Key takeaways from this study

Go live on Instagram to connect with your followers in real time.

Engage your audience when going live by welcoming them to the session, acknowledging their comments and answering their questions.

Go live on Instagram to broadcast video to your followers in real time. Your followers may receive a notification when you go live, depending on their settings.

People can tap your profile picture from their feeds or your profile to join your live video. Once people are viewing your live video, they can share it, leave comments or likes and donate to a cause. After you end your live video, add it to IGTV on your profile, where people can watch longer videos in full screen.

How can I go live on Instagram?

If this is the first time you're going live on Instagram, here's how to do it:

Step 1 Tap the camera icon in the top left of your feed or swipe right from anywhere in the feed to open the Stories camera.

Step 2 Scroll to Live at the bottom of the screen to start your video. When you're ready to go, tap the Live button.

Step 3 Throughout your live session, keep track of the comments and reactions coming in. Remember that you can acknowledge them in real time.

Ensure that your session will be a safe space

Hide offensive comments and filter comments that contain specific words before your session begins.

Here's how: 1. Go to your profile. Tap the three lines on the top right of your screen. 2. Tap Settings. 3. Tap Privacy. 4. Tap Comments. 5. Toggle Hide offensive comments from off to on. 6. To filter out comments that contain specific words or phrases, toggle Manual filter from off to on, and type the words or phrases that you'd like to filter out.

Save and repurpose your video once you've finished.

After your live video ends, you can share your entire session directly to IGTV, where people can watch longer-form videos on your profile.

You can also download your video when you've finished. When your session is over, tap "Download Video". Once you've saved it to your camera roll, you can repurpose this content and share it on your feed, Stories and IGTV.