Instagram - Why It Is the Fastest Growing Platform for Quilters

What is Instagram
How Can I Connect It With Quilting?

Instagram is a photo and video sharing network connecting people. Quilters so far, mostly use it as a photo sharing tool.

It is a platform (app) that you can use with your mobile device, (phone) to take and upload a picture, give it a description and use some hashtags and you are off and running. If you aren’t comfortable or don’t have a phone, you can still enjoy looking at Instagram on your ipad, or laptop or desktop.  

How Do I Use Instagram?

Similar to facebook, you set up a profile after you have downloaded an app, complete with login information. Simple instructions are found here. A nice thing about Instagram is you can keep your account private if you want, meaning only those you choose to allow as your ‘followers’ can see your pictures etc.  Kids often use this privacy setting. It still allows you to explore the platfiorm and follow whom you wish.

If you have a public profile you can follow and can gain followers to your page.

You can find industry leaders in quilting on Instagram, your favourite quilters and so much more!
  Kathleen Riggins for example, one of Canada’s leading long armers posts wonderful pictures of her quilts and how she is quilting them. Stacey Day a well known pattern designer is also on here.

Benefit of Instagram for Guilds

Many, many modern quilt quilds also put up there show and share from a guild meeting on Instagram. Look at Vancouver MQG.

Instagram is great because you can put one picture up or up to ten photos and the viewer just swipes across to see them all. You can also post videos up to one minute in length as well.

Instagram also allows for 15 second stories that stay on the top of the screen for 24 hours.

For the average quilters to use, you will most likely use the upload of pictures of your quilts.

Do I Need to Add a Description and Hashtags?

Adding a description is basically telling the story of your quilt. Which as you know quilters love to learn what the picture of the quilt or block is all about.

Hashtags are wonderful search engines and are mostly found in Instagram and twitter. By putting the pound sign or # in front of a word or group of words with no spaces, it allows people to use it to search for topics.  As an example try searching #modernquilt or #quiltsofinstagram and as you can see in the example 80,017 posts used the tag #modernquilt in Instagram and you can search through them... maybe not all 80,000, in one night=)

I use  Instagram to show my work and will use tags so that others that like the same thing I like can see it. Some will follow me and I have the opportunity to follow them. You can also use it for brands as well. I often use #janome or #rileyblakedesigns when I have used that product in my work. Most brands have their own hashtags and will look for those using that brand. If I enjoy a product, I like to tell others about it.

On one such occasion I used #janome and Janome America contacted me and asked if they could put one of my pics on their site… that was fun!

How Do I See All the People I Follow on Instagram?

You will get a newsfeed similar to facebook by pushing the little house or home button at the bottom of the screen and it will show you your feed of all those you follow.

As you scroll through your feed you can hit the heart found at the bottom of each post, showing you like the post and also add a comment using the bubble button. You can see below I have liked the picture by Sue Daley.

How Do I share a Picture?

On each post you see  the heart, comment bubble and an arrow, by hitting the arrow, you will be able to find whom you want to send the post to and add a comment. So I could send this post on to my friend 'myquilts' and tell her how much I like this colour combo.   It is a private message between her and I.

What is Tagging?

Tagging is simply identifying someone in a post. You can do it in facebook, Instagram and twitter. By using the @sign and adding their name, it will alert that person that they have been tagged in a post.

What quilters can find lots of fun is if for example they used WonderFil threads in a project, when they post a pic of their quilt, they can add their description and within it say used @wonderfilspecialtythreads and then WonderFil will get a notification and most likely will go and like or  leave a comment on your post! On occasion they will post your work to their site, which can help you gain followers if you are interested in that and if not, be flattered they loved your work!

Regardless of what your motive is for using Instagram, it is a wonderful platform for being able to see the quilting world.

What are your favourite features about Instagram?