What Is Instagram? A Brief Introduction of The Social Media App

In 2010, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launched Instagram, a social networking platform for sharing photos and videos. Facebook Inc. eventually purchased Instagram, which is now known as Meta Platforms. People can share memories from their lives with friends and family using Instagram. It is simple to use by just clicking pictures with a mobile device and saving them digitally. The picture may then be edited with filters and arranged by hashtags to reach a bigger audience. If we have a public account, we can share posts with everyone, or if we have a private account, only with followers who have been approved by us. People you have approved as followers will be able to see your posted content.

Users can access content, such as images, and follow other users, such as friends, celebrities, role models, and influencers, to watch their content in a personal feed. Users can also search for other users' content by tag and location.

Instagram was launched in October 2010. Instagram's popularity rose so quickly. In 2 months only, 1 million users registered on the app. The number approached 10 million in one year. And until June 2018, 1 billion users registered with the social media platform. The android version of the app was released in 2012. Desktop interface was released in November 2012 and in October 2016, the app version for Windows 10 was released.

Features And Tools Of Instagram

Hashtags

In January 2011, Instagram introduced hashtags to help users find each other. Instagram encourages users to create specific and relevant tags to attract other like-minded Instagram users. Users have made so many trends using hashtags on Instagram. Examples of popular trends include #SelfieSunday, in which users post their pictures on Sunday. #MotivationalMonday is another popular trend on Instagram where users post motivational pictures on Monday. There's another trend called #TransformationTuesday where users post images in which they compare their past and present conditions to highlight the difference.

Filters For Photography

Instagram offers several photography filters which users can use to beautify their images and videos.

Videos

Instagram introduced a feature to share a video up to 15 seconds in June 2013. Now Instagram has become a complete video sharing platform. In March 2016, Instagram extended the 15 seconds limitation to 60 seconds. Albums were introduced in February 2017 which allow you to share 10 minute videos.

Reels

A new video feature on Instagram called "Reels" reportedly began to be added in Brazil in November 2019 and eventually spread to France and Germany. The feature of the sharing application is comparable to TikTok's. adding the ability for users to record brief videos set to already-existing sound snippets from other posts. With this function, users can produce videos that last up to 15 (and later 30) seconds.

Instagram Direct

Instagram introduced a new function called Instagram Direct in December 2013 that enables users to communicate privately. Users who follow one another can communicate privately by sending each other photographs and videos. Users must approve the message in order to access it when they receive a private message from someone they don't follow. A photo can be sent to up to 15 recipients at once. Users can now send messages directly from the web version of Instagram utilizing WebSocket technology thanks to the launch of Direct in April 2020.

Instagram Stories

Instagram started Instagram Stories in August 2016. This is a feature that allows users to take photos and adding them to their stories. Photos uploaded to the stories are removed after 24 hours.

In November, Instagram launched the feature of live videos in stories, where users can broadcast live videos in their Instagram stories. Live videos are removed right after the live broadcast is ended.

In April 2017, Instagram Stories added Augmented Reality Stickers, which is a replication of Snapchat functionality.

On December 5, 2017, Instagram itroduced Story Highlights feature which is also called permanent stories. They are similar to Instagram Stories but they don't expire after 24 hours. Rather, they are visible all the time under your profile picture in the form of circles. They are also accessible from Desktop Version.

Advertising

In October 2013, Instagram announced that video and image ads would soon appear in users' feeds, with the first image ads appearing on November 1, 2013. Video ads followed nearly a year later on October 30, 2014.

Business accounts may access top posts, reach, engagement, and demographic data on the new Instagram Insights analytics page.

How To Connect Messenger To Instagram

First Step

Open the app in your phone, click the three lines on your profile, you will see a list off actions in the menu

Second Step

Go to Settings. Now, scroll down in settings until you see Facebook and down in the right picture you will see 'Account Center' in blue color, which shows it is a link.

Third Step

Now in Facebook Account Center, you will seeSet up Account Centreclick it. To enable connected experiencesyou will see Add accountsThis is exactly what we want. We want to connect our Facebook Messenger to Instagram account. Click on Add Accounts

As you can see, both Insta account which I am using and the Facebook account which I am going to link with, appear here. If you have a separate Facebook account which you want to link to, you can change it. For example, if you want to link your company account, you can do that as well.

Fourth Step

Then click on Continue. On the next page it will ask,Do you want to set up your account centerClick on Yes and then finish the process by clicking "Finish Setting UP".

And now, you can see, it comes with profiles that both of them are connected through Instagram. Now when I go to my messages I see that my Messenger and Instagram messages are linked. So this was how to connect Messenger and Instagram messages. Comment below to share your opinion about this article.