I am a latecomer to Instagram.  I have had an account for quite a while but I did not use it much and certainly did not spend much time checking it out.  One of the reasons was that it was too bloody difficult to use.  It wanted to use pictures on my phone so I had to have either taken them on my phone or processed them and migrated them to the phone to upload them.  This was more hassle than I could be bothered with.  Then someone created LR Instagram.

This is a plugin for Lightroom that allows you to post directly to your Instagram account from within Lightroom.  This changes everything.  After installing the plugin (and I made a donation towards it to give me unrestricted access), you have a publish collection available in the Library Mode where you can add images to your account.  I have also set it up to use the keywords as hash tags which can apparently increase the reach of the shots.  Now I can add stuff to the account with ease.  I tend to create a folder with shots I want to share on Instagram and then add them periodically.  Things that are more current show up pretty quickly though.  I don’t know why Instagram is so restrictive in the upload options and, since it is, I am not sure how this one made it through but I am glad it has.