Instagram, the photo app owned by Facebook, has evolved from a platform for selfies and staged food photos to a hub for news outlets, bloggers, and marketers.
While users have always been able to add their text to their images, Instagram recently released options that let users add text to their pictures and send stickers within Stories.
These new features are good for businesses since they invite users to comment and ask relevant questions about products, which increases engagement.
The stickers also provide an easy way for brands to interact with customers and showcase their expertise more than product photos. While engaging your audience, you can ask them in depth marketing questions like benefits of healthcare staffing professionals and many more.
Certain types of businesses should be highly interested in taking advantage of these new inventions. These companies are fashion and retail, beauty, and other brands that rely mostly on the feedback of their merchandise.
This article explores these new Instagram features and how entrepreneurs can utilize them to succeed in their respective businesses. Let’s dive in.
Instagram Story Stickers
Social media is an excellent place to showcase your brand and highlight your products and services. Instagram just announced that it now has over 700 million active users — so if you aren’t taking advantage of the site yet, it is time to utilize it.
It has interesting features like Instagram stories, reels, and camera options. Back to Instagram stories.
Instagram stories have become one of the most popular features for users and businesses alike. And with great reason — it allows you to share engaging content with users in an organic way.
However, as of to date, you can incorporate stickers with Instagram stories. This feature was recently added to the app, and it allows users to create interactive stories for their followers.
It’s a great way to get your audience involved in your content while gaining feedback on upcoming events.
For instance, tappable stickers help you get more information about your event or product. Users can tap the sticker to learn more.
This means they don’t have to leave your story to get more information about your product. They can tap the sticker and keep watching your story unfold.
You can even use the stickers as call-to-actions. To get users to take specific actions that will help them increase their reach on Instagram.
For instance, you can create a question within a sticker and ask viewers what they think about a particular topic.
This can help you generate valuable feedback from your customers while increasing your engagement on Instagram.
Save Your IG Live Posts
Instagram’s IGTV (Instagram TV) is a new platform, but it’s Instagram’s way of competing with other social media platforms like YouTube. Instagram users can record videos and post them on their profiles.
There are also options for live-streaming, which is pretty cool, especially if you’re new to the platform. The best part about IGTV is that it doesn’t have to be vertical like all the other videos in your feed.
It always comes in handy when you put up videos of your products that aren’t the same size as what’s suggested for your feed.
What can you do with IGTV?
If you want to save your posts from your IG Live feed, you can do some cool things with them. You can save it under the “all” section on your profile so that anyone who missed, can find it later.
You can also create an IGTV playlist of past live feeds so that people who may not have had the time can go back in time to see what they missed.
Posting Reels
Instagram has added a new feature that allows users to create videos, or reels, on their favorite app. Reels, in essence, cannot be longer than a minute video.
They are just short-second clips that may include your products or advertisements.
However, with the new feature, users can post longer content that viewers can view at their leisure.
Previously, Instagram allowed 60-second videos but cut them off if viewers wanted to continue watching.
Reels will only be shown on a user’s profile feed so that individuals won’t appear in the story section. This means that brands will have to utilize the reels as an advertisement for their business, or in some other way, to promote themselves.
The ability for brands and businesses to upload reels is helpful since it will allow them to post more information about their business or other information that they would like to get across to their audience.
Additionally, it gives them an additional opportunity for customers and followers to connect with the brand.
Although it is limited by time, it still provides an opportunity for businesses to get their message out there without having to worry about how long the video will last. And whether people can see all of it.
Creating Schedules
If you have a large following, you can post one image throughout the day and have it appear as if it was posted in real-time. All you need is to create a schedule for your posts.
Just go to your profile and select “Scheduled Posts” from the top right corner of your favorite Instagram app.
This will bring up a screen where you can select how often and what time you want the photo to be automatically posted. You can also select the date you would like the photo to be posted.
In the case of multiple images that you would like to post, you can create them all at once and add them to your schedule or add one image at a time as needed.
Having enabled scheduling on your app, any time or day of the week you want your images to appear, they will automatically be posted!
Even if nobody is online at that moment, they will still see your images when they log in later on.
Bottom Line
In summation, Instagram is a great secondary channel to reach out to new customers and increase your brand awareness.
Using the newly launched features above, your content will result in more likes, comments, and clicks on your content without saturating your feed.
Finally, if you do get the chance to reach out to a well-known influencer, remember that they are not likely to share your offer unless it truly matches with their audience.
