This year has been busy for Instagram! The social network has launched a ton of new features aimed at helping users navigate the COVID – 19 crisis.
In the last few months, we’ve seen the Donate Button and Support Small Business Instagram Story stickers go live. Food delivery and gift card stickers were made available when stay-at-home orders cut traffic to restaurants and stores.
New Instagram Shops launched last week, creating a new opportunity for e-commerce.
If all that wasn’t enough, the platform also launched Instagram Guides. This new Instagram curated content feature is making creators sit up and take notice.
We want Instagram to be a place where you can easily find reliable information and inspiration from your favorite accounts.
That’s why we are introducing Guides, a way to more easily discover recommendations, tips, and other content from your favorite creators, public figures, organizations, and publishers on Instagram.
Instagram
We’ll take a look at what Instagram Guides are, how they work, and what this could mean for Instagram marketing.
What Are Instagram Guides?
With Instagram guides, creators (and businesses!) are able to curate Instagram content into a collection accessible from their profile!
Content creators can select photos or videos from their feed or other Instagram accounts to include.
The guide displays these posts in a scrollable feed with commentary between each post.
How to Make an Instagram Guide
Making an Instagram Guide is super easy. Here’s what to do!
- Open the Instagram App and navigate to your profile
- Tap the plus icon in the top right corner and select “Guide” from the menu
- Choose your Guide Type – Places, Products, or Posts
- Select the locations, products, or posts you want to curate and click Next
- Add a Title, a guide description, and a blurb for each curated post in your guide to explain why you like or recommend it
- Click Next
- Preview your Guide, and Tap Share to save your guide to your Profile!
The Three Instagram Guide Types
Wondering which Instagram Guide type is right for you?
With the three types – Places, Products and Posts – the possibilities are endless for what you can create!
Here’s an overview of each to help you make your decision:
Instagram Guides to Places
With the Places Guide, you can create travel guides to one or multiple locations! Whether you want to spotlight some local businesses (including your own), help your customers navigate holiday shopping and support buying local, or just create a trip itinerary, you can do it here.
Instagram Guide to Products
This type of Guide allows you to curate a list of products through Instagram Shop. You can create your own shopping Guide here, or curate your picks and recommendations from your favorite brands for your followers!
Instagram Guide to Posts
The final Guide version is a collection of curated posts. You can either add your own posts from your feed, or posts you’ve saved on Instagram.
This type of guide is useful for sharing tips, thoughts and resources from around Instagram on a certain topic. A great example is the mental health and wellness Guides that Instagram first launched the feature with!
How to Find Guides on Instagram
I mentioned before that Instagram Guides are accessible from a publisher’s profile. In fact, that’s (temporarily) the only way to find them.
You’ll need to visit the profile of creators who are curating content on Instagram.
Once you’ve visited their profile, Tap the Guide Icon – it looks like an open book.
Under this tab, you’ll see all the Instagram Guides the creator posted.
Ultimately, this is just a temporary step. Instagram announced on launch day that Guides will be added to the Explore tab shortly.
You can also share it to Instagram social channels (Stories and DMs) by tapping the airplane icon!
You can also share to other social media channels. Just tap the three dots in the top right corner for more link-sharing options!. This feature is a recipe for ultra shareable Instagram content!
Update: Instagram Guides are now available to Instagram Creators and Business accounts, as of November 17, 2020!
This has huge implications for content marketing, product recommendations and influencers. It’s could be a new way to educate, engage and even sell more on Instagram!
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