Ask HN: How to Use Instagram?

6 points by Espionage724 2 years ago | 7 comments

My impression of IG is that you take pictures with your phone, upload them instantly to your IG profile, and thus share it with others.

Does it have any way to categorize these pictures? Or is it meant to just have the pictures as-is without sorting? Kind of like just sharing the pictures in the moment? On FB I can organize pictures in Albums.

mcdonje 2 years ago |

It seems you're thinking of Instagram as a photo storing/sharing app. It's not that. It's a photo themed social networking app. If you want to organize photos beyond simple hashtags, you should look for something geared more for photography. Flickr is the largest app in the space I think you're looking for.

nerdponx 2 years ago |

It's meant to be sharing in the moment, kind of like Twitter but specifically for images. A lot of organizations use it for marketing and various forms of outreach, e.g. music venues will post concert flyers on Instagram. there are hashtags but no categories beyond that. you are also kind of stuck with the algorithmic "feed" for viewing, you can't group accounts you follow into categories or playlists. The app encourages you to make multiple accounts for such a purpose, and gives you an easy way to switch among them.

fhekit 2 years ago | |

> The app encourages you to make multiple accounts for such a purpose, and gives you an easy way to switch among them

That's how they increase the account count and DAU count on the platform. Bigger numbers, more money from advertisers and more meaningless metrics.

keiferski 2 years ago | | |

I would be very surprised if more than 10-15% of Instagram users have more than one account.

FrenchDevRemote 2 years ago | | |

lol they actively discourage you from using multiple accounts, they'll often block you

WallyFunk 2 years ago | |

> there are hashtags but no categories beyond that

Hashtags also enable better discovery of your content. Instagram even suggests what hashtags to use, and sometimes the hashtags you pick personally may not even be that popular and limit discoverability.

mattl 2 years ago |

There’s a feed of images and there are stories.

Also you can share short videos as well as photos.

No albums but you can share multiple images at once and have them appear as a set of images.