Instagram is a simple yet effective social media platform. It enables users to click, edit and share photos and videos. Instagram has grown in popularity because of its ease of use and access. Other than sharing and editing photos and videos, Instagram’s feature list includes sending messages, tagging pictures and photos and commenting on others media as well.
Users can reach a larger audience by using hashtags which gives users more reach and discoverability. Latest data shows that almost 17.6% of the population worldwide uses Instagram, which adds up to more than 800 million users.
Best business features on Instagram
Instagram is now an effective platform for businesses as well. There are 200 million active businesses on Instagram and this number is constantly growing. Instagram’s key features are very effective to use for marketing purposes. You can use this platform for both organic marketing and paid promotions.
Instagram’s new features like Reels, Remix, etc. have helped businesses grow and reach a larger audience. It is the only source of selling for many small businesses. A lot of shoppers use Instagram to discover new brands and also get reviews and feedback for products.
In this blog, we’ll walk you through some of the most beneficial features Instagram has specifically for marketers.
Professional dashboard on Instagram
The Professional Dashboard, an advanced setting on Instagram, gives businesses easy access to analytics where they can track performance, access tools, and resources. The dashboard is accessible from the top of a user’s profile page. Brands can view analytics for the 90 calendar days for all their posts, from Stories to Reels.
Create an engaging and interactive bio
Your bio is one of the first things user’s interact with when they reach your profile, it describes what you do and who you are. It is important to have a strong, descriptive bio to lure the user into exploring your profile further.
According to researchers, people have a first notion of who you are within the first seven seconds of meeting you. So if you use Instagram for your business, you want to make a great first impression with your bio and use it to attract potential clients as well as new followers. Your Instagram bio doesn’t have to be plain text, you can add clickable links, hashtags, emojis, and Instagram account mentions.
Offer Instagram gift cards
Instagram makes it easy for small businesses to feature gift cards on online food ordering and fundraising in their profiles and stories. An Instagram user can tap on gift cards and grocery orders to shop on the targeted company’s website.
You can now purchase gift cards from the Gift Cards button on your profile. Note that adding a gift card button automatically removes buy tickets, active book, reserve, and schedule buttons on your profile. To activate this from Instagram’s feature list first, go to your profile, and select Edit profile.
Then tap on Action Buttons under “Public Business Information” and choose Gift Cards under “Select a Button,” choose a partner who sells gift cards, if you haven’t set up gift cards yet, follow the steps on your partner’s website.
Instagram’s photo filters
Instagram AR filters enable you to dramatically increase brand awareness in a short amount of time. When your followers share filters then it reaches multiple other followers. Therefore, giving your brand more reach and visibility.
Most brands use Instagram as their primary platform for user-generated content, filters in one of Instagram’s key features which helps businesses generate such content.
Video Marketing on Instagram:
Videos or reels are great for increasing engagement. You can share more complex and profound content in video form that cannot be conveyed by single images or carousels. Videos help you connect well with your audience as it gives you an opportunity to share behind the scenes or BTS videos, educational videos, product reviews and much more.
Its huge effectiveness makes it an efficient marketing tool that is used by maximum digital marketers nowadays.
Instagram stories features
Instagram Story is one of the best ways to boost your visual content strategy, and this is one of the top attractions on the Instagram features list. IG stories help you know and understand your audience ten times better with their interests and interactions with the short stories, which is far better than just reading comments on your posts.
Instagram points out that stories published by brands and businesses get more views and reactions than stories from regular profiles. IG Stories is one of the most effective ways to grow engagement on your profile.
Live videos on Instagram
Live videos on Instagram allow viewers to comment and ask questions in real-time. Your followers will receive a push notification letting them know you’re about to go live, so it will get more viewers than any other marketing feature available on social media. It helps build brand transparency and credibility.
Due to the transient nature of Instagram live, users have a sense of urgency to watch live broadcasts before they disappear, and you can use this to your business’ advantage. Offer promotions, giveaways, and discounts during your live stream, but promote them in advance with short clips and posts to get your followers to watch your show.
Stories highlights
While “Stories” is a very effective and popular feature in Instagram, they disappear in 24 hours. Although this was good and created an urgency among users to view stories before they are gone, it also created a void for the ones that missed them.
From a business perspective, some stories like product reviews shared by other users was something that they needed to stay. Hence, Instagram created Highlights, where accounts could create different highlights for the stories they wanted to save. These Highlights stay on your account so people visiting your account can view them anytime.
Final thoughts
The digital world of social media is expanding rapidly, and online marketers need to keep up with all the updates to stay on the right path. It’s best to use all of Instagram’s key features in a good combination to get the best possible results.