RE: Learning Milkshake

One day I was scrolling through Instagram and got an ad for an app called Milkshake. The tagline said, “Make a website from your phone, for free,” so I downloaded it and tucked it away in a folder on my iPhone.

I forgot I had the app until this weekend and figured it’d be a great opportunity to play around with it. Milkshake is a free app for Apple and Android. It allows users to create an Insta website entirely on their phones. But…what is an “Insta” website? According to their FAQ, it is just like Instagram Stories — easy to put together and navigate.

When first opening the app, I was presented with a quick overview. Users can pick different themed cards that make up each page of their Insta website and then add their content — text, images, and links. I decided to make a fake foodie website. I added an About page and a Recommendations page. Here’s a quick look at how I got started:

After I got it set up, I went in and changed some more of the photos and text. Here is a tour of my final Insta website. The app creates a link that the user can share and open through a browser.

I didn’t really see the benefit of having an Insta website. I feel like I would still need a full website and I imagine other businesses may feel the same. But the Milkshake Instagram page addresses this. They call it a teaser for your website — the killer elevator pitch, showing off your most click-worthy content.

In the end, Milkshake was a fun and easy way to create a presence other than social media. I think that this could be neat for someone who is just starting out and doesn’t have the time/budget for a fully realized website. I’m interested to see how many businesses or influencers end up using something like this.