8 Instagram hacks for community managers

According to Christian Buggisch’s overview of user numbers for 2020, there are no new official Instagram figures, but significant growth in usage has been observed over the past year. There was an increase of 25% in monthly active users and around 45% in daily active users. Reason enough not to neglect Instagram as a channel in 2020. Here are some of our hacks for community managers to make channel maintenance a success and save a little time here and there.

1. collection of topics via Collections

The save function in Instagram can be used very well for topic and editorial planning. If there is an inspiring post that visually or in terms of content exactly matches the brand theme, simply press the save button on the right and create a new collection, e.g. for “Theme plan”, “Curate” or “Look & Feel”. The next editorial planning is already easier!

2. clear posts

Paragraphs structure Instagram posts into meaningful sections, making them easier to read. Especially important for longer posts! Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work so well to insert paragraphs on a cell phone. Here are some hacks for this:

• Simply prepare the text in the notes function of the smartphone and set paragraphs, then simply copy them over.
• Apps such as Space, instaspacer or Insta-Space enable line breaks and paragraphs in the post.
• The Swiftkey keyboard not only allows you to insert Spaces, it also has a swipe keyboard and makes it easier to switch between languages.

3. special fonts

Of course, the creators don’t tell us exactly which font Instagram uses. However, if you’ve had enough and want to add a bit of variety to your posts or profile, you can use font generators such as IG Fonts. Open the page in your mobile browser, enter the desired text, copy the generated font and insert it into the posting text or bio. You’ve already created an eye-catcher.

4. background image hack for stories

Sometimes you want to add a picture to your story, but – unfortunately – it’s not in portrait format. Instagram then usually inserts a rather boring, neutral image. To create more interesting backgrounds, you can use license-free image databases such as Unsplash to find and insert beautiful images. If you then place the landscape image on top, it looks much more appealing.

5. new functions for Insta Stories

There are new functions in Instagram Stories almost every week. If you don’t want to miss anything here, you should test it out regularly and produce stories.

The latest new functions are available for the popular Boomerang, whose sequence can now be adjusted, slowed down or blurred. It has also recently become possible to share a story image in the form of a collage. If you select the “Layout” function, you can add new images in predefined grids or insert them from the gallery.

6. visually enhance stories with picture-in-picture features

If you want to explain something in your story in the form of a video, it generally helps to insert an image to visualize this. For this purpose, the function to insert an image into the image or video of the story has recently been introduced. To do this, simply copy the desired image from the cell phone gallery and insert it into the text function of the story.

7. use cheat sheets

Whether for stories, posts, videos or ad formats. Current cheatsheets can be found all over the web and can be easily pinned to your desk or notes on your cell phone so that you always have everything in one place and never use the wrong sizes.

8. Und nicht zuletzt: Unser Lieblingstool Canva

In this article, we have already described why we like working with Canva so much. For professional use, we recommend the paid version because you can add brand-related elements such as fonts and colors.

Viel Spaß auf Insta!