Do you want to display multiple Instagram feeds on your website? Are you looking to add different feeds with Instagram posts from one or more Instagram accounts, or perhaps even a hashtag feed?
You’re in luck! With Spotlight, you can create as many Instagram feeds as you like from an unlimited number of Instagram accounts or public hashtags. It’s really quite simple and only takes a few clicks.
In this tutorial, I’m going to take you through the steps you need to take to create and display multiple Instagram feeds from one or many Instagram accounts or hashtags using both the free and premium versions of the Spotlight plugin.
Let’s get started.
How to display multiple Instagram feeds using Spotlight
Install and activate Spotlight
To start off, let’s install the Spotlight plugin. The free version can be found from the WordPress plugin directory. Go to Plugins > Add New and search for Spotlight in the search bar.
Select the Install button, followed by Activate. You can choose to sign up for the plugin’s security and feature updates notification, or press Skip.
Spotlight is now installed on your WordPress website.
Connect your Instagram account
Before we get to Spotlight, make sure you’re logged in to your Instagram account on your desktop.
Now, we can connect our account to the Spotlight plugin. First, determine whether you have a personal or business account.
My first account is a Personal one. So I’m going to click on the Personal account button and authorize Spotlight to access my media. At this point, the plugin lets you add a custom profile photo and bio.
Due to Instagram restrictions, plugins cannot import profile photos and user bios for personal accounts. Spotlight, therefore, provides you with a workaround. You can choose to skip this step if you wish.
Next, go to Add New in your WordPress sidebar and select your account. Your feed will now automatically show up within Spotlight’s live preview editor.
Set up your footer feed
We’re going to start off by designing our footer feed. My current theme has a footer that is split up into 3 sections. I want to display my Instagram feed in the first section, my latest posts in the central section, and some text to introduce myself in the third section.
Due to the horizontal nature of my footer, I want to create a 3×2 grid for my Instagram feed. Switch over to the Design tab and here you will find over 40 customization options.
For this footer feed, I’ve set the number of columns to 3 and the number of posts to 6. I’ve also set my posts to be ordered by date (Most recent first) and the feed to have 0px outside padding.
Since my feed will be showing within the footer, I want to have the feed’s background color take on the same color as my footer section. For this reason, I set the background color to transparent. I also set the header and Load More button to be hidden.
Note: Remember to save your feed using a memorable name. I’ve saved my feed with the name “Footer Feed”.
To display your feed within the footer, go to Appearance > Widget and drag and drop the Spotlight Instagram Feed widget. Select Footer Feed from the dropdown menu and click on Save.
Your footer should now be populated with your first feed.
Upgrade to Spotlight’s premium tiers
In the next few sections, I’ll be showing you how to add multiple feeds when using Spotlight PRO. The premium version of Spotlight provides you with additional customization options and features such as the ability to view Instagram stories.
If you wish to continue with the free version, you can still follow along. Please keep in mind that certain features might be unavailable to you. Skip to Set up your sidebar feed to continue the tutorial.
To upgrade to Spotlight PRO, you need to first purchase a license. Once you’ve got your plugin downloaded, go to Plugins > Add New and upload the zip file.
Install and activate the plugin and then copy and paste in your license (which you will receive by email).
Spotlight PRO is now fully installed!
Set up your sidebar feed
In order to set up a new feed, go to Instagram Feeds > Add New, select your account, and go to the Design tab.
For this feed, I opted for a Highlight feed with 6 posts and 3 columns. I’ve also highlighted every 4th post.
I’ve set the background color for the feed and header to transparent and the header to be centered. Spotlight lets you add a custom bio within the Design tab too, so you can add it here if you skipped that step before. Next, customize your Follow button and hide the Load More button.
There are some photos in this feed which I don’t want to show in my sidebar. To hide them, go to Moderate and select the images you want to hide. It’s really that easy!
Give your feed a friendly name (I named mine Sidebar Feed) and hit save. Next, go to Appearance > Widget and drag and drop the Spotlight Instagram Feed widget into the sidebar section. Select Sidebar Feed from the dropdown menu and click on Save.
Your feed should now show up in your sidebar!
Connect another Instagram account
To connect another Instagram account, first, go to Instagram, log out of your previous account, and log in to your new one.
Next, we’re going to add this Instagram account by going to Settings > Accounts > Connect more Instagram accounts.
I’m going to connect a Business Instagram account this time. Upgrading to a business account is free of charge and lets you access business features and insights within Instagram, while also opening up some more features within Spotlight.
Once again, authorize Spotlight to access your posts.
You can come back to the settings page to add more accounts at any point. Here, you can also edit the profile photos and bio texts for all your accounts by clicking on the information button under Actions.
Note: This Settings page also gives you an overview of which feeds your accounts are being shown in.
Next, go to Feeds > Add new feed, select your account, and your feed will appear in the live preview customizer.
Set up your post feed
For this feed, I opted for the Masonry layout with 10 posts and 5 columns. This layout displays your posts in their entirety.
I’ve also hidden the header and set the Load More button to black.
Remember to always check out the responsive version of your feed. In this case, I’ve opted for a 3 column layout with 6 posts on mobile devices.
As you might have noticed, some of my Instagram posts feature photography tips. These posts all have a specific hashtag – #photographytips.
In order to hide these posts, go to the Filter tab and scroll down to Hide posts with these hashtags. I’ve added a #photographytips hashtag and instantly, the posts disappear.
Finally, all we need to do now is copy the generated shortcode.
To display your feed within a post, go to your post and add a shortcode block in Gutenberg. Paste in your shortcode and update your post.
You have now successfully placed 3 feeds on our WordPress website!
Conclusion
In this post, we’ve gone through the process of displaying multiple Instagram feeds on a single website. With Spotlight, you can display as many feeds as you’d like and connect an unlimited number of Instagram accounts or hashtag sources.
This process can be applied to both the free version of Spotlight, as well as the premium version. Spotlight PRO provides you with additional functionality such as added customization options, tagged and hashtag feeds, and finally – filtering and moderation.
Have you used Spotlight to display multiple Instagram feeds? Share some examples in the comments section below and inspire
