However, I am not great at Instagram (#truthbomb). I am good at purchasing too many courses and subscription services (#iwantitall). This year at tax time, I looked at my business expenses and about had a heart attack. So I sat down and wrote out every business subscription I had, and began looking for ways of either 1) manually doing the task or 2) making a techy workaround.
In this case, I was able to work out a techy workaround with the most amazing WordPress plugin, Essential Grid. If you are on Blogger, check out Chalk Full of Apple’s tutorial. It is not as hands-off but it totally works too! (And consider switching to WordPress because it can do ANYTHING!).
Note: This post contains affiliate links. You can read my full disclosure policy here.
Materials Needed
- WordPress Website – this does NOT work on Blogger, Wix, etc.
- Essential Grid Plugin – this plugin costs $27. It is worth every. penny.
- Envato Market Updater – Free
- Time – I estimate it takes about 1.5 hours.
- Step by step instructions below (complete video at the bottom of the page!).
Process
- Buy Essential grid plugin here.
- Install plugin.
- Activate with license key.
- Download free Envato Market Update plugin here.
- Install plugin.
- Activate by creating an API key.
- Create new Essential Grid.
- Give the grid a title and alias.
- Specific the source for your grid. Usually this is your Instagram user name.
- Specify the image size, the count of images to pull from instagram, and which images to pull (gallery, videos, etc).
- Adjust the grid settings – make the pictures 1:1 (square). Specify the number of columns visible and any padding (space) between images.
- Under Nav-Filter-Sort, make sure you add a pagination button.
- Create a custom skin that pulls in your title and links.
- Go back to the grid you created and apply your custom skin.
- Preview your new grid and make adjustments as needed.
- Create a new page for your site.
- Copy and paste the shortcode for the Essential Grid.
- Publish and take a look at your page.
- Remove sidebar and header/footer if desired.
- Add additional links if desired.
- Copy link to the page and put it in your instagram profile.
A couple of tips
Feel free to change any settings you saw in the video! The plugin is so versatile!
Also remember you can add additional information to your new Instagram page on your website.
VIDEO TUTORIAL
See it in action!
Questions?
