Instagram is home to endless avocado pictures, the most covetable interiors, and pictures of people smiling at their cell phones. (And also the #1 source of thumb cramps for millennials, I'd bet.) It's a source for inspiration—there's no question about that—but the very best of the images you scroll past will often leave you wanting more. A recipe. A place to buy that beautiful lamp. Anything!
I've never actually shopped on Instagram, so I was surprised to learn that you can (on our feed, at least!). When our Community Manager Kaitlin posts a picture of a Food52 recipe or a product from our Shop, she links the URL of any featured recipes or products in a place where you can find them.
But where? you might be wondering.
Since Instagram doesn't offer linking directly in the caption of the post, we use a workaround that I'll walk you through. Here's how to shop and find the recipes featured in our Instagrams! Featuring the two options shown above—a Japanese-designed Coffee Dripper & Pot and a recipe for Coconut Blueberry Pancakes—as case studies.
1. Click on the link in our Instagram bio.
If you're looking at a Food52 Instagram that inspires you and want to see if it's shoppable, or what the recipe is, you'll need to first navigate away from the photo itself. (Counterintuitive, I know, but bear with me!)
Click on "Food52" at the top of the screen next to our logo, and you'll end up on our "bio" page. The link there—f52.co/insta—is one we're always referencing for the recipe or product. Click it.
Now you'll be transferred out of the Instagram app and into a browser window; the page you'll land on is essentially a replica of our Instagram feed, except it lives on our website instead of within the Instagram system.
You can also reach this page on a computer, by visiting food52.com/p/instagram—a.k.a. the "link in our bio."
If you're anything like I am and are already squinting at your phone to read things, I recommend opening that page—again, food52.com/p/instagram—on your computer whenever you want to know more about an Instagram, where it looks like this (13-ish inches wide instead of two):
2. Find the image you want to shop (or eat).
Once you're on this page, be it on your phone or your computer, locate the image you want to shop or cook from and then tap it.
Rather than featuring only a caption, the image that pops up will have listed below it any linked recipes or shopping pages corresponding to a circled number that points it out in the image. All you do is click on them to find your way there.
Those bolded words below the images are the links! Just tap them to be sent to the recipe (when it says "recipe") or buying page (when it says "shop").
For the two posts above, here are their respective landing pages:
That's how it's done!
As you'll notice when you start scrolling around on the "link in our bio" page, not all of our Instagrams have recipes or products linked to them. That's because many are re-grams from hashtags like #f52grams, #f52home, and #f52farmstand, so they come from our follower' accounts. While we tag those users in the comments, we don't usually know what recipe they cooked from or where they shopped for their kitchen tools! (Comment on the Instagram and someone just might be able to track it down for you!)
But if we do know a recipe or a product featured in the picture (usually from images we shoot in our office studio), the caption of the Instagram will (almost always) mention that you can find it by clicking on the link in our bio—that's the clue. (And If you're unsure, clicking the link is the best way to check.)
Lesson: Read our captions! And then click the link in our bio (because now you know where it takes you) to shop and find recipes for what you're drooling over.
See what other Food52 readers are saying.