How to Add Instagram to WordPress

Adding your Instagram feed directly to your WordPress site isn't just about making your blog look good, it's a smart way to merge your social media energy with your main online home. This simple integration keeps your site fresh with new content, builds social proof, and gives your website visitors a direct window into your brand's personality. This guide will walk you through the best methods to connect Instagram to WordPress, from easy-to-use plugins to manual embeds, so you can choose the right approach for your website.

Why Add Your Instagram Feed to WordPress?

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." Connecting your Instagram account to your WordPress site offers several tangible benefits that contribute to your brand's growth and audience engagement. Leveraging Instagram for business can significantly boost your online presence.

• Boost Social Proof and Credibility: A vibrant, active Instagram feed right on your website acts as live social proof. It shows potential customers and followers that you have an engaged community and a brand that's alive and kicking. Seeing real people interact with your content builds trust in a way that static testimonials can't.
• Increase Follower Count: Not every website visitor is an Instagram follower - yet. By showcasing your feed, you give them a low-effort way to discover your content and hit the "Follow" button without ever leaving your site. It’s a simple, effective funnel to grow your social audience organically.
• Keep Your Website Content Fresh: If you're active on Instagram but don't update your blog daily, an embedded feed keeps your site looking dynamic and current. Fresh content from Instagram is automatically pulled in, signaling to visitors (and search engines) that your site is actively maintained.
• Drive More Engagement Across Platforms: Integrating your feed creates a seamless feedback loop. Website visitors discover your Instagram, and Instagram followers might be new visitors to your site. This cross-pollination strengthens your brand presence and encourages your audience to connect with you on multiple fronts.

Method 1: Using an Instagram Feed Plugin (The Easiest &, Best Way)

For most WordPress users, a dedicated plugin is the simplest and most powerful way to add an Instagram feed. Plugins handle the tricky API connections, offer deep customization options, and are designed to be mobile-responsive right out of the box. You get all the benefits of a live feed without writing a single line of code.

Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed is one of the most popular and reliable free options available. Let's walk through how to set it up.

Step-by-Step Guide Using Smash Balloon

Step 1: Install and Activate the Plugin

From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Plugins >, Add New. In the search bar, type "Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed." When it appears in the results, click Install Now, and then Activate.

Step 2: Connect Your Instagram Account

Once activated, find the new Instagram Feed menu item in your WordPress sidebar and click on it. Click the big blue button that says Add New. You will be prompted to choose a Feed Type, for a standard feed, select User Timeline and click Next.

Now, click on Add Source. This will open a pop-up asking you to connect to Instagram. You'll be asked to choose between a "Personal" or "Business" profile. Choose the one that matches your Instagram account and follow the on-screen prompts to log in to your Instagram/Facebook account and authorize the plugin to access your media. Once you've successfully connected, your account will appear as a source. Select it and click Next.

Step 3: Customize Your Feed's Appearance

This is where you get to decide how your feed will look. Smash Balloon offers a live preview editor, so you can see your changes in real-time. You can adjust:

• Layout: Choose from Grid, Carousel, Masonry, or Highlight layouts.
• Colors: The plugin will inherit your theme's styles by default, but you can override colors for things like the header and the "Follow" button.
• Header: Decide whether to show your profile picture, bio, and follower count.
• Posts: Configure the number of photos to display, the number of columns, and image spacing (padding).

Play around with the settings until you're happy with the look and feel. Once you're done, click the Save button in the top right corner.

Step 4: Embed Your Feed on Your Website

Finally, it's time to add the feed to your site. After saving your feed, click the Embed button. A pop-up will appear with a shortcode, which looks something like

[instagram-feed feed=1]. Copy this shortcode.

Now, navigate to the page or post where you want the feed to appear. In the WordPress editor (whether it's the Block Editor or Classic Editor), simply paste the shortcode where you want the feed to show up. If you're using the Block Editor, you can also search for the "Instagram Feed" block and add it directly.

Update or publish your page, and that's it! Your beautiful, responsive Instagram feed is now live on your WordPress site.

Other Great Instagram Feed Plugins

While Smash Balloon is a fantastic choice, there are other great plugins that might better suit your needs.

• Spotlight – Social Feeds: Known for its beautiful, modern templates and incredibly user-friendly setup. Spotlight offers a "point and click" design experience that lets you create a feed that matches your branding in minutes. The free version is quite generous, and the pro version unlocks more layouts and features like shoppable feeds.
• Taggbox Widget: Taggbox is more than just an Instagram feed plugin, it's a full social media aggregator. You can pull in content from over 20 social platforms, making it a great option if you want to create a rich social wall with content from Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook, and more.
• Envira Gallery: Although primarily a gallery plugin, Envira has an Instagram addon that lets you create stunning galleries from your feed's images. This is a great choice if you prize image presentation and want more lightbox and gallery-specific features than what standard feed plugins offer.

Method 2: Manually Embedding Single Instagram Posts

Maybe you don't want to display your entire feed, you just want to highlight a single, specific Instagram post within an article. For example, you might want to showcase a customer testimonial reel or a product announcement. In this case, WordPress's built-in oEmbed functionality (or Instagram's manual embed code) is all you need. It's completely free and doesn't require a plugin.

How to Manually Embed a Post

1. Find the Instagram Post: Open Instagram in your web browser (not the app) and navigate to the post you want to embed.
2. Get the Embed Code: Click the three dots (...) in the top-right corner of the post. From the menu that appears, select Embed. A pop-up window will show you the embed code. You can choose whether to include the caption or not. Click Copy Embed Code.
3. Paste the Code in WordPress: Go to the WordPress editor for the post or page where you want to add the Instagram post. Switch your editor to the HTML view (In the Block Editor, you'd add a "Custom HTML" block). Paste the code you just copied.
4. Preview and Publish: Switch back to the visual editor or preview your page. You should see the Instagram post perfectly embedded. Publish or update your page, and you're done!

The Downside: This method is fantastic for single posts, but it's not practical for showcasing a live, dynamic feed. It's a static embed of one post, so it won't automatically update with new content, and requires you to repeat the process for every photo or video you want to feature.

Method 3: Taking Advantage of oEmbed in WordPress

In the past, WordPress's oEmbed feature allowed you to embed an Instagram post just by pasting its URL directly into the editor. However, due to changes in Instagram's API, this method is no longer reliable for many users. While some themes or plugins might still support it, you may find that simply pasting the link no longer works. For a consistent and hassle-free experience, using one of the dedicated plugins mentioned in Method 1 is the most reliable approach, as they are specifically designed to handle these technical changes for you.

Final Thoughts

Integrating your Instagram content into your WordPress site is a powerful tactic for boosting engagement, keeping your website fresh, and building a stronger brand presence. Whether you choose the flexibility of a dedicated plugin like Smash Balloon or the simple directness of a manual embed, you're creating a valuable bridge between your primary online hub and your social community.

While displaying your amazing content on your website is one part of the puzzle, a consistent and organized strategy is what makes your social media efforts truly effective in the first place. That's why we created Postbase. We realized that many social media tools felt outdated, forcing creators to juggle different apps to manage modern content like Reels, Stories, or Shorts. Our visual calendar makes planning content delightful, while our reliable scheduling and unified inbox simplify the daily grind of staying active across all platforms.

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