Complete Instagram glossary! All the vocabulary of the social network

You're looking for a better understanding of Instagram and can't figure out all the words? Don't panic! Our Instagram lexicon will save you.

Below you'll find the definition of all Instagram-related words. You'll then understand what follows, likes, stories, DMs etc.

Feel free to click on the links in the article to find out more about each of these.

Ad

Instagram ads are advertisements on Instagram. This corresponds to the translation of advertisements. These ads can appear between two publications on your News Feed or in stories.

Archive

Archives correspond to the place where all your deleted publications and past stories are stored. It's a bit like a memory box for republishing old content and not losing anything you share on the network.

You can find them in your account settings.

Comment

Comments are the messages you can find under your publications. They can be left by your subscribers or people who discover your posts. It's one of the best ways to engage in discussions with your audience.

Like

likes Instagram are perhaps the social network's best-known feature. They allow you to show someone that you like their content.

Generally speaking, the more likes a person has on their publications, the more popular they are.

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To link a publication, simply double-click on a photo or video.

Follow

A follow corresponds to following an account and subscribing to it. Once you follow an account, you're one of its subscribers, also known as: follower.

The more subscribers an account has, the more popular it is on the social network.

It's actually Boostfluence's mission to help you gain more Instagram subscribers easily.

Subscription

You'll find on your profile a list of subscribers, which corresponds as said before to the people who follow you.

But you'll also find a list of subscriptions. This list corresponds to the accounts you follow. You can stop following them at any time and unsubscribe. This action is called: unfollow.

DM

DM Instagram stands for "Direct Message". When you send a DM you are therefore sending a message to another account via Instagram's messaging system.

In particular, you can use this feature to talk with your friends and followers, engage your community and boost your sales.

Explorer

The Explorer section of your Instagram account is a place that collects publications you might like. These are not accounts you follow, photos and videos from accounts related to your interests.

Don't hesitate to go there to discover new content. You can do this by clicking on the little magnifying glass at the very bottom of your screen.

Stories

Instagram stories are one of the most important Instagram features for engaging your community. They allow you to share photo or video content instantly and ephemerally.

Once a story is published, it remains active for 24 hours before being sent to your archives.

There are dozens of tips for creating good Instagram stories don't hesitate to read our dedicated articles. Learn more about Instagram stories.

News Feed

The News Feed gathers all the posts from the accounts you follow (mainly). This is where you'll be able to like and comment on posts.

Feed

Your feed, also known as a profile grid, corresponds to the layout of your photos on your profile.

Your feed brings together all your content on your profile.To succeed on Instagram having a pretty Instagram feed is important. Improve your feed by sharing beautiful photos and applying all the tips you can. Find out all about the feed Instagram.

Hashtag

Hashtags are symbolized by the hash symbol (#) followed by a word or a string of words. This system is used to categorize content.

For example, you could share a selfie and include the #selfie to reference your photo with all the other selfie photos on the social network.

Hashtags are one of the most important elements for success on instagram, so don't neglect them. Knowing how to use them means succeeding in attracting thousands of new people to your profile.

Username

Your username is your unique identifier on the social network. It can include letters, numbers, dots and underscores. It's unique to your profile and is also how you can be identified in other photos.

Instagram username

The Instagram username is slightly different from your username. This one is more of a nickname for your profile. So you can include anything you like.

It is recommended, however, to include keywords related to the theme of your account to attract more followers.

In fact, Instagram uses it to categorize your account among the millions present on the network.

Biography

The biography of your instagram profile and the text box just below your username. Here you can describe what you share on your profile and encourage visitors to follow you.

The biography of your account should be used to turn your visitors into subscribers.

Description

Post descriptions are the texts present under each publication. In particular, they allow you to give more context to your photos and share what you have to say. Taking the time to write good post descriptions is essential for engaging your audience. This is also often where hashtags are included.

Tags

Tags include 2 kinds of tags:

• Location tags
• Identification tags

Location tags correspond to the places where you took your photos. They allow you to categorize all the publications made on the same location (as hashtags do).

The tags of'identification them, allow you to identify other accounts on each of your content. Once this is done, your publication will also appear on their Instagram feed and they will be notified of your identification.

Hyperlaps

Hyperlaps is a more specific instagram feature. It allows you, when filming from the Instagram app in Real mode, to modify the speed of the video to slow it down.

Inversely, Instagram also offers a Timelapse function to speed up your video.

Boomerang

A boomerang is a style of video somewhat similar to Gifs. It consists in taking a video of a few seconds and playing it in fast forward and then backward in a loop.

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This feature is gradually disappearing from Instagram.

Selfie

A selfie consists in taking a photo of yourself with your phone's front camera. With the rise of social networks like Instagram and the standardization of phones with front cameras, this type of photo has become one of the most popular.

Hyperzoom

Similar to hyperlaps or boomerang, Instagram's hyperzoom is a video-effect feature for zooming in significantly when filming.

Filter

On Instagram filters are always in. Instagram filters allow you, among other things, to apply effects to your photos and videos to make them more beautiful. For example, you can play with contrasts, shadows or highlights.

At first, these filters only applied to feed photos, you can now apply them to your stories and also use filters with augmented reality.

Find out here where to find Instagram filters.

Live

On Instagram you have the option of making lives. That is, share live content on the social network to exchange with your community of followers.

A feature that has become much more popular following the COVID confinements.

#OOTD

This hashtag is used millions of times every day, so you should be familiar with it. It stands for "Outfit of the day".

As its name suggests, it's shared to show off your outfit of the day. It's a perfect example of the use of a hashtag.

Posts or publications

Instagram posts or publications correspond to every image you share on your Instagram feed.

You can create different styles of publications such as albums or Reals.

Reach

Reach corresponds to the total visibility you've achieved over a given period for your account or a publication. The higher it is, the more people you've reached.

Engagement

The engagement of your audience corresponds to the ratio of people who follow you or see your content (your reach) to the number of interactions you get.

Calculating the engagement rate is one of the most important statistics to constantly monitor. The higher it is, the more your community likes what you're offering.

A high engagement rate also increases your chances that your future posts will be featured more prominently and that brands will offer to collaborate with you.

Repost

An Instagram repost is a way of sharing a photo on your feed or story.

You can do a repost of another instagram publication on your account. But you can also repost your own Instagram publication on your instagram story.

Among other things, this makes it easier to create regular content and boosts the visibility of your content.

Shadowban

Shadowban corresponds to a limitation of the visibility of your content by Instagram.

In other words, the Instagram algorithm voluntarily decides to no longer put you in front of your subscribers or new people.

This often happens following a breach of Instagram privacy rules or the sharing of so-called "risky" content.

Swiper

Swiper corresponds to the action of swiping your finger on your phone in one direction to perform a sliding motion.

For example, from your home screen, you can swipe left to get to the Instagram camera or swipe right to get to your messages.

Stickers

When you share Instagram stories, you have the option of making them more interactive by adding stickers. This can be polls, quizzes and much more.Free to use your imagination.

Discover here how to use Instagram stickers well.

Profile photo

Your profile photo corresponds to the photo that represents your account. You can change it at any time.

Make sure it represents as well as possible what you share on your profile to engage new visitors to visit your account.

Register

If you liked a publication and want to find it easily later (like a sports workout or a cooking recipe for example). You can save the publication.

You can then save any publications you like in dedicated collections on the Instagram app. You can find these posts by going to your settings, then clicking on saved.

Reels

Instagram reels have recently become one of the most popular formats on Instagram. They have come to replace videos and IGTVs. Inspired directly by TikTok's video format, reals allow you to share (normally short) video content.

Use them to easily boost your visibility.

Story on the front page

As said above, Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours after they're shared. But you can keep them active for longer by including them in your stories à la une.

Stories à la une allow you to structure, gather and share unlimited content in story format. The featured story space is located just below your bio. It's a super interesting feature to use to share information constantly with your subscribers.

Shopping

Instagram is owned by Facebook, and many businesses are present on these social networks to sell their products. That's why Instagram has included a shopping area directly on the social network, where merchants can offer their products and users can buy them without leaving the platform.

Layout

Layout is an option for creating content on your Instagram stories and real. In particular, it allows you to include multiple pieces of content in a single photo or video.

That's it we've covered the entire Instagram lexicon! You now have all the vocabulary you need to find your way around the social network with ease.