We’ve been using Instagram for a few years and we love it. Yes, it’s a bit of a time-waster but Instagram has some excellent benefits too.

1. Virtual Travel – Depending on who you follow, Instagram can show you real, non-tourist brochure photos from all over the world.

2. Sharing Your Photography Skills – Smart phones can take excellent photos, believe it or not.  Sure, you can use one of Instagram’s filters to liven up a dull shot but many people post unfiltered photos too. Use the hashtag #nofilter when posting and you’ll open up your photo to other Instagram users who don’t filter their photos either.

3. Free Stuff! If you manage to attract enough real followers, you just might be able to snag some swag. Swag is a slang term for ‘free stuff’ that companies send out if you mention their name on Instagram. Obviously you need many thousands of followers before you reach that level but, hey, it’s worth shooting for.

Note: When we say real followers we mean followers you get one by one through your photos, not the kind you pay for. Yes, you can pay for Instagram followers but that isn’t a good idea. Instagram weeds out its user list from time to time, deleting fake accounts.

4. Free Photography Lessons – Whether you’re into fashion or abandoned buildings, there are Instagram users who post photos about it. We’ll explain hashtags in a moment but trust us, there are lots of photos out there on whatever topic you find interesting. Check out framing, exposure, use of depth of field, etc. in photos by regular people or world famous photographers. Feel free to ask questions about photos you like. You’ll find that most people are very friendly on Instagram, aside from the usual trolls who don’t post but feel the need to comment on other people’s efforts.

Instagram doesn’t work on a computer so you’re stuck with the camera in your phone most of the time. That’s not a real problem however because some of those cameras are excellent.  But believe it or not, some Instagram users still use film as a photographic medium. We assume that they scan the results and copy the photos to their phones or email their work to themselves. You can do the same but what you can’t do is post a photo to Instagram from your computer.

Hashtags are used in the same way they are on Twitter. # (the number sign) is what makes a hashtag a hashtag. Putting # before a word or phrase (no spaces) will mark your photo as part of the group of photos with the same hashtag. Once you get your Instagram account, you should start searching for people who post your kind of photos. How do you do that? By using a hashtag as your search parameter. Some popular ones are #nature, #beaches, #abandoned, plus many others. Remember that a phrase can’t use spaces. #nofilter works while #no filter doesn’t.

Once you start posting photos on Instagram, you’re opening up your photos to comments and ‘likes’ from other users all over the world. If that isn’t what you want, you can make your account private. When you do that, only people that you let into your account can see your photos. Keep in mind that hashtags won’t work for you if you have a private account. You can still search using hashtags but other Instagram users won’t be able to see your hashtagged photos.

That’s enough for today. Sign up for Instagram now and check out some photos. In our next post we’ll get into the nitty-gritty bits, all about posting photos, cropping, filters and, yes, posting videos with sound. Stay tuned!

Comments and questions are welcome but  Likes on our Facebook page get immediate attention.  Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook .  Thanks for reading!