How to Create an Instagram Guide Step-by-Step
The following section will outline the steps to create an Instagram Guide. It will be detailed and explain precisely what you need to do in order to create a Guide. However, it will not provide any information specifically targeted around content--that information will be found further on in this article.
The first step to creating an Instagram Guide is, obviously, to open the Instagram app!
Once there, click over to your profile tab (located on the far right at the bottom of your screen) and, on the top right, click the “plus” (+) button.
A list of the kind of posts that you can create will appear:
- Post
- Story
- Story highlights
- IGTV video
- Reel, and
- Guide.
To create a Guide, click Guide (otherwise, make a different choice that is appropriate for your content).
Then, a new menu will open. It will ask you to choose a type of Guide. We will discuss the specifics of each type of Guide and some ideas for them later on; however, you will have three choices:
- Places: a way to recommend different places that have a location on Instagram;
- Products: to recommend other products or to sell your own;- Posts: a way to recommend your own posts or ones that you have saved from others.
Choosing the content
When selecting content, it is important to remember that you can only choose posts that have been shared to a feed on Instagram already. This means that you cannot include story posts in your Guide. You can, however, include Reels and IGTV videos, as long as they have been posted on your feed first. The posts you choose show up in your Guide in a listicle-type manner. The Guide will also create links to all of these posts when you click on them (like when you share a post in your Story), so it is a great way to increase exposure to your posts as well.
Therefore, you need to ensure that your content is already publicly available on Instagram.
Please refer to the next chapter for more information on the type of Guides that you can create, but for now, we will move on to formatting the Guide.
You need to select the posts that you will include in your Guide. These can be your own and from others. It can be easier to pick them all at the start but do not worry you can also add more as you go along with the Guide creation process. Within a Guide you can collate a series of posts; these posts do not have to be your own. Users can click on these posts in order to view more about that topic or the profile--this is a fantastic way to grow your audience, and we will be discussing the benefits of including other people's posts and having your posts included in other Guides later.
Formatting the Guide
Once you have selected your posts, you will move onto formatting. You need to add an overall title for each Instagram Guide, naturally. A clear concise title will be best, that shows your audience exactly what the Guide is about. You are also able to add a description in order to provide more information to your audience.
You then add a cover photo: make it eye-catching and creative. You want people to want to click on it. You need to be aware that most Instagram posts are formatted to a square (as a 1:1 ratio) but the Guide cover size is a portrait 3:4 ratio. It will automatically crop your cover image so you may need to re-upload a new one. You cannot reposition the cover image that it gives, you need to start again. However, you can only choose a photo from your feeds for this.
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