Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms, so it makes sense to integrate it with your WordPress site. Doing so can help you increase your social media following and boost engagement on your website. However, with dozens of WordPress Instagram plugins out there, it can be hard to find the best solution.
Whether you want to embed a feed on your site, create interactive slides, or share WordPress posts on Instagram, it’s smart to work with well-coded plugins that won’t compromise your page loading speed. A quality tool will also be easy to set up and blend smoothly with your existing theme.
In this article, we’ll show you five of the best Instagram plugins that will appeal to beginners, designers, and social media marketers alike. Let’s go!
Five best Instagram plugins
Now that we’ve discussed what you can do with a WordPress Instagram plugin, let’s look at five excellent options. The one that’s the best fit for you will at least partly depend on what kind of features you need, but they all offer an excellent opportunity to boost your social media efforts.
1. Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon’s Social Photo Feeds plugin is an excellent choice if your social media marketing efforts concentrate mostly on Instagram. It enables you to connect multiple accounts and display images in one or more feeds:
You can also feature posts from other social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.
Smash Balloon lets you customize each feed with adjustable dimensions, buttons, and background colors. There is also a Load More option so that users can browse your Instagram content without overloading your site.
Plus, you can easily generate a custom shortcode for each feed and embed them anywhere you want on your website. Other features include:
- Responsive and mobile-friendly design
- Choice of chronological or random order
- Adjustable columns
- Customizable header
- Display photos from multiple Instagram accounts (in the same or separate feed)
Pricing: Free. Or upgrade for more advanced customization features. The Pro version gives you the choice of multiple layouts and the ability to highlight posts based on hashtags or other variables.
You can also create shoppable feeds, display your posts in carousels or slideshows, and more. Pricing starts at $49 per year for one site.
2. Feed Them Social
Feed Them Social is another plugin that lets you display content from multiple social media networks. Like Smash Balloon, this tool lets you generate shortcodes for as many feeds as you want and place them anywhere on your website.
Each feed is fully responsive, and you can pull details such as descriptions and comments from each post:
Plus, Feed Them Social enables you to combine all your social media accounts into one dynamic feed, which is an excellent option if you want to save space.
Basic features include:
- Mobile-friendly design
- Customizable fonts
- Social sharing options
- Like and Follow buttons
- Support for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Pricing: Free, though with limited customization options. The Premium version starts at $50 for one site, and lets you create photo and video carousels and install various extensions such as Facebook Reviews and Combined Streams.
3. Spotlight
If you like Smash Balloon and Feed Them Social but want to focus solely on Instagram, Spotlight could be an excellent alternative. This fully responsive tool lets you connect your site to multiple accounts and create near-unlimited feeds via an easy-to-use visual customizer.
Spotlight includes a lightbox feature so that users can view your photos in their full glory. It also uses dynamic loading and caching mechanisms, so you won’t have to worry about the images overloading your website:
Plus, you can easily embed your feed with a handy Instagram widget, or generate a shortcode if you prefer. Besides that, Spotlight includes features such as:
- Point-and-click design options
- Customizable grid layout or single-row gallery
- Order by popularity, date, or random
- Custom bio and profile image
- Follow and Load More buttons
Pricing: Free. The Pro version gives you more advanced customization options such as a wider selection of layouts, full customization, captions, likes, Instagram sliders, stories, and Elementor integration. It costs $39 per year for one website.
4. Soliloquy
If you’re looking for something beyond a simple Instagram feed, Soliloquy might be worth a try. This designer-friendly plugin can help you enhance your current theme with stylish sliders that will look beautiful on all devices.
You can choose from several pre-built templates, which you can customize with a simple drag-and-drop editor. Soliloquy also lets you create slideshows in fullscreen lightbox mode or turn sliders into responsive carousels.
Additionally, Soliloquy lets you add Instagram images based on a specific tag or include other elements such as testimonials, custom post types, and more:
It also provides:
- Mobile and SEO-friendly design
- WooCommerce integration
- Thumbnail navigation
- Dynamic slides
- Transition effects
- Slide scheduling options
- Support for Pinterest
Pricing: To create basic slides, you can use the free Lite version of this plugin. However, including Instagram posts is only possible with the ‘Multi’ package, which is priced at $44 per year for use on three sites.
5. Revive Old Posts
Our final recommendation is an excellent option for users who need a scheduling tool rather than an Instagram feed plugin. Revive Old Posts helps you boost your site’s engagement by sharing old and new content on all popular social media networks.
It supports Instagram via Buffer, enabling you to integrate your WordPress site with your account. Additionally, Revive Old Posts gives you the ability to share photos or videos from your Media Library directly to Instagram, which can save you a lot of time.
You can even optimize your Instagram posts’ hashtags and add them automatically based on blog post categories, tags, or custom fields.
Other features include:
- Custom post scheduling
- Automatic posting to WordPress
- Social media analytics
- Content curation options
- Ability to exclude categories and tags
Pricing: $75 per year for one website. Note that the free version of this plugin only supports Facebook and Twitter.
Conclusion
Integrating your WordPress site with Instagram is an excellent way to enhance it visually. Embedding an interactive feed can boost user engagement on your pages, too. However, this might be difficult without coding knowledge.
Fortunately, there are several beginner-friendly tools that you can use, including the five WordPress Instagram plugins we covered in this post. Smash Balloon is probably the best choice for those looking to display content from multiple social networks on their sites. However, Revive Old Posts is handy for sharing content from your blog directly to Instagram to boost visibility.
For more ideas, check out our post on how to integrate WordPress with Instagram.
Do you have any questions about WordPress Instagram plugins? Let us know in the comments section below!
Or start the conversation in our Facebook group for WordPress professionals. Find answers, share tips, and get help from other WordPress experts. Join now (it’s free)!