Hey Everyone,Here's another handy hint post to share a tip I discovered on one of my internet adventures. If you have an Instagram account and a Twitter account, this tip is for you. If you don't, go sign up for them and then this tip will be for you too.
When you upload a photo to Instagram, it gives you the option to share it via other social media including Facebook and Twitter. When you choose the option to share it to Facebook, the actual photo is embedded in the Facebook post and everyone can see it without leaving Facebook. When you select the share to Twitter option, it adds a link to the image within the tweet, not the photo. That just doesn't look as pretty and most people won't click on the link to see your awesome Instagram image. Here's a way to include the actual image in the tweet.
- Create a free account on IFTTT (If This Then That).
- Link your social media accounts (link them all because I'm sure you'll find other awesome things you can automate - I did).
- I used the recipe called Post your Instagram photos as native Twitter photos.
- I left it as it was, with #twitter as the trigger, but you could change the hashtag trigger to any word you like, then only the images that you tag with that word will be shared on twitter. I found this option handy so I can choose which images I think my Twitter followers will like and not just duplicate all my social media onto each other.
- If you click on the Advanced settings option just below the Add button, there is the option to add a set message to go with each tweet. I stuck with the default setting, which is the first 120 characters of the Instagram caption (keep that in mind when you write your captions).
- Once you are happy with your customisations, click Add.
- Now go try it out! Don't forget to add your selected hashtag to the caption, it doesn't work if you go back and edit it later.