The Instagram app lets you take, edit, and share photos – and all without having to use an additional application. With just a few clicks and no prior experience of photo editing, you can create professional photo galleries for brands, companies, and private individuals. In many cases, however, your website visitors are not yet following you on Instagram. That makes it all the more worth your time to embed your Instagram feed in WordPress as part of your online presence. In that way, you can use high-quality photos from the social network and potentially gain new followers. However, the more often you post new images, the more time-consuming it will become to manage them manually in both locations.
If you use a WordPress Instagram plug-in, you will no longer have to do this manually. By embedding your Instagram feed in WordPress, new photos are automatically published to your website. There is a large selection of WordPress Instagram plug-ins availablefor this purpose. Simple tools with limited functionality will share your Instagram feed on your website with a 1:1 ratio and can be set up relatively quickly. More comprehensive extensions with one-time integration are more complex but offer more freedom for customized designs. Choosing the right plug-in depends on your personal requirements. The following are the most common functions provided by WordPress Instagram plug-ins:
- Automatic updates: Automatically publishing new Instagram images to your website is a basic function and can be done using any Instagram plug-in.
- Responsive design: This function is now a must-have for all apps and widgets since the use of mobile devices is on the rise and responsive design allows your content to be optimally displayed on devices of all sizes.
- Feed customization: Free-to-use WordPress Instagram plug-ins provide limited feed customization. Premium tools, on the other hand, also allow you to filter your content based on specific criteria (e.g. hashtags, specific locations).
- Multiple accounts and feeds: More comprehensive plug-ins allow you to synchronize multiple Instagram accounts or share multiple feeds on your website.
- Instagram button: If you want your website visitors to follow you on Instagram, this is an important feature. The “Follow us” button will take visitors directly to your Instagram account.