Instagram Feed is New Website Widget Trend
by David Page, Digital Marketing Consultant at Elfsight — developer of customizable & coding-free website widgets
All things web are rapidly evolving. Every now and then, new trends, techniques, approaches in web design, social media & digital marketing appear. There’s that one trend that nobody talks about yet but that is steadily growing in power. It’s Instagram Feed embedded into your website.
Read on and learn why Instagram promotion is beneficial for your business, what content to provide, why and how to add Instagram Feed to your website.
Why Promote Business on Instagram?
Social Media presence is important for bloggers, personal brands, b2b & b2c businesses — practically, for everyone who’s promoting their products and services online. Social Media Marketing (SMM) allows you to increase brand awareness and overall media influence that, in its turn, builds communication, trust and brings long-term customers.
1 billion people use Instagram every month, more than 500 million of them use the platform every day
Do you have a business account on Instagram? “Not yet” sort of answer doesn’t count. 1 billion users every month — there MUST BE your potential customers looking for products and services similar to yours. But the problem is that they prefer your competitors over you because they haven’t heard of you yet. You see?
How to Instagram Your Business
You could’ve set up a business that has potential and product that is in great demand, but your products and services are not going to market themselves. There are several approaches to using Instagram for your business.
71% of U.S. businesses use Instagram
First of all, your business profile can act as a portfolio to showcase direct prospects, giving a visual presentation of what you do, produce or sell.
How to sell all sorts of foil, parchment paper and bakeware on Instagram? Reynolds Kitchens knows the score. It has an absolutely beautiful Instagram feed showcasing a never-ending table with their products put into use.
This might not be the case for every business though and you’ll want to try other approaches to content strategy on Instagram:
- Promote your products using pictures, videos, and boomerangs
- Go behind the scenes
- Share before and afters
- Post tips & tricks
- Hold competitions, promotions, and giveaways
- Share User-Generated Content: post photos and videos of customers using your products
- Share testimonials from real customers
- Inspire through quotes
Okay, but why add Instagram Feed to the website?
Benefits Of Instagram Feed On Your Website
One of the best ways to get the most out of your business Instagram account is to embed it right into your website. First of all, this will allow your audience to connect and interact with your brand.
Other benefits include the following:
- Attract attention, especially of your regular customers
- Increase visitor engagement
- Build a stronger brand image and grow trust
60% of users discover products on Instagram
- Increase brand credibility and authenticity
- Claim your strong social media presence
- Boost website sales
- Attract more Instagram followers
Finally, according to Quora users, having social media profiles connected to your website is useful for the website’s SEO.
How to Embed Your Instagram Feed In Your Website
There are two main approaches to embedding Instagram elements into your website.
Use Official Instagram Embedding Feature
You log in to Instagram, choose the post, click the […] button, select “Embed” option, and then copy & paste the code into your website HTML.
The serious disadvantage here is that Instagram only allows you to embed one particular post of your choice. Although it is fully responsive and looks great both on mobile and desktop.
*For more instructions, proceed to official Instagram embedding guidelines.
Use Third-Party Software
Third party websites also allow you to create and customize your own embeddable Instagram widgets with different designs and layouts. Throughout my practice, I used a handful of third-party website widgets and Elfsight is one of my favorites.
Elfsight offers customizable & coding-free website widgets with multiple layouts on a freemium plan. Widgets are responsive so they look amazing on mobile and desktop.
- Display photos from any public Instagram account or by hashtag, location or post URLs
- Manage which photos to show to your audience — use “Exclude” filter to hide content and “Only” to display photos from specific public accounts, with particular tags or photo URLs
- Choose from multiple widget layouts, post templates and color schemes (or create your own)
- Design your grid — adjust the number of columns and rows in the grid, choose the number of posts displayed, set up the paddings
- Adjust the size and edit the title of the widget for your needs
- Popup and shoppable elements open up right in the feed
Advantages I noticed:
- Responsive — looks awesome both on desktop and mobile
- Multiple widget types to choose from — see examples
- Plenty of layouts and interface settings
- Customize size and coloring
- Choose which photos to show and which to hide
- Easy-to-install
- Great customer service
- You may also try a demo
The installation is easy and requires no special training. If you need Instagram feed on your website, Elfsight is highly recommended.
Conclusion
Social media promotion is important whether you are a company owner or a personal brand. Instagram Feed embedded into company websites is an emerging trend. Adopt it now to make the most of it!
