Instagram has been one of the fastest growing social media applications since its launch. Besides being a popular photo sharing application, it is utilized by brands across the world to spread awareness and drive more sales for their business.
From the time of its origin, Instagram is all about visual content, which makes it an excellent choice for people to post creative content online. Since there have been minor fruitful developments over the years, Instagram is more valuable for marketers than ever before.
These are the reasons why brands should take a little effort to catch up with the recent trends and get closer to their audience.
Below, we are listing some of the important trends that everyone should be aware of.
Shopping Features
Instagram is one of the most valuable social media networks for brand and its primary objective is to create a unique experience for both buyers and sellers.
Instagram marketing is a recent trend that can provide an opportunity for online marketers to
escalate their businesses. So, even small companies can go after this trend to attract more customers than ever before.
Also, if you are a small brand competing against giants in your niche, you need a bit of help. Get in touch with the people at iDigic and find out how you can instantly increase engagement for your brand’s social feed.
Shopping features on Instagram provide an organic way of exploring and discovering more products on Instagram. Therefore, purchasing on mobile phones using this platform gets a lot easier.
This trend helps online marketers to build long-term relationships between customers and brands alike. In addition to that, you’ll get more space and time that makes shopping on the go a lot more enjoyable. It also helps businesses to tag products to a post straight from their mobile phones.
With this trend, businesses can also include links on their posted content and send their prospects to the exclusive product pages. This makes the buying process a lot more comfortable because all the pieces of information are available under one roof.
How to identify a shoppable post? You can spot a bag like icon on the upper right corner of the post or on the item shown in the picture.
Micro-Influencers To Promote Your Brand
Since Instagram has incorporated several changes, it is difficult for new businesses and brands to acquire more followers in a short time. What to do in this scenario? Keep calm!
Instagram marketing help brands to engage with influencers for endorsing their products or services. It is a current trend on Instagram that helps you to reach a more extensive network of people in a shorter period of time.
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This concept was introduced a year ago and has produced mind-boggling results for several brands. Therefore, influencer marketing is crucial for promoting your brand.
As we all know, brands have to spread their messages across to increase the reach and engagement. At the same time, Instagram is confronting people who are acquiring fake-followers from third-party service providers.
Therefore, businesses must associate with genuine micro-influencers who are well-known for retaining followers over a long period of time. Also, make sure to select an influencer who has a higher engagement rate and better ROI (return-on-investment).
Instagram Stories To Drive Engagement
Instagram stories are one of the reasons why its user base is growing at a rapid pace. It is the most talked-about trend of 2018 which has attracted over
400 million daily users. So, it is safe to say that Instagram stories offer a lot of benefits for users.
Since Instagram stories have a wider audience, your brand has a better chance of reaching out to the target audience. Therefore, it is essential for businesses to take advantage of Instagram stories which in turn can increase their engagement rate.
Instagram stories feature was launched in 2017 since then it was well known for increasing user engagement to benefit business owners, and they even let them to
include clickable links to their content. Therefore, Instagram stories are an excellent way to provide your audience with an insight into your business.
With Instagram stories, users can easily engage with their existing followers and potential customers. So, it can be said with confidence that sharing content as Instagram stories can drive more engagement.
Story highlights is a new feature on Instagram which displays your popular story longer than usual. So, you can expect to see a lot more fun-filled Instagram stories in the coming years.
Tip: If you have any difficulty in generating visually stunning content, you can employ a specialist team to help you do that.
Live Streaming Engagement
Streaming live on Instagram is an excellent way to stay connected with your followers. It also helps to develop a more intimate connection between the users and audience.
Generally, Instagram users can easily relate to brands that conveys information via live streaming. For brands, it is a productive way to answer customer questions and solve their problems.
Obviously, to attract more viewers for your live video streaming, you have to promote it well in advance. An Instagram user can also turn on the notifications to let their audience know that they have gone live on Instagram.
Live streaming can be used for the following purposes,
For demonstrating your product or service
Events
Showcasing exclusive content
Therefore, by carefully analyzing the Instagram insights, you can find a
perfect time to broadcast your live stream. It is highly beneficial because, with more traffic and viewers, you’ll rank higher than the competitors. Live streaming is a significant trend on Instagram to keep an eye on.
Instagram Advertising
Instagram advertising is the next biggest thing trending on Instagram in 2019. However, it can be quite intimidating for new business owners who have not done it before. This feature also gives an opportunity to find out what works best for your brand and what not. Also, there are various ad formats to choose from for successfully promoting your products or services.
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Photos – You can make use of pictures of different layouts to promote your story and create a unique piece of Instagram advertising.
Videos – With this feature, you can also create high-quality video advertisements. Since people love watching short videos on Instagram, you can even seek help from a professional video production agency to come up with visually stunning content.
Stories – It is an excellent option to reach new audiences and showcase your products or services. Brands should never forget that it is an essential part of Instagram marketing strategy.
Carousel – This engaging feature allows users to play with 3 pieces of content in one distinct ad (both photos and videos).
Augmented Reality Face Filters
This feature is one of the happening things on Instagram recently. Even several businesses and brands have been
attracting potential customers through AR filters.
Instagram users can use augmented reality face filters to create an impact on both existing and potential customers.
These filters can work while using both front and back cameras on your mobile phone. However, this feature may not be available for all the brands.
Furthermore, Instagram would offer its users key elements like content, color palette, composition and font for conveying their messages through posts in a more customized way.
Boosting Instagram posts
With this feature, Instagram users can simply boost regular posts to their followers without the need of setting up specific ad campaigns.
Promoting Instagram posts is much similar to boosting posts on Facebook. You can
promote an Instagram post to increase likes, views, comments, and followers for your account.
In recent days, it is quite harder for brands to achieve high engagement rate without a marketing strategy. So, brands and influencers are promoting their posts in an attempt to stay relevant and maintain user engagement.
If you want to keep up with this trend, you need to start experimenting paid advertising.
Conclusion
As far as we are aware, Instagram has constantly been evolving over the years. It looks more sophisticated now than it was years ago. Because of its recent developments, Instagram helps brands and businesses to introduce their products to the target audience.
Instagram is the most used social media platform when compared to Facebook or Twitter. But, people are likely to follow an Instagram account only if it looks
consistent and more organized. Therefore, consistency plays a vital role to achieve success on Instagram in 2019.
Instagram users must catch up with the above trends to develop a special connection with their followers. These trends would offer an excellent opportunity for users to drive engagement and grow their follower’s base.
When all is said and done, make sure that the Instagram application on your phone is up to date. So that you won’t miss out on these new features.
What are some of your favorite Instagram trends? Feel free to let us know in the comments section.
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Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
