By Cruz Lena
The 4th most used app boasts a whopping 1 billion active users across the globe, making it a fertile marketing ground for businesses. In fact, a whole 80% of Instagram users follow a business on the platform and 200 million of them visit at least one business profile. If you do your job well enough that profile could be yours.
With a potential advertising reach of 849.3 million users, ignoring this platform would be a complete folly. Instagram introduced a handy tool in 2016 that allows online sellers to create a separate business profile, view analytics, and convert Instagram posts into ads. Over the years, the platform fine-tuned its Business Manager tool with frequent updates including shoppable posts in 2018 that followed a seamless retailing experience.
That’s not all, Instagram is ever-evolving. Since the past year, there has been a fresh set of Instagram updates for business profiles that make marketing and advertising even more fun than ever.
So get your Instagram business profile in gear and win the hearts of your followers with the aid of these latest features.
- Exploring Gets Better
As users get the convenience of ultra-fast and stable internet connectivity such as that offered by Spectrum Silver Package, they are spending more of their time online and looking for ways to make the most of it.
Instagram Explore section is the best place to learn about the latest trends, products, ideas, and everything under the sun. Therefore, it’s popular among over 50% of Instagram users as they find the next business they will love.
It’s no wonder that the platform is attempting to fine-tune the feature to make it easier for users to explore their favorite brands. For businesses, the Explore section revolves around the brands. So if a brand is handy with its organic Instagram marketing tactics, it can gain visibility in the Explore tab to reach a new audience. It’s a win-win feature for both followers and brands.
The new design of the tab comes with a nifty navigation bar that allows users to filter their Explore section by post formats i.e. IGTV and Shop, or by categories I.e. Décor, Travel, Food, Style, Music, etc. The Explore section showcases posts based on calculation and analysis by the algorithm of a user’s activity, and the recommendations may not be always useful to users. Now, users can narrow down the discovery section to their preference with some filtering.
Also, Instagram has now included ad placements in the Explore section, which users xan see like another post on the feed. Businesses can now win their audience’s attention at the Explore feed too with some well-placed ads.
Source: Later.com
- Now Publish Ads Via Desktop
Instagram has never really been keen on improving its desktop app features as it encourages the use of its mobile app. Many third-party apps had come up with alternative methods to gain desktop publishing access as publishing posts, videos, and IGTV via mobile was proving to be agony, particularly when one had to handle multiple social accounts.
Many had lost hope for the day to ever arrive, but the surprise of surprises, the platform has introduced much-needed features for its desktop functionality since the past year.
Apart from the Instagram Direct Message feature available on desktop in early 2020, the platform has been increasing desktop access for other features as well. Instagram ads and IGTV are powered by Facebook’s Creator Studio, which you can open up on the desktop and connect your Instagram account with. Here you can import your images and videos, and create, schedule, and upload your content without the aid of a third-party app.
Also, an Instagram account isn’t required to run ads on the platform via the Facebook ads Manager. So placing ads is more seamless than we ever imagined on Instagram.
- Checkout: Smoothing the Retail Experience
Since 70% of shopping enthusiasts go to Instagram to look for new products, Instagram capitalized on the opportunity by offering them the convenience of purchasing them from the app itself. Introduced in early 2019, the Checkout feature was rolled out in beta version for select few brands, eventually enfolded more businesses as it progressed. However, the feature still isn’t available to all businesses.
Currently, Instagram is working on promotional emails to push users into making purchases through the Instagram app. As you would see upon tapping on the shopping tag of a post, you can select from a bunch of options such as size and color. Then proceed further by tapping on the ‘Checkout on Instagram’ button. After entering your information i.e. name, email, billing information, and shipping address the first time, your information will be securely stored with Instagram for any future purchases you make within the app. Plus, the app delivers shipments and delivery notifications to users to enable package tracking.
The feature heralds an irrevocable transformation for e-commerce and marketing as social media platforms turn into shopping intermediaries for brands, delivering a seamless purchasing experience.
However, the journey isn’t that easy for brands as they compete on the social platform to gain users’ attention while meeting the stringent criteria set out by Instagram to access e-commerce integration.
Source: Instagram
- Influencers with Brand-Related Ads
anywhere between $100 to $2,085 for a single post, between $114 to $3,138 for video, and $43 to $721 for stories. The rates vary as per the Influencer tier from Nano (500 – 5k followers), Micro (5k – 30K followers), Power (30k – 500k followers), and Celebrity (500k+ followers). U.S. marketers reserve an average of 69% of their influencer marketing budget for Instagram.
Instagram has now streamlined the process for influencer and brand collaboration with new tools for both parties. Content creators can now allow their partners to promote brand-related content as ads, which are visible in the Feeds and Stories and are labeled as ‘Sponsored by (brand name)’ in every post. You can achieve that in Advanced Settings on Instagram.
This makes brand-influencer collaboration transparent, as the platform sifts through organic and paid content for its users.
- Monetizing Ads on IGTV
Now ads will appear on IGTV in the long-form video format. In a bid to reward creators, the platform will allow them ad monetization. Short mobile-friendly video ads of up to 15 seconds will appear as users click on an IGTV video.
Instagram will keep testing different ad formats for IGTV throughout the year, and bring in new features and functionalities, including the promise of skippable ads.
Businesses can increase their advertising reach as soon as a follower clicks on their favorite creator’s IGTV, and a content creator will then get a share in Instagram ad revenue.
Key Takeaway
Instagram has come a long way since its inception by gathering the attention of billions of users. Its popularity isn’t going to fade anytime soon, so businesses must take advantage of the platform and its ever-useful and frequent updates.
Instagram may continue to make its platform a brand-safe and efficacious space for marketing. Many of the features may not seem so useful for businesses, but it falls upon business to craft creative ways to profit from the platform.
Baldwin Jackson is a successful digital marketer with expertise in search engine optimization and content marketing. The perfect balance of his analytical ability and creative thinking is what sets him apart from other practitioners in the digital marketing realm. He has helped a lot of small and medium-sized businesses in crafting their digital marketing strategies that are not only cost-effective but delivers results as well.
Baldwin is also a proud father of two kids and a Sports enthusiast. When he is not working, you will find him watching ESPN and NFL network. He has been able to get an amazing package on his favorite channels from Buytvinternetphone.com.
