All your friends are talking about IG, a photographic social network owned by FB, which allows you to share photos and short videos online then applying various filters and effects to them and you want to know how does Instagram work?
Out of curiosity, you would like to join this amazing social network, but as you are not very tech-savvy, you would like help in understanding how does Instagram work and how you can create your own IG account and start to share your creations?
If this is what you are looking for then don’t worry: in this guide, titled “How does Instagram work”, I’ll provide you with all the useful information about how this famous photo social network works, showing you how to use it both on smartphones (via its official app for Android and iOS) and on computers (from the web and via the Windows 10 app).
We will see together in the next steps of this guide how you can easily download IG app for your smartphone, how you can set up your own account and then how you can post videos, photos and use any other IG feature.
If you are wondering on how Instagram works and all you want to know is how does Instagram work do not waste more time. Come on: sit down comfortably, pay attention to the directions I’m about to give you and try to put them into practice.
I’m sure that when you’ve finished reading this, IG will have no more secrets for you and if you want we can bet on it. At this point, all that remains is for me to wish you a good read and, above all, a lot of fun and enjoy this my latest guide titled “how Instagram works”.
how does Instagram work: how to download and install IG
This guide is titled “how does Instagram work” and we assume you didn’t download IG app yet. For this reason the first step of this “how does Instagram work” guide is all about how to download the IG mobile app and how to install it, therefore we will talk about your IG account and how to post on IG.
The first step in registering and accessing IG is to download the social network’s official app for Android or iPhone. After opening the app’s tab in your device’s default store, install the IG app by pressing the Install/Follow button and remember that if you are using an iPhone, you may be asked to verify your identity via Face ID, Touch ID or by entering your iCloud account password (this step doesn’t concern the Android version).
Before to see how Instagram works and before to understand how does Instagram work you need to download and install IG app to your device. After the download you have few more steps to follow in this exactly order.
Then press the Open button to start IG and sign up to the social network: you can choose to press the Continue as [your username, email address] button to sign up via FB, or press the Sign up with phone or email button to sign up via your phone number or email address.
If you already have an IG account and want to access IG, click on the Sign In button and log in with your FB profile by clicking on Continue as [your username], or with the username and password combination you chose during registration.
Are you now ready to understand how Instagram works? Let’s see in the next section how the IG interface looks like.
how Instagram works: IG interface
Step number 2 of this guide titled “how does Instagram work” is to talk about the IG interface. Well, you are now logged into IG and can start using this popular social platform.
The IG interface is very intuitive: at the top are the camera icon (for creating stories), the IGTV icon and the IG Direct icon (for sending private messages to other users) and below are the IG stories and the feed with the content of the profiles followed.
While at the bottom of the screen are the navigation icons: the little house to view the IG feed, the magnifying glass to view the most interesting content of the moment and search for more based on various criteria, the [+] symbol to post new content in the feed, the heart to view the likes and interactions of other users and the little man to access the management page of your own profile.
Being able to recognize all the icons and the sides of the IG interface will make you easily to understand how Instagram works and of course if you want to know how does Instagram work you need to master the meaning of every single icon you see on your device’s screen. The IG interface looks similar to every single device you use.
This means that it doesn’t matter which device you are using, as long as you get the access to IG via IG mobile app the interface will appear as above described. If you experience glitches or bugs when your device tries to refresh the IG interface you might probably need to update the app itself if you want to know how Instagram works.
How to post pics and videos on IG
In the first 3 steps of this guide titled “how does Instagram work” we talked about how to download and install the IG app and how the IG interface look like. Let’s now talk about how to post pics or videos on IG as this is the main job you have to do on IG when you try to create a successfull IG profile.
The most used feature of IG is the one about posting photos or videos in posts. To use it, click on the (+) button in the app’s bottom menu and refer to the Photos and Videos sections to take or record media on the spot, if you want to import content that is already in your device’s memory, click on the Library tab and select the photo or video you want to import and then tap on the Next button.
Now, if you wish, edit the content using IG’s editing tools (Edit), write the caption to accompany the post and publish it by clicking on the Share button and those are the basis to understand how Instagram works. If you want to know how does Instagram work deeply you must go on with this guide titled “how Instagram works” and read the next steps.
We will see one of the most interesting and used features on IG ever created in the next section: IG STORY TOOL.
How to post IG story
Step number 4 of this guide titled “how does Instagram work” is all about the IG stories. Of course the first question we want to answer so far is: what IG story are?
Another widely used feature of IG is the one that allows you to create stories, in fact multimedia content, always consisting of photos, videos or text, which are visible in a special section of the app for 24 hours only. To publish a IG story, tap on the camera icon in the top left-hand corner of the app and Then press or hold the shutter button, depending on whether you want to take a photo or record a video.
If you want to upload a media item to the stories that is already in your device’s Gallery, click on the gallery icon at the bottom left and choose the photo or video you want and this is how Instagram works and how does Instagram work when you want to create IG stories.
If you wish, edit the content you have just imported using the tools integrated into IG, such as filters (the smiley face icon), stickers (the square smiley face icon) or special effects (Boomerang or Superzoom) and, once you have finished editing, click on the Your story button to publish your story. Is it more simple now how Instagram works for yourself?
how Instagram works: IG LIVE ROOM!
Guide titled “how does Instagram work”, step number 5: what is IG LIVE ROOM and how to get the access to it?
Would you like to live stream on IG but don’t know how? If so, don’t worry, as you can easily start IG live streaming via the social network’s app for Android and iOS, and you can also invite up to three followers to join in via the Rooms feature and to do this, first launch the IG app and log in to your account and on the main screen, swipe left to launch the IG camera.
If you were wondering on how Instagram works IG LIVE ROOM is a feature you must know about. If you want to better understand how does Instagram work nothing better to read below and understand every single step of the IG LIVE ROOM feature.
Tap on Live and then on the round button to start the broadcast and wait for the live stream to connect and if you want to invite your followers, click on the camera icon in the bottom right-hand corner and type in the names of up to three users you want to participate in the live stream in the menu shown, using the search engine to find them.
Then tick their names to select them and send them an invitation by clicking on the Invite button and if they agree to take part in your live broadcast the screen will be split into several parts so that up to four people can conduct the live stream and this is another step if you want to understand how Instagram works.
how does Instagram work: how to use IG on PC
“how does Instagram work” guide is now on the last step, number 6: how to use IG on PC. Everything we talked about until now was on IG mobile app, of course IG has a web version but we must to advice you to use the mobile app if you want to get a very ultimate and completed experience of IG.
Would you like to know how does Instagram work from your PC, no problem, but I must inform you that IG can be used from your computer either by connecting to its official website or by downloading its application for Windows 10.
Unlike the Android and iOS app, however, both computer versions have some limitations: specifically, via the website you can’t publish photos and videos in posts or stories (unless you change user agent), while the Windows 10 app only offers content sharing in stories, with limited editing tools.
Therefore, all you must do is to get the access to IG via laptopn on the official IG website and if you want to know how Instagram works on PC we must say that the experience is much different from the mobile app one. This is the reason why if you want to know how does Instagram work you must follow the IG mobile app rather than the IG web version.
Otherwise, there’s not much to explain: just log in with your IG account and proceed just as you would on a smartphone and you will see a very minimalistic layout and a some very important limitations when you use IG. This guide as you could understand so far is more about how Instagram works on mobile than laptop, therefore we suggest you to download the IG mobile app and use via your phone.
Conclusion
This guide titled “how does Instagram work” is now over and we hope you liked it. This is our ultimate guide on IG and we hope you found it useful.
Ever since the internet took off at a rapid pace and became accessible to everyone for everyday use, you’ve had your eye on IG, a social networking application dedicated to publishing multimedia content that you can no longer do without.
Despite your interest in the social media sector, you have to admit that there are more and more new features being introduced to these platforms and it’s almost impossible to keep up with all the updates.
That’s why you decided to do some research on the web to find out how Instagram works. And we think we explained very well how does Instagram work in the steps above this guide.
All you must do is to go above and read it again if you didn’t understand all the steps of this “how Instagram works” guide. Also, run over our blog and read more articles related to social networks, IG in particular!

