How to save posts on Instagram

Lately a lot of compers have been asking me how – and why! – to save posts on Instagram, so here’s a quick guide to the Instagram save function.

Are Instagram saved posts private?

Nobody except YOU can see what you’ve saved – your Instagram saved posts are private. So when a brand or blogger asks you to save their post to enter a giveaway, you can ignore the request. It’s only possible for an Instagram Business account to see the number of times a post has been saved. The screenshot below shows an example post on my own business account – in the post insights, I can see it’s been saved 3 times but I have no way to see who saved it!

Knowing this information, we can also deduce that any promoter who asks you to save an Instagram post as an entry requirement is unable to track that entry, and so they are definitely NOT running a CAP Compliant and fair prize promotion – so be warned! (if you’d like to know more about what is and isn’t trackable as an Instagram entry, see my post ten tips for running Instagram giveaways). It could be that the promoter chooses a winner, then asks for evidence of a save – in which case, the winner can save it, take a screenshot and DM it to the promoter (then tap again to unsave!)

So why do promoters ask you to save a post? It’s all about engagement – a high number of saves shows that the promoter’s content is valuable and resonates with their audience, so it’s more likely that Instagram will move it to the top of feeds and feature it on the Explore pages, reaching a wider audience. To brands and influencers, a save is more important than a like!

Why you should save Instagram posts

Saving posts on Instagram (and bookmarking them on Twitter) is a handy way to organise photos, recipes, ideas and inspiration – I’m sure you’ve wanted to show something amazing on your Insta feed to a friend, but your feed has refreshed and you’ve lost it! And of course it’s a great way to file and organise competitions you want to enter. You can also save creative photos and recipe ideas to inspire your own competition entries.

If you’re a comper it’s a good idea to enter an Instagram prize draw as late as possible. Not all promoters choose winners fairly, and If the brand or blogger is choosing manually from comments or story shares, they will see your entry at the top of their activity list or inbox and may be more likely to choose you! Plus, the promoter can only view story shares from the last 24 hours in their inbox so by sharing on the closing date you have more chance of getting noticed.

If you’re sharing a giveaway to your story, or posting an entry on your grid, entering right before it closes also means less of your followers will have the chance to take part – that means fewer entrants, and a better chance of you winning! So saving Instagram competitions and then entering them on, or just before, the closing date is a great idea.

Saving competition posts is also a reminder to go back and check if a winner has been announced – this is worth doing for local competitions, or comps with very few entries where your chance of winning is higher.

How to save an Instagram post

• Tap the bookmark icon underneath the post, to the right.

• A banner will pop up above it that says Save to collection – if you ignore this, your post will be saved in your main folder.
• Tap the save to collection banner, and your albums will pop up along the bottom of the screen. A quicker way to save directly to a collection is by pressing the bookmark icon for a moment.

• Tap the collection you want to save the post to – or tap the plus sign to create a new collection, type in a name and Save

• When you’ve saved a post, the bookmark icon underneath it will change from an outline to a solid shape.

How to remove saved posts

• Removing a post from your saved items is as easy as tapping the bookmark icon again, so it changes from solid back to an outline. Then select whether to remove from collection, or to completely remove from your saved items.

Where to find saved Instagram posts

• Tap your photo to go to your profile page, then tap the top three line menu

• Select Saved to view your saved posts and collections (note that for a while, Instagram put a Saved button directly on profiles, but this seems to have been removed again!)

• From this screen you can add folders by tapping the plus sign.

• If you want to delete, edit or rename a collection, tap on it to view the contents then tap … at the top.

Saving tips

• Create collections for different competition closing dates – then on the closing date, open up your collection and enter all the comps in the folder. I usually do my Instagram comps in the evenings, so if a giveaway closes early in the day, I save it in a collection for the previous day in case I miss the deadline!
• If you see a hashtagged entry from a comper on your feed, save it into a collection as a reminder to get the full details when you have more time
• Create a collection to save any creative or effort comps you enter, so you can go back and check a winner was announced. Sometimes Instagram creative comps only get a handful of entries and the promoter might need a polite nudge to remind them to choose a winner!

Do you save posts on Instagram? Share your tips in the comments!