I’ve been meaning to add my instagram account to my food blog Wheres My Sauce. I spent some time checking out the various instagram plugins available, configuring them and working out which was one best for my wordpress blog.

I’m going to save you some time by summarising what I have done. I’ll show you how to do it in a matter of minutes. It will be really easy after you read my blog post.

1. Why Add Instagram To WordPress Blog

Firstly, lets start by considering why you should add instagram to wordpress. I wanted to add an instagram account to my wordpress blog for the following reasons.

1. This is content that I’m already creating on Instagram. So I wanted to add this content for my blog fans to consume.

2. Keeps your content looking fresh if you are updating instagram on a regular basis. We’re updating Instagram on a daily basis with pictures like this

 

Seriously awesome! We had the simple yet tasty SD #prosciutto with fig quinoa and buffalo #mozzarella; sizzling roasted field mushrooms & kale; heart stopping soft shell crab #burger with asian slaw; softly pan fried harimasa #kingfish; the NY #cheeseburger with shoestring fries – sauce meter 7.5/10 #dinner #sydneyfood #foodblog #foodgawker #Instafood #bowerylane #sydneycbd #delish

A photo posted by Saucemaster – Sydney Food (@wheresmysauce) on May 15, 2015 at 7:16am PDT

3. Increase engagement with the blog as people can see pictures from instagram and interact with them.

4. Introduce my blog fans to my instagram account. Some of them may convert and follow my instagram account. If they like my blog, it is likely they may like my instagram account.

5. A lot of people interested in food blogs may also have a instagram account. Instagram is a really huge social network with 300 MAU (monthly active users) so its big enough to matter.

6. Increases trust with social signals. A visitor can see that this blog on instagram has lots of photos and followers. We have 100+ now in an instagram account that’s only 1 month old and this number will continue to grow. Its the same reason why I added our Facebook page to my blog. I have 40 Facebook fans on our Wheres My Sauce facebook page. They will think “there are other people that also like this page and follow them on Instagram. I’m not the first one to discover this page. There are others like me. This is the best food blog ever!“. Maybe I’m stretching with the last statement but you get my drift.

 

2. WordPress Plugin Store

If you have a wordpress install, there is a plugin store available inside your blog’s admin. Here you will be able to find new plugins to enhance and extend the functionality of your blog. Its like finding apps on the mobile app store to use on your phone. I have plugins installed such as

1. Email subscription form: SumoMe plugin
2. Contact us forms: Contact Form 7 plugin
3. Commenting system: Disqus plugin
4. SEO: Yoast plugin
5. YouTube search and one line insert: YouTube Free

3. Instagram Feed For WordPress

I decided to look for a plugin to add instagram to wordpress. There’s a lot of them available. After evaluating a few of them, I decided to go with Instagram Feed For WordPress by Smash Balloon. Search for “Instagram Feed” in the plugin section. This is the one you want.

It allows you to add Instagram to any page on your blog. It can be a little bit confusing as to what to do next so you have to watch this explainer video.

You can do the following with this plugin:

1. Add instagram feed to any page
2. Add instagram feed to an entire page

An instagram feed is the stream of photos. You can choose the number of photos and how many rows to display. You can also customise the look and feel of the feed. There is a paid option for additional levels of customisation such as showing the text, likes and comments for an instagram photo.

4. How to add instagram to wordpress sidebar widget

Here are instructions for how to add instagram to wordpress primary sidebar. This is to enable it to be on the sidebar of every page.

1. To add it to your sidebar, go to Appearance > Widgets
2. Drag “text” into primary sidebar
3. Copy and paste a code from your plugin that looks like this:
[instagram-feed num=6 cols=1]

4. Adjust the numbers of photo to show in a column where it says “num=”. Here I’ve chosen to show 6 pictures in a row.
5. Adjust the number of columns to show. I’ve chosen to to display 1 column.
6. Add title to title field e.g instagram.
7. Adjust the size of the photos to make them bigger or smaller. In the example above I chose 75%. Just be aware that it also affects the size of the photos if you have them on an entire wordpress page (more below).

As they say in cooking shows, this is something I prepared earlier. It should now look like this:

 

5. How to add instagram to wordpress page

I thought this was a really neat option. You can add an instagram feed to an entire wordpress page. Here are the steps on how to add instagram to a wordpress page.

1. Go to an existing wordpress page. Alternatively create a new wordpress page i.e. Pages > Add New
2. Copy and paste code generated from plugin on to wordpress. It should be: [instagram-feed]

3. Publish. Here is something I prepared an hour earlier. It should look like this:

6. Additional notes on how to add instagram to wordpress

I like how this plugin gives you two additional options in the display of the instagram feed. Firstly, the user can opt to “load more” photos. So you only need to display some of your most recent photos. If they like more, they press “load more” to see more pictures on the same page. This also means its faster for your wordpress because its only loading the most recent images. In addition, it keeps them on the page after it loads.

Secondly, if they press “Follow on Instagram”, they are redirected to Instagram where they can follow my instagram account.

7. Another option for how to add instagram to wordpress

My buddy Anthony Cole, a wordpress guru recommends another plugin called WP Instagram Widget. Its labelled as a “no fuss WordPress widget to showcase your latest Instagram pics”. It provide no styles/css – it is up to you to style the widget to your theme and taste. Its a really simple plugin with less options than Instagram Feed. I tried it out but I went with Instagram Feed because it was easier to customise within wordpress admin and doesn’t require any CSS to style.

If you have read this far, you might be interested in my blog post “21 tips on how to use instagram like a pro“. Its got some awesome tips in there from a variety of bloggers and businesses!

So have fun adding instagram to your wordpress blog! If you are on instagram you can follow me on Wheres My Sauce (food) and Inspiredworlds (Personal).

I’m out like boring wordpress blogs,

Matt Ho