Instagram is constantly rolling out new features, so much so that it can become really hard to keep up with them! But we want to help you stay on the ball!

Today, we’re covering 4 of the most recent features to hit IG and how you may want to incorporate them for your business account. 

Before we get started, it’s important to note that Instagram typically rolls out features slowly. That means, depending on your country, demographic or seemingly nothing at all, you may not have access to some of these features quite yet! Sometimes it may seem like it takes forever to make it to your account but hang in there. They will hopefully come soon. In the meantime, we recommend doing some market research and seeing how others are making use of the feature, so you can hit the ground running when you finally have it!

The Shop Button

Instagram really pulled one over on us when they replaced the personal notifications button with a shop button. While we think this was a sneaky move on their part, the feature can definitely help businesses. By being able to sell directly through the platform, it does give your business a new chance to make sales, but it’s important to note that the platform WILL take a percentage of each sale that goes through them. If you find that you don’t really convert followers from Insta, this is a great way to try and reach more people and make it happen with a low path of resistance. If you already find your customer base is mainly made up of people who discovered you on Insta, you may aim to avoid or de-prioritize this feature and to focus on bringing customers directly to your site to avoid those pesky fees. 

Reels

Reels is Instagram’s attempt to try to compete directly with Tiktok. While the algorithm is still a toughie compared to Tiktok, Instagram usually puts its focus on its new features, so you have a good chance of converting new followers if you use this one! It’s a good way to try some fresh content out, as well as repurpose anything that you have already been creating for Tiktok! The nice thing about reels is that people tend to expect a bit more “unpolished” content and shorter captions, so depending on how you chose to go about it, it might save you time compared to editing photos and writing captions for traditional posts. 

Tip: The feature is not very user-friendly, so we recommend editing your reels on a third-party app like CapCut and then posting it through reels! You’ll feel less frustrated and you’ll have some nicer looking reels.

@justinhavreteam is doing a great job keeping up with reels!

Guides

Guides would be best compared to a bite sized-blog made out of a collection of IG posts. They are a great way to categorize your existing posts in whatever way you want, be it “best photo spots in Calgary” or “Our favourite cleaning tips”. On top of being able to upload a collection, you also have space to write any extra details (that may not already be in your caption) and include a title for each pic. 

You can also use Guides to promote other Instagram pages since this feature lets you create guides that are a compilation of other accounts posts! That way, even if you don’t have any posts related to the best Ramens in the city, you can still post about the topic by creating a guide built on other people’s posts and just add your own comments.

@yyc.cravings uses its guides to feature great restaurants in the city!

Filters

Insta has allowed people to create their own story filters for quite some time now, but more recently, they’ve put it directly on the creator’s IG page. Now, you can see if your favourite Instagrammer has created any filters all in one place! This is great for businesses since they can create their own filter and encourage others to use it, which in turn, can help bring more people right to their feed.

Tip: Spark AR is a site created by Facebook specifically for creating filters to be used on their platforms!

@gary.ashton has his own fun real estate related filter!

Now that you know the new features, it’s time to get familiar with them and start brainstorming new content ideas to help get your brand out there!

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by keeping up with all the trends on Instagram, check out our Social Media Management Services here!