Social media is a huge marketing industry to tap into. With millions of people using it daily, it comes as no surprise that businesses, influencers, and content creators are turning to social media to connect with their audience and increase brand awareness.
Instagram is one such platform. Its unique visual storytelling strategy makes it one of the most effective forms of advertising to date. Having an Instagram feed is increasingly becoming a necessity and a requirement in today’s digital age.
You most probably already have your own personal or business Instagram feed. However, having an Instagram account is one thing – harnessing Instagram’s power and potential is another.
Whether you have a blog, product, or service page, organize events, or run a business, displaying your Instagram feed on your WordPress website comes with plenty of benefits. Spotlight can help you do just that.
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What Is Spotlight?
Spotlight is a WordPress plugin that allows you to display as many Instagram feeds as you like from one or multiple Instagram accounts on your WordPress website. Use your feeds to leverage your website traffic and boost conversions, while acting as free marketing to attract new followers.
Although WordPress does let you import single Instagram posts, displaying a feed in this way is both time-consuming and tedious and won’t result in a well-designed and well-integrated display. For this reason, it’s best to turn to a plugin such as Spotlight to display your new Instagram posts automatically.
The plugin was designed to be used without the need for any coding know-how. This makes it perfect for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. Its user interface is dead simple to use and can be set up in a matter of minutes.
How Does It Work?
With Spotlight, setting up your Instagram feed only takes three simple steps:
- Connect
- Design
- Embed
Let’s take a look at how it’s done.
Connect Your Account
Spotlight lets you connect Personal, Business, and Creator accounts. Connecting your account(s) only takes a couple of seconds. The plugin allows for multiple accounts, and you can even combine Personal, Business, and Creator accounts within one website.
This means that you can have your Personal posts showing on specific pages. For example, you can display these posts on your About page, where you typically would like to connect with your visitors on a more personal level. At the same time, you can display your business or creator posts within the rest of your blog or website.
Setting up a Business or Creator account is free and opens up additional features within the Spotlight plugin.
While Spotlight is a free plugin, it also comes in a premium version. Among other features, Spotlight PRO lets you also display posts in which your account has been tagged, as well as display posts by hashtag.
Design Your Feed
One of Spotlight’s most innovative features is its live preview customizer. The great thing about this is that you can easily design your feed in your WordPress dashboard and get a live preview of the result. The live preview customizer helps you avoid going back and forth between the plugin interface and the live version of your site.
Spotlight comes with over 40 customization options, including the possibility of:
- Setting the color of your feed background and buttons
- Having your posts open up in a popup/lightbox
- Customizing your feed header
- Adding or changing your profile photo and bio text
- Ordering your posts by date, popularity, or at random
- Adding Follow and Load More buttons
While the free version of the plugin lets you display your feed in a classic Grid layout, the PRO version enables you to choose between Masonry and Highlight layouts (more layouts are soon to be released).
The PRO version comes with additional features, including:
- Showing your comments and likes
- Displaying your follower counts
- Including your Instagram stories
One essential feature of the premium plugin is the ability to filter and moderate your posts. This means that you can hide specific posts and have full control over what you want to display. You can do this in two ways:
- Caption and hashtag filtering
- Visual moderation is where you manually select the photos you want to show or hide.
With both the free and premium plugins, your feed will automatically take on your theme fonts to ensure that your feed seamlessly integrates with your website design.
Spotlight is also fully responsive, which means that you can design the way your feed looks on any device – be it desktop, mobile, or tablet.
Embedding Your Feed
The last step is to embed your feed. You can do so by using the generated shortcode or by using the dedicated widget.
You can display your feed anywhere on your website. Show off your feed in your site footer, your sidebar, or even individual posts or pages.
Price and Platform Compatibility
You can download Spotlight for free on the WordPress plugin directory. Spotlight PRO, which comes with a 14-day free trial (no credit card required) is available in a number of options:
Single Site Licenses
- PRO – $59/year (Includes premium support),
- PRO Lifetime – $179 one-time payment (Includes premium support, lifetime updates and lifetime support),
- Both options come with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Multisite Licenses
- For up to 10 sites – $119/year or $299 lifetime license,
- For up to 30 sites – $189/year or $449 lifetime license,
- For more than 30 sites, you can contact the team to discuss a custom price.
Is Spotlight Worth It?
If you’re looking for a way to build social proof, boost conversions, and increase your follower count, Spotlight is definitely a plugin that can help you achieve this. The plugin can be used in a variety of ways:
With the free version of Spotlight, you can easily display your photos and videos anywhere on your WordPress website in a Grid layout. This works great for personal blogs.
While you can create beautiful feeds with the free version, Spotlight PRO comes with additional features that will help you to further enhance your feed.
If you’re interested in something more advanced, you can easily leverage your content and use it as a marketing tool for your brand using Spotlight PRO. Create a hashtag campaign and display your followers’ posts showcasing your clients using your product. This creates great social proof and is a marketing strategy that has been adopted by many brands.
Spotlight can help you boost conversions by connecting you with your audience to increase e-commerce sales, signups, or otherwise. It’s interesting to see how a small tweak to your website can result in so much!
All in all, Spotlight is a great way to interact with your audience and connect with new and existing followers. If you’re asking us, Spotlight is definitely worth it.
