Seniors' Guide to Instagram

About Nicole Pajer

Nicole Pajer is a Los Angeles-based freelance published in The New York Times, Woman's Day, AARP, Parade, Wired, Glamour, People and more.

Do you love snapping photos of food you’ve cooked, taking videos of your pet being his adorable self and scrolling through content online? Instagram may be the app you’ve been looking for. The social media platform, which has over 2 billion monthly users, provides a fun way to share pictures and videos with friends and family and can beis a great tool for keeping tabs on the lives of those near and dear to you. It also gives you the chance to follow your favorite celebrities to see what they’ve been up to, and to connect with people who share your interests, whether that’s golfing, knitting, gardening or reading. You can send people direct messages through Instagram, comment on someone’s picture that you like and share anything you want with your audience. And the good news is that Instagram is pretty easy to use. Here are some tips’s all you need to know in order to get started.

1. Create an Instagram account. Download the mobile phone app in the Apple App Store or Android store by searching for “Instagram.” You can then sign up with your email or phone number, or you can login with an existing Facebook account. You can also go to www.Instagram.com to create a new account from a web browser on your computer or tablet.

Note that on a web version of the platform, you can comment on people’s posts and send and receive messages. You can’t, however, upload new content, like photos or videos, to your own page. You’ll need to use the mobile app in order to do that.

2. Select username and password. Your username will be what friends and Instagram users see when they visit your account. You can use your name if it’s not already taken or create a completely made up fun name like “Coolgrandma23” or “Inthegardenwithgabby.”

3. Create a bio. Click “Edit profile” at the top of your account page. Here you can enter up to 150 characters about yourself. Introduce yourself to Instagram and tell other users something unique about you. For instance, if you love cooking and plan to post pictures of food you make and recipes you love, you could do something like this: “Amateur chef, healthy-ish recipes from a Southern gal.” If you love reading, dogs and crafting, you could write: “Loves books, knitting enthusiast, dog lover.”

4. Add a profile photo. This is what people will see whenever they come across your account. Choose something fun that shows off your personality, whether that’s you smiling into the camera, posing near a waterfall in nature or holding up a scarf you recently knitted.

You can upload a photo from your photo library, snap a new one through the app or leave the photo blank. Keep in mind that having a profile photo makes it easier for friends to recognize your account and helps your account be more relatable. Remember that profile photos will also be visible to anyone who comes across your account (even if you have made your other photos and posts private, as discussed below).

5. Choose your privacy settings. After creating an account, you can leave it public so that anyone on Instagram can find you and start to follow you. You can also make it private. By doing this, anyone who wants to follow you or see any of your posts will have to ask your permission and you will have to approve them first.

On your account page, click on the three horizontal lines in the top right of your screen. Go down to “Settings and privacy” and then “Account privacy”. To set your account as private, move the toggle on “private account” to the right. You can also make some privacy tweaks on the “Settings and privacy” page, like setting your comments settings (who can comment on your posts) to include “everyone,” “people you follow” or “your followers.” You can also block certain people from leaving comments on your account.

6. Following friends. If you have a friend you’d like to follow, you can type their name in the search bar. Click on the magnifying glass icon on the bottom menu and type in their username in the search bar at the top of the screen. Click on their account—you can review the bio and profile photo to make sure it’s actually your friend’s account—and then hit “follow” when you arrive on their page. If you come across another user’s page that you enjoy, you can click “follow” on their page as well.

7. Search. The search icon will also let you check out some other accounts and things that are being posted online. Instagram will curate some special searches for you based on your interests and usage of the platform. So when you click on this icon, you’ll see photos and videos that the platform thinks you may like.

Play around with this feature to find new accounts to follow. For instance, if you’re interested in healthy recipes, type “healthy recipes” in the search bar and hit enter. Instagram will then show you the top trending accounts and posts that pop up within those search results. This can help you find some new and interesting accounts to follow within the healthy recipe space.

8. Creating posts. To create a new post, click on the plus sign in the center of the bottom menu bar. Then, click “post.”

Upload a photo of anything that interests you, whether that’s a picture of something you grew in your garden, a photo of you and a friend or a cute picture of your dog. You can also take a photo directly in the Instagram app by pressing the camera icon. Make sure to give it a fun caption like: “Tom and Jeffrey outdoors in the courtyard” or “Here’s my pup Scooter catching a snooze in the sun.”

In addition to pictures, you can also upload and record videos and put those out as posts. To do this, go to the same menu but click on video instead of post.

9. Add some hashtags. If you want people to be able to search for your posts, add some hashtags. These are words and phrases that people can search for within the platform. So on the friends picture, you could use #friends. Some ideas for the dog picture include: #dogs #dogsofinstagram #lazydog. Then, if someone uses the search function to search for “#dogs,” the picture of your pet may come up (depending on your privacy settings).

10. Post a story. An Instagram story will show up at the top of someone’s Instagram feed. These are short little snippets of your day that you can post, like a quick video of a hummingbird in your backyard, a picture of a rainbow after a rainstorm or sharing a funny picture you found online. Unlike posts, stories disappear after 24 hours.

To add to your story, go to the plus sign in the center of the bottom menu and select “story.” Here, you can take a photo or record a video to share or you can upload a photo or video from your phone or tablet’s photo library.

Next, have fun playing with story effects. When you have selected a photo to add to your story, the “Aa” menu will let you add text to a video or picture. The square smiley face will let you add hashtags or a fun animated sticker to the post.

The 3 diamonds lets you add fun effects like snow falling down in the background of your story, a changing color background or floating hearts.

11. Check your account activity. Tap the heart icon in the top right corner of the menu bar. This will show you your new account activity, like if something likes or comments or one of your posts. It will also notify you if someone new follows you.

12. Be safe. When using Instagram, there are a few safety precautions to keep in mind:

Never give people money or reveal personal information: If someone that you don’t know sends you a direct message asking for money or personal information, delete the message. There can be scammer accounts out there looking to make a profit off of someone else. You can also block a person’s account in the privacy settings of the platform. And be careful not to reveal personal information in any posts that you put on Instagram; for example, if you want to post a photo of your home garden, make sure that your home’s address is not included in the photo.
Use a secure password. When setting up your password, use something that is hard for someone to guess. For example, don’t make it simply your date of birth or name of your pet. Use a mixture of upper and lowercase letters and make sure to include a few symbols, like a dollar sign in your password to make it harder to guess. So instead of “Sarah,” try a password like this: $arah!2@3.
Be mindful of what you post. When you put something out on the Internet, a lot of people have the potential to see it. As a rule of thumb, if a picture or a video is something you wouldn’t want a friend or family member to see, don’t post it. Also make sure to ask friends who appear in pictures or videos with you for their permission before putting them online.

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