Instagram Help Center

From Live to Stories, Instagram has a variety of ways for you to engage your followers and be discovered. With IGTV, you can now share longer vertical video on Instagram. Here are some quick tips to help you get started building a presence on IGTV:

• Share original content. Content that shows the best of what you do and what you love to do, is the best content to engage your audience.
• Highlight your personality. Bring your authentic self to videos, this will keep audiences coming back for the real you.
• Be consistent. Maintain a consistent theme across your channel. Fans will be excited to come back and can anticipate what they'll see next from your channel.

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To share a link to your IGTV content across social media or in messages

From the Instagram App:

1. When watching an IGTV Video tap
2. Tap Copy Link.
3. Paste the link in a message or on social media to share.

From Instagram on your computer:

1. Go to a creator's profile on Instagram on the web.
2. Click on their IGTV Channel next to Posts.
3. Click on the video you want to share.
4. Click and copy the link.
5. Paste the link in a message or on social media to share.

To get a link to your IGTV channel

From Instagram on your computer:

1. Go to a creator's profile on Instagram on the web.
2. Click on their IGTV Channel next to Posts.
3. Copy the link in the browser's URL bar and paste it in a message or on social media to share.

Creating standout, must-see content on IGTV doesn't have to be time-consuming or perfectly polished. Shooting original vertical content is a real and authentic way for followers to get closer to you. The easiest way to create vertical video is to use your phone or mobile device's camera. Here are some recommendations to help you shoot vertical video:

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• Adjust your Camera Settings. The built-in camera apps on iOS and Android are great places to start. Turning on the grid feature in your phone's camera helps with framing and composing your subject in video shots.
• Consider Resolution & Frame Rate Options. Videos with high resolutions and high frame rates have better quality and frame control but can also take up a lot of space on your phone. It's recommended that you share videos with a vertical video resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels and 30 fps (frames per second) to maximize video quality and phone storage. Learn more about the video upload requirements for IGTV.
• Check Lighting & Sound. Depending on your camera settings and whether you're shooting inside or outside, you may want to adjust the lighting to avoid overexposure. Adding an external microphone is also a great way to make sure your capturing high quality audio. Experiment with lighting, audio, and camera settings to find what works well for you.

After you've captured great video content, it's time to make it all come together. There are a number of apps that you can use to directly edit your IGTV videos from your phone. Here are some recommended apps:

• InShot. Add filters, stickers, text, and music to your edited videos for unique content. You can select the 9:16 canvas size to edit videos for IGTV.
• Videoleap. Use the in-app tutorials to make the most of the features available in the app. Try the Chroma feature, or green screen, to remove the background from certain video clips. That way no matter where you film your content, your audience will focus on you.
• VideoGrade. Edit the color of your videos to enhance the content. This app is optimized for retina displays and will help your videos look professional for viewers on any device.

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Promoting your content across your social media channels is the best way to drive an audience to your videos. Every IGTV video has it's own URL to make linking simple. The best way to promote your IGTV channel is to share previews on Instagram Stories. You can also use the Share to Facebook option when uploading to capture your Facebook and Instagram audiences. After you've driven people to your videos, you can keep track of how your content is performing.

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To see insights for a video you upload to IGTV:

1. Tap to open the video.
2. Tap (iPhone) or (Android) at the bottom of the video.
3. Tap View Insights.

Creators can see how many likes, shares, and views their videos get, in addition they can also view their Audience Retention. This tool let's you see how long people are staying on your videos. You can see at what point in a video people left or skipped ahead. Use this tool to make adjustments to your videos, so that the next time you upload you know it'll be content your audience enjoys.

Note: Only you can see the average percent watched by viewers and the audience retention line graph.

The Creator Account on Instagram gives you a set of tools that makes it easier to control your online presence, understand your growth and manage your messages.

• Professional Dashboard: track your performance, access and discover professional tools, and explore educational information curated by Instagram.
• Contact information and Category Labels: Contact information and category labels (such as athlete, author or blogger) are optional and can be turned on or off.
• Growth insights: Understand what content helps grow your audience by mapping new and existing posts to net follower changes.
• Secondary Inbox: You’ll have access to an inbox with Primary and General tabs. You can use this inbox to organize your messages and control notifications.
• Ranked Requests: You’ll be able to sort your requests by received date or by top accounts.
• Saved Replies: Use shortcuts for common responses.

Learn more

• About the 2-tab inbox
• Set up a Creator Account

You can convert your personal or business profile into a creator account to access features that make it easier to control your online presence, understand your growth and manage your messages. If your personal account is private, completing these steps will make it public. Note that all pending follow requests will be automatically accepted when you go public. If you want to create a new creator account, rather than convert your existing personal account, you can create a new Instagram account and convert it to a creator account.

Note: you may only have 5 Instagram accounts at a time.

To switch your personal account or business profile to a creator account:

1. Go to your account and tap
2. Select
3. Select Account.
• If you are migrating from a personal account, choose Switch to Professional Account and tap Creator.
• If you are migrating from a business profile, choose Switch to Creator Account.
4. Select your category. You can choose a category that best describes what you do.
5. If desired, connect to your Facebook Page
• If you have a Facebook Page you would like to link to your account, select it from the list that appears.
• If you do not want to link a Facebook Page, select Skip.
6. Review your contact information. At least one form of contact information is required. You'll have the option to display or hide this on your profile.
7. Choose your profile display options. You can decide whether to hide or display your category and contact details on your profile.

You can use Instagram insights to learn more about overall trends across your followers and your content’s performance with your audience. You can also view insights for specific posts, stories and IGTV videos you've created to see how each one performed and how people engaged with them. Insights are free and available only for business or creator accounts.

You can view insights from your profile in the Instagram App. Here, you’ll have access to a summary page, as well as tappable metrics that lead to different screens with more details. On each of these screens, you can tap the (i) in the top right corner to see definitions for each metric listed on the screen. You can also tap the drop-down at the top of the screen to choose if you want to view insights for 7 or 30 days.

The following insights are available for professional accounts on Instagram:

• Recent Highlights: This section announces any notable increases in account performance in the last 7 or 30 days.
• Overview: This section showcases the total number of accounts reached, content interactions, followers and approximate earnings (if applicable) for the last 7 or 30 days. You can tap on each of these metrics for a more detailed breakdown.

  • Accounts Reached: When you tap on this metric, you can see more details on your account’s reach and impressions. You’ll also see insights on your account activity, such as profile visits and website visits. If you have an action button on your profile, you’ll see the number of taps on that button. For example, you can see data on call button taps, get directions taps, email button taps, text button taps, and website taps. You can also see your top posts, stories and IGTV videos sorted by reach.
  • Content Interactions: When you tap on this metric, you can see a detailed breakdown of your post, story and IGTV video content interactions. These include likes, comments, saves, shares, replies and other actions on your content. You can also see your top posts, stories and IGTV videos sorted by interactions.
  • Total Followers: When you tap on this metric, you can learn more about trends across your followers when you have at least 100 followers. These insights include growth (how many followers you've gained or lost), top locations of your followers, age range and times they're most active on Instagram.
• Content You Shared: This section showcases the content you’ve posted and promoted across feed, stories and IGTV for the last 7 or 30 days. If you want to see all the posts, stories and IGTV videos on your account, you can tap under each content type to go to the media library. Here, you can view and filter all your content by media type, reach, interactions and time frame.

You can also tap View Insights under individual posts and IGTV videos, or swipe up on your stories, to view insights specific to that piece of content, including

• Interactions: This section displays what actions people take when they engage with your account.
• Discovery: This section keeps track of how many people see you content and where they find it.
• Promotion: This section will provide more information on your post if it’s been promoted.

Stories About You makes it easier to view, reply to and share the Instagram stories that mention your account.

Previously, you could only see and interact with the stories that mention you in your Inbox. Now, Stories About You aggregates all those stories in one place and turns them into a story reel.

To access Stories About You, tap , then Mentions under Stories About You.

Story mentions by private accounts

Whether or not you see story mentions made by private accounts in your Stories About Me depends on your relationship with the account.

• If you follow the private account, their mention generates a message and is added to your Stories About You reel.
• If you don’t follow the private account, their mention won’t generate a message and is not added to your Stories About You reel.

Note: Private accounts that mention someone in a story choose whether or not the mentioned account can add the story to their story. Even if this is toggled on, if you do not follow the private account, you won't receive an Instagram Direct message or see their story in your Stories About You reel.

Mentions in stories shared with Close Friends

When someone mentions your account in a story that is shared only with their close friends, you will not see it in Stories About You unless:

• Your account is public and included in the Close Friends of the person posting the story.
• Your account is private, you and the person posting the story follow each other and you are included in their Close Friends.

Learn more

• Who can see my Instagram story?
• How do I mention someone in my story?
• How do I hide my story from someone?

When you switch to a Professional account, you’ll have access to an inbox that allows you to organize messages and control notifications. This organized inbox has 2 tabs: Primary and General.

Primary: The Primary tab is for messages you’d like to see first. All messages will appear in the Primary tab, but you can swipe them into the General tab. Notifications for unread messages are turned on for the Primary tab, but you can turn them off in Settings.

General: The General tab is for messages you’d like to get back to later. Notifications for unread messages are turned off for the General tab, but you can turn them on in Settings.

You can also see message requests in your inbox. Requests are direct messages from accounts that you don’t follow. You can choose to accept or deny these requests, and request messages aren’t marked as “seen” until you accept them. If you tap on All Requests, you can select Top Requests to see your requests organized by important accounts. You can also move accepted messages into the Primary or General tabs.