Instagram 2021: Latest Features You Need To Know!
Upgrade your social media game.
Instagram came out with its ‘ugly’ update recently. This app is notorious for randomly changing and adding its features. This time, it looks like they’ve messed up. I’m not liking it too much as you are, I mean, I think my reach has reduced, too.
Influencers like James Charles have commented that this is another way for Instagram to ‘make money,’ without caring about people’s needs and what they actually want on the app.
But, every cloud has a silver lining, right? Instead of complaining about your reach and all, try to make an opportunity out of this. It’s harder to gain more reach on IG, but it's not impossible to find your audience or grow your accounts. With some good practices plus a sprinkle of ads, you’ll be fine.
You don't have to be an Instagram ‘guru’ to succeed on the app. Yes, if you know your way around, and do your research properly, you can still manage to keep your account up and running!
I’ll show you how you can turn that around and boost your engagement, sales, and performance of your IG account.
Reels, TikTok’s Latest Rival
Recently, Instagram came out with Reels, a video creation and sharing feature. It allows users to take 15–30 second short videos and share them with other users on the explore page. You can publish it either on your Explore Page or share it with your followers (if your account is private.)
Instagram replaced the former Explore button on the bottom menu with the Reels button. This section works just like TikTok’s default screen: you swipe up to see a different video.
Compared to normal posts, the Reels algorithm has more reach. because of this, you have a better chance of landing on the Explore page, where you can reach significantly more people with your posts! To keep up with your posting schedule, you might want to batch your Reels content. If you want to grow your account, I'd suggest planning your new Reels! Brands, influencers, and creators are hopping on reels, and so should you!
A few Reels ideas you can use:
- Reposting your TikTok videos. Popular videos and audio from TikTok should also do well on Instagram.
- Sharing relatable or educational content (or both!): People love a good short video on how to do something. Find a question you can answer in your nice and make a video about it!
- Featuring your products/service (or a friend’s): Do some advertising and pop out a video of you using your store merch or creating your content timetable!
Try to read up more about reels and how it compares to Tiktok. Make yourself popular on IG with a nice Reel.
Shops, Shop Tags, And The Explore Page
This has been one of the most bashed features of the new updates. Instagram is turning to e-commerce.
Rant: Although Instagram claimed that they wanted to help struggling businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, we all know where this is going. Cha-ching!
Okay, okay. That’s enough ranting.
Can you see the opportunity here? This is an easier way to shop from your favorite brands and creators! Even better: More people can shop from you!
Instagram recommends products and inspiration based on the posts and accounts you’ve interacted with and the ones you currently follow.
They’ve ramped up their game with their shopping features! What you’re about to read is a serious mouthful.
Swap! The Notifications: Instagram switched the former ‘Notifications’ icon with the ‘Shop’ icon. This allows you to directly access shops without going to the explore page. The algorithm shows you products you’ll be more interested in based on the posts you’ve engaged with, and the accounts you follow.
Updated Shopping Tabs: The shopping tab lets you ‘Browse shops,’ ‘Explore Guides (I’ll talk about this pretty soon!), ‘Shop Collections,’ plus you have a neat wishlist you can always go back to for your products. Clicking on Suggested Products allows you to see other products from brands, prices, and where to buy them.
Checkout, Check! You also don’t have to go to a website to buy products, because there’s now an ‘Instagram Checkout’ feature!
Live shopping: There’s no need to direct people to your landing page or Shop during your live videos. Now users can tag products from your Facebook shop to your live video before going live.
Later explains that “According to Zuckerberg, more than 800 million people engage in live video daily across Facebook and Instagram, and a lot of that includes product tutorials and launches — so there’s already a strong e-commerce culture attached to live video.”
This means that while you’re live, people can see and purchase your products! You can make live product demos, Q&A’s, or share your product details!
Unfortunately, this feature is limited to only a few countries (big bummer, but we’ll get over it!)
New Camera & Story Post Features
The latest IG update rolled out the ‘Level’ and Photobooth features in its stories.
For iOS users, they can use the ‘photo’ sticker to put pictures in their gallery on their story. No more editing on other apps before posting now!
Instagram Guides
If you’ve not noticed yet, we have Instagram Guides. It’s a catalog on your account that you can use to recommend products, posts, and information for any visitors on your account. It’s now available for all users. You can find it next to your IGTV tab on your account page.
Is it useful? It is, but it works best when you have something to sell.
If you’re a content creator, blogger, e-commerce seller, then you can use these to promote or sell your products/services on your account. Not any of those?
So how do you use Guides? You can compile your posts, products, or favorite places in your Guides.
Some Guides also end up showing in the ‘Explore guides’ on the Shop tab, so do your products a favor and slap em’ on!
Instagram recently announced that you can also share Guides in your stories, DMs, and it’s now available on desktop.
Instagram, *ahem!* IGTV Ads
Get that monetized IGTV ads cash from Insta now! If you're a creator, you’re definitely going to enjoy this new release. Instagram plans to pay creators through…Currently, this feature is only in the US.
It’s a beta program that will test how well creators are paid.
Followers & Following: What’s New?
- Removing followers: Throw away the trolls on your account! In the ‘Followers’ section of your account, you can see the option to remove accounts from your follower list. Bad energy stay far away…
- Least Interacted With: In your Following, you can see the accounts that you’ve barely interacted with for a period of time. This is useful if you want to audit your following list.
- Most Shown In Feed: Whose posts show up the most? IG has that covered with this feature.
- Hashtag following: This is useful for keeping up with hashtag trends, giveaways, or challenges.
Instagram Search: Keywords?!
One problem that I used to have with Instagram was that it wasn’t as search-friendly as sites like Youtube. In the Instagram search, you have a better chance of being discovered.
Since changing its search features, you no longer need to check the names of accounts or hashtags to find something! I feel relieved.
Keywords. You’ve heard of those. Those words you use to find something online. Instagram is bringing it in this year on the Search menu!
I’ll show you how to take advantage of this in a bit.
Let’s say you have a pastry business on Instagram and you recently launched some cream puffs in your area. You posted your latest delicacy on your account, and you want to get more reach. How do you do that?
The process is similar to what website owners do for their sites. They put keywords in their posts. For cream puffs in your area, you could use long-tail keywords like ‘[flavor] cream puffs in [local area].’
Back to You!
With this new knowledge, how are you going to transform your Instagram account?
I think these new updates took away some of the appeal of connecting with people on the platform and replaced it with profit-based stuff, but it shouldn’t only be Instagram that makes a profit here.
So log in to your IG account and start creating!
