2 New Tools To Test On Instagram
How Instagrams latest tools help both creators and brands reach a larger audience and drive sales.
For both creators and brands, it’s safe to say that Instagram can be stressful at times. Keeping up with the latest Instagram features can be exhausting, especially when you’re making sure you’re quick to adapt and finding new ways to apply it to your content. With competition from TikTok, typically the goal of these new features is to increase engagement and encourage new ways of connecting with other users within the app. Reels has been a huge success on Instagram, mimicking the short form content of TikTok with features including morphing clips together, adding trending music, and the ability to add voice-over to name just a few of the ways the new video format has allowed creators to reach a larger audience.
Looking beyond Reels, Instagram has rolled out a handful of features that are now more universally available to creators and brands, no matter their following. Below we are going to look at 2 in particular that have grown popular amount users. From my personal experience as a creator, Instagram rewards early adapters to their new features, so if you haven’t jumped on these yet I suggest you test them out and see how it impacts your engagement, following and reach!
Collaborator Posts
A collaborator post is a post that appears on two accounts at once. It’s treated as a shared post with the two accounts sharing engagement metrics including likes, comments, and shares. What’s beneficial about this tool is that it encourages discoverability considering it’s automatically shared to both accounts feeds, as opposed to one account posting it and only being able to find the other user if you go through their tagged pictures and videos. As influencer marketing is on the rise, this is a great opportunity for brands to connect with the audience of the influencer they’re working with. I use this tool with my food Instagram account quite often. When I create a post I tag the restaurant I’m promoting as a collaborator so that their audience can easily see my content. Below are the steps for how to create a collab post:
Step 1. Create a post as usual.
Step 2. Press “Tag People”
Step 3. Tap “Invite Collaborator”
Step 4. Search for the account you’d like to collab with
Step 5. Press done! Now, the other account will need to accept the invitation to be a collaborator on the post.
Instagram Shopping For Creators
Social e-commerce is on the rise. The global social commerce industry is expected to grow three times as fast as traditional e-commerce, from $492 billion in 2021 to $1.2 trillion by 2025. Instagram is hoping to drive sales on social media with Instagram Shopping. Previously only available to stores / businesses accounts on Instagram, creators can now utilize Instagram’s product catalog to tag the products in their post so their followers can instantly add it to their cart and purchase it- all without leaving the app. The creator will then get a commission for every sale they make. Creators can also create a “shop” that is visible on their profile for quick access to products they’re promoting. I tested this out on my account, and Instagram is even providing an incentive for me to post more using this feature paying me $40 for every post I create where I tag a product. I believe this was created to compete with Like To Know It, where creators can make commission from products they tag and share in their social posts, however I never found it to be as user friendly and it lived within another app. Below are the steps for how to create a shoppable post:
Step 1. Create a post as usual.
Step 2. Press “Tag Products”
Step 3. Search through the catalog of shops and products (they are frequently rolling out new stores available to tag)
Step 4. Select the product you want to tag, and press done!
A Win Win For Brands And Creators
These two Instagram features benefit both brands and creators, and by offering monetary incentives to creators to use these features makes it even more worth testing out. Their bonus program is another great incentive created with the intention to win over TikTok users by paying users per view for their reels (if eligible for the program). Overall, these are great tools to help your content to reach a new audience and put some extra money in your pocket if you regularly work with brands to promote their products. If you’ve used these tools before, let me know in the comments if you’ve seen it positively impact your engagement and following!
