July 16th, 2019 by Jennifer Beile 5 Ways to Use Instagram for Style Inspiration
Instagram has quickly taken over and become my favorite way to find style and outfit inspiration. With all the features added over the last couple of years, it’s become an all-encompassing app, combining the best features of Pinterest, YouTube, and blogs all in one easy app that we are, honestly, already on all day long. It can be a bit overwhelming so I’ve taken the liberty of breaking down the 5 features of Instagram that are best used for organizing your style inspiration!
Organize via Categories
It took me some time to get into the categories feature on Instagram because I felt that in a way, it was just too similar to Pinterest, which I am already horrible at keeping up with. But, once I started using it, I realized how much better it was! Not only can I save posts that I want to go back and read in more detail later but categorizing my style inspo very specifically makes it so much easier to find something than scrolling through all the posts I’ve “liked.” For example: “summer athleisure” or “summer tees” instead of an all-encompassing “summer style.” Also, the “See more like this” option shows similar posts to ones you’ve saved, which is fun to explore.
Follow Hashtags
I realized recently that I use hashtags when I post, but I very rarely click on them via other posts to explore. Who has the time! I have recently discovered that you can actually follow hashtags. This feature can be used strategically to boost your visibility to others if you’re looking for followers but my favorite thing about it is how much I’ve discovered that I normally would not have without exploring a hashtag. The posts within the hashtag you follow will appear just as others do from accounts you follow. Again being more specific about which you follow will help to not over saturate your feed i.e. “summerOOTD” over “OOTD.”
Who Your Favorite Style Influencers are Following & Liking
It only makes sense that we would enjoy what our favorite style influencers like and follow. I love to see deeper into where my favorite style accounts get their inspiration from and have discovered new accounts that I absolutely love just by browsing the accounts they follow and seeing what posts they like.
Browse IGTV
Has anyone else been a bit slow to jump on the IGTV train? I feel like because many of my favorite style accounts took more time to begin using this feature that I dismissed it and never checked it out. Now that I’ve noticed more and more accounts and style bloggers have been using it, I’ve finally spent some time on it and I just may be sold! IGTV is such a great space to see style come alive and it just a bit quicker and less time consuming that YouTube, and you don’t have to change apps!
“Share to” Feature
This is a little simpler, but I love that I can share a post via text, email, or even Pinterest if I want to save it outside of Instagram. Even with categories, Instagram can be overwhelming and saving a post outside of the app allows me to find it just a bit quicker or sending it via text makes it easier for a friend to view rather than tagging them, which can become muddled in all their other notifications. I’ve found that this feature is particularly useful when I’m shopping for a similar look I’ve found on Instagram, so I don’t have to wade through my account to find it and therefore become distracted.
