Everything You Need to Know About Instagram’s New Updates and Features
Instagram has done it again! There’s a whole host of fantastic new updates and features this October to be aware of and utilise for the rest of Q3. We know it’s difficult to keep on-top of the ever-changing world of Instagram, so we’ve collated it for you!
Launch of Profile Cards
This feature is perfect for businesses owners and creators. Instagram has created a more comprehensive way to share your profile.
Key Features:
Visual and Customisable
Profile cards not only display your profile picture, but include your account name and a profile description. For fellow marketers, this highlights the need to optimise your bio as the information is taken from there.
You can customise the background image and colours of your profile cards, although the latter is limited in our opinion as we can’t add our brand colours.
Easy Access
Want to share your profile with a potential new client? No problem! Simply click on “share profile” on your page and you can get up your QR code - no more faffing about with typing in Instagram Handles - hooray!
Shows links associates with your profile
Overall, the new Profile Cards are a lot more comprehensive than the previous QR method and we are very excited to utilise this feature going forward.
Best Practices Feature
Instagram now literally tells you what to post… no, we’re not making that up. This feature can be found in your Professional Dashboard and lets you know how to optimise your content, reach more people and achieve your goals.
“Instagram now literally tells you what to post… no, we’re not making that up. ”
There are 5 areas; creation, engagement, reach, monetisation and guidelines. Whilst it’s not very in-depth and a lot of it is things we already know, it’s something and a useful tool to refer to and remind ourselves of what works. Find out all about it here.
Instagram Reels
There are a lot of new features for Instagram Reels, and we are very glad about a couple of them. Let’s take a look at what they are…
The reels tab has expanded to include photos & carousels with music
There are now even more opportunities for creators and businesses content to get seen, you just need to add audio to all your posts; reels, photos and carousels.
It’s clear that more focus is being placed on carousels when we look at Instagram’s algorithm, and we love them as you have multiple ranking opportunities given the multiple slides. But, how can you utilise them to the best of your ability to increase your chances of getting your content seen?
How to Optimise your Instagram Carousels
Optimise the first slide. You want to stand out, and the first slide is what people will see first so make sure it packs a punch.
Ensure your carousel is visually striking. Use images that strike a cord and they will lend themselves to gaining your post more engagement.
Integrate music. Instagram now also has a feature where you can see trending audio, so you can pick an appropriate one to go with your post.
Our Hot Tip: At Ninety8 Media, we LOVE having fun with our audio. Instead of always choosing trending audio for the sake of it, we choose music that actually goes with the nature of our posts. For example, we recently did a post on our Instagram on Local SEO and accompanied it with Khalid’s ‘Location’.
2. You can now Name & Schedule Draft Reels
*A collective hallelujah from social media managers everywhere *
We won’t delve into this one as it’s pretty self-explanatory but we all know organisation is key when managing lots of content, and this is going to make our lives a whole lot easier. Swipe Insight has done a great post with everything you need to know.
3. New Volume Controls
Reels has added new volume controls; ‘camera audio’, ‘voice enhance’ and ‘song volume’ that allows you to have more control over different elements of your reels audio.
4. Reel Covers
This is the new feature we are probably most excited about at Ninety8 Media, you can now reposition a Reel cover once it’s already been uploaded!
Finally! The current feature means that whilst we may be able to add a new cover image, we won't change the cropped section that appears in the grid-view. This is going to be a game-changer to enhance grid aesthetics.
Need help mastering Instagram's latest features?
Get in touch with us today for expert guidance on optimising your social media strategy and growing your online presence! Contact us today!
