum.

Now here’s the tricky bit: While your text is highlighted, press and hold one finger down on the color palette tool at the bottom of your screen (like you did before) to open the entire color spectrum.

You’ll see your text begin to change color, letter by letter, as you drag your finger across the color spectrum! 

You can move your finger faster or slower for additional color variations, or alternate the direction that you drag your fingers across the screen to achieve an entirely different result.

Instagram Hacks #21: Get More Instagram Stories Views by Using Hashtags

Did you know that you can add up to 10 hashtags for each your Instagram story posts?

By adding an Instagram hashtag to your story, you’re giving your content an added chance to be seen by new audiences. Most Instagram geo-location tags and hashtags have their own Stories attached to them, which means they could appear on the Explore page.

So to maximize on this under-utilized hack, add 10 relevant hashtags to your next story simply by typing them into your Instagram story using the text too!

Keep reading for more hacks on how to hide hashtags in your Instagram Stories! 

Instagram Hacks #22: Hide Hashtags in Your Instagram Stories to Maintain Your Aesthetic (But Still Be Searchable!) 

And if you don’t want to clutter your image with the added text, you can shrink the text size of your hashtags (just ‘pinch’ the hashtag text to make it bigger or smaller) and hide the text under a GIF or sticker!

No one will be the wiser, but your Instagram Stories could appear on the Explore page for that hashtag.

Or you can go a step further and blend your hashtag text into the background of your Instagram Stories! Just select the color tool from the text option and choose a color that perfectly matches your Instagram story background

This works particularly well if the background is a solid color, so if you’re using an Instagram Stories template for example. 

With just two taps, your hashtag content will magically blend into the background but still be searchable!

Want to learn more Instagram hashtag hacks? Check out our blog post for 10 Instagram Hashtag hacks + tricks you definitely want to try! 

Instagram Hacks #23: Copy and Paste Images into Instagram Stories 

This simple hack lets you add more than one image into a post, or you can overlay an image into a pre-existing template. 

All you have to do is copy a photo from your camera roll and then paste it onto your story using the text tool!

Start by opening a photo and tapping the “Export” button.

Now tap “Copy” and head back to your Instagram story.

Double-tap the screen to pull up the “Paste” option. And that’s it! The photo you copied earlier should now appear on your story. 

Instagram Hacks #24: Repost User-Generated Content to Your Stories

Found an Instagram post that you love and want to share with your audience? Now you can do it with Instagram Stories!

But simply reposting an image that you’ve been tagged in, or find interesting doesn’t really make for the most engaging Instagram Stories post — the default design you’ll get will look something like this: 

Where instead, you can repost an Instagram post into a template and make it look much more engaging — like how we did it to promote a campaign we worked on with Hubspot earlier this year: 

Or how we shared these great Instagram profiles for International Women’s Day! 

The hack here is to use an app like Over or Canva to create a template that you’ll use to “house” the reposted image. 

You’ll need to leave a gap in the template, or a placeholder image or shape for where you’d like to overlay your image. 

Then use an app like Magic Eraser which will make the placeholder image or shape transparent and turn it into a .png that you can then save to your camera roll. 

Once that’s done, just tap the share arrow from the Instagram post you’d like to repost, and tap “share to Instagram Stories” — this will bring up that generic Instagram Stories design for a reposted image. 

Now, using Hack #23, copy and paste the image you created with the Magic Eraser app to overlay over the reposted post! 

You may have to do some resizing (pinch the frame of the reposted post to make it larger or smaller!) or move the image around the frame to get it right! 

This one’s a bit fiddly to master — but the results really pay off as you’ve created a standout piece of user-generated content! 

Instagram Hacks #25: Add Your Brand Fonts to Your Stories 

By now, you know the importance of maintaining your brand aesthetic on Instagram Stories, so this hack will help you stay consistent with your fonts! 

If you’d like to integrate your own branded fonts — for example, at Later we use the font Poppins — you just have to add them to your design app! 

This can really help improve brand awareness and will make your Instagram Stories stand out from the crowd! 

If you want to add your brand’s fonts, we suggest using Over app for an easy way to achieve the look, just follow these steps:

• Airdrop your fonts from your computer to your phone
• Accept the files on your phone to install the files
• Open the Over app, and navigate to fonts in any of your draft templates
• Your fonts should be installed in the available font options. 

Want to discover even more Instagram Stories hacks? Check out our blog post for 16 Instagram Stories Hacks That Will Blow Your Mind! 

Instagram Hacks #26: Preview Your Entire Instagram Story Before Posting

Earlier this year, Instagram launched a new Stories feature for Android users that allows you to upload multiple Stories at once. And now, this handy feature has come to Apple users too! 

So if you’d like to curate and preview your Instagram Story before putting it live, you can!

How to do it:

• Swipe up from the Instagram Stories camera and then tap on the “Multiple Images” icon in the top right corner of your screen

• You can select up to 10 photos or videos from your gallery — it’s the same process as selecting photos and videos for your carousel posts
• On the edit screen, you’ll see a preview of all the photos and videos you selected at the bottom

• You can tap each one to edit them individually.
• Once you’re finished editing all your images and videos, a preview will upload in the order you selected them
• Once you’re happy with your story, simply tap “Your Story” at the bottom of the screen to make it live

Want to learn how to use your Instagram Stories to grow your business and get more followers? 

Sign up for our free Instagram Stories course and take your Instagram Stories to a whole new level!

Instagram Hacks #27: Share a Sneak Peek of Your Instagram Story

If you’d like to entice your audience and share just a tiny highlight of your Instagram story, this hack could come in handy.

Here’s how to flood your screen with a solid color, and then erase some of that color for your big reveal:

• Open Instagram Stories and take a photo, or select one from your camera roll.
• Tap the pen icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and select a color
• Next, tap and hold on the screen for 1-3 seconds until the screen is filled with a solid color

• Note: The screen will have a solid color fill if you use the marker or neon brush, or a translucent color fill if you use the chisel-tip brush
• Tap the eraser icon on the upper right-hand corner of the screen and select the size of the eraser using the slider on the left-hand side of the screen
• Tap or swipe on the screen where you would like to reveal the underlying image
• Once you’re happy with your image, select “Your Story” on the bottom of the screen to add it to your Stories

Instagram Hacks #28: Plan, Storyboard & Schedule Your Instagram Stories with Later 

When it comes to growing your followers on Instagram, consistency is key — especially on Instagram Stories. 

So if you want to get organized and make sure you’re always posting when your audience is online, now’s the time to start scheduling your stories with Later! 

With Later, you can storyboard your content, add captions or links, collaborate with your team, and visually plan and schedule Instagram Stories right from your desktop – something you won’t find on any other marketing platform.

Then when the time comes to post, Later will send you a notification. Your stories will be downloaded to your phone and caption or links copied to your clipboard, making it easy to post Instagram Stories in seconds. 

Later’s Instagram Stories scheduler is available now on all paid plans, starting at $9/month. Upgrade now to get access or start scheduling stories! 

Other Instagram Hacks to Try Out

Instagram Hacks #29: Turn Off Your “Last Active” in Direct Messages

Don’t want to let anyone know when you were last online? No problem! 

All you have to do is turn off your Activity Status from your Instagram settings. 

Here’s how to turn off your “last active” in Direct Messages:

• Tap on the “Settings” icon from your Instagram homepage
• Scroll down to “Privacy” and then select “Activity Status”
• Swipe the slider button to turn off “Show Activity Status”

Instagram Hacks #30: Save an Instagram Live Video

If you want to keep your Instagram Live video for the memories, or even re-purpose it for an IGTV video, it’s super easy to save Instagram Live videos to your phone.

When your Instagram Live stream ends, you’ll see a save button in the upper-right corner, just tap it and the video gets saved to your camera roll. Easy, right?

Instagram Hacks #31: Hide Old Posts from Your Feed Without Deleting Them

If you’ve been giving your Instagram aesthetic an overhaul, there might be a few posts that don’t fit in with your new theme. 

Luckily, you don’t have to delete them from your page, just hide them in your Archive!

How to hide old posts from your feed without deleting them: 

• Tap the three dots at the top of the post you want to remove from your feed
• Select “Archive” and it will be removed from your feed
• If you want to review all your archived posts, tap the Archive icon in the top right of your Instagram profile
• If you want to restore posts to your feed, all you have to do is tap “Show on Profile” on the posts you want to show again, and it’ll show up in its original spot

Want to create the perfect Instagram feed for your business? Check out our free video guide! In under 15 minutes, you can learn how to design your own Instagram aesthetic and plan the perfect feed so you can grow your Instagram faster.

Instagram Hacks #32: Reply to Instagram Comments Faster

If you’re running a business, you could find that your followers are asking similar questions like “hey, what time do you open?” or “when will this be back in stock?” — and providing timely answers is paramount!

To do this, you’ll need to open your profile and tap the button with three lines in the top-right corner of the screen. This will open the sidebar menu where you can access your Instagram settings.

Next, tap the settings button and scroll down to Business Settings. Here you should see an option for Quick Replies.

This will open a new window where you can create both the keyboard shortcut for the quick reply, along with the quick reply itself.

Tap the “+” button in the top-right corner to create a new quick reply.

Once you’re happy, tap the “Save” button in the top-right corner (you can always come back and edit or delete your quick reply later).

When your ready to use your Quick Reply, type the shortcut you created earlier. This should cause a blue Quick Replies button to appear in the message box.

When you tap the button, the quick reply message you wrote will automatically appear. 

Ready for some more time-saving Instagram hacks? Check out our blog post and discover even more ways you can streamline your Instagram management! 

BONUS Instagram Stories Hack #33: Switch to a Creator Profile to Streamline your DM inboxes 

When it comes to managing your Direct Messages, the new creator profile comes with some major benefits!

With more DM filtering options, the creator profile inbox allows you to prioritize messages from brands and friends, or rank them by relevance or time to make sure they never miss an important request.

Not sure if you should make the switch? Check out our blog post on everything there is to know about Instagram’s Creator Profiles! 

There you have it! 33 easy to achieve Instagram hacks, tips, and tricks that could help you boost your profile and build an online community of your dream.

ShearShare Team