Instagram 101

Types of Instagram Content: Introduction

These are the types of content you can make on Instagram:

1. Photo

2. Carousels

3. Reels

4. Instagram Videos

5. Stories (and Story Highlights)

6. Lives

7. IG Rooms

8. Guides

Now that's a lot of them. Let's break them down!

This is what Instagram looks like when you go to someone's profile.

You see their name, profile picture, bio and their FEED.

Whatever you post shows up on your feed, so if all your posts have a similar color scheme your feed will look less messy. Having a pretty aesthetic is not a necessity, because most of your engagement will be from people seeing your stuff on their home feed, which looks like this:

It's more important to pass the Feed Test (explained in another chapter)

1. Photos

Photos are single pictures. Examples include: pictures of yourself, Twitter post screenshots, or memes.

Shelf life: 48 hours

(Shelf life is the time for which your post will be pushed out and recommended to people (ie, it will appear in their home feed). I the case of photos, Instagram will stop recommending your photo after 2 days. So after 2 days you may not see likes, comments, etc on your post.

If you DO, that probably means the person found your photo through hashtags, going through your profile, guides or someone else's story reshare.) 

2. Carousels

Shelf life: 48 hours

Carousels are posted the same way as photos are. 

Carousels are multiple-image posts that you slide through. 

You can put a maximum of 10 images.

Steven Mellor recommends using 9-10 or 1-3 images per carousel. 

Carousels are great for nurturing your audience and increasing watch time on your page.

3. Reels

Shelf life: 14 days

Reels are short form video content Instagram introduced to compete with Tiktok and Youtube Shorts. 

Reels are pushed out much more than other Instagram content so this is best for reach. If you're starting out, you can consider just posting Reels, because this gives most growth over the shortest time. 

4. Instagram Videos

Instagram used to have 3 video formats: videos in feed posts, IGTV, and Reels. 

Now, in-feed video posts and IGTV have merged, and are all viewable under the 'video' tab of someone's profile.

In Feed video posts are under 1 minute. IGTV is now called Instagram Video, and these are videos over 1 minute. 

5. Stories

Shelf Life: 24 hours

Stories on Instagram are not posted on your feed. People can view your stories by clicking on your profile or swiping through multiple stories.

Stories disappear after 24 hours, unless you save them to your highlights. You can also view your expired stories in your story archive.

Highlights appear under your bio on your profile.

Someone can only see your highlights (and thus your expired stories) by going to your profile and clicking the circles under your bio.

6. Lives

When someone you follow shares a live broadcast, their profile picture will appear at the top of Feed with a colorful ring around it and the word 'Live'. You can tap or click their profile picture to view their live broadcast.

Instagram has also introduced monetization opportunities with Instagram Lives in the form of Badges.

Lives are great for nurturing your current audience. Don't recommend going live until you have a large enough follwoing, and are comfortable enough showing yourself in long-form videos, managing the stress of Lives, etc.

7. Instagram Live Rooms

This is just like Live, but you can invite upto 3 guests. 

Live viewers can pay for badges, participate in fundraisers and shop.

8. Guides

You can make a blog post-like collection of some of your posts with Guides. This feature allows you to arrange content on your feed so your new followers can find the most useful tips fast. 

These features will be explained in DETAIL in the next few chapters! We'll be discussing how to use them, the shelf life, how they appear to your followers, etc.