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With a bunch of new updates and trends happening on Instagram this year, we thought we’d round it all up for all of you small business owners on Instagram. Instagram trends are constantly evolving with content trends coming through from other platforms like TikTok as well. Keeping up with them could be a good way to stay relevant and reach a larger audience with your content.
Reels are one of the biggest additions to Instagram this year. In an effort to become more like TikTok, Instagram has introduced a way to help creators make engaging videos easily on the app. Reels are playing a big role in getting your content up on the explore page, helping you grow your follower count.
Don’t forget that you can include a custom thumbnail image on the reel so that it doesn’t mess up your perfect Instagram feed!
This has been a trend for a few years now, but we’re mentioning it because it still applies. At a glance, does your profile tell your followers what your page is all about? More and more people are using Instagram to search for credible brands and businesses rather than Google.
Remember, it’s easy to create a website for a fake business, but it’s hard to fake an active social media presence. Invest in your branding and visual storytelling to build an engaged following.
Tip: We use Canva to create a grid of all our posts to see whether they’ll make for an aesthetically pleasing grid before we confirm the posts for scheduling.
This is a PSA for everyone that still uses heavy filters available on Instagram. It’s not cool anymore! Unrealistic edits aren’t popular anymore, with people showing a preference for raw, unedited media. Slight tweaks are welcome, with changes to colours and hues but nothing too crazy.
This trend goes hand in hand with the rise of authentic content on social media. People want to see brands being vulnerable and honest online, so share your highs as well as your lows. Be your unedited self on Instagram!
Carousel Posts were a godsend for those of us that had loads of pictures to share but didn’t want to spam our followers. However, brands can use this feature to give their customers more information on their services or products without having the post be too text-heavy.
In 2021 we saw a shift towards making Instagram more e-commerce friendly with Instagram Shop. People can discover shoppable products and actually shop through the platform. Shoppable posts, checkouts and live shopping are just some of the ways that Instagram has responded to the rise of online shopping that was a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With small businesses struggling to stay open with physical stores being closed, Instagram Shop is one of the ways they can reach a global audience and connect with their customers.
Set up doesn’t take too much effort so it’s definitely something you should set up if your business sells products.
Instagram is pushing out new creator-specific tools like Guides and Shopping from Creators so influencer marketing will definitely get a huge boost. Influencers will soon be able to expand their audience and create long term partnerships with brands. With the whole world going online the last two years, influencers have started to see huge increases in the amount of engagement their pages have been getting and we don’t see this dropping anytime soon. Look out for more micro and nano influencers being pulled in to reach a more targeted and engaged audience.
We know memes do really well on Facebook, but they do just as well on Instagram too! We see a lot of companies getting in on the humour and posting relatable memes on their pages. Just take a look at some of the memes that we’ve started sharing on our business page. It’s a great way to create relatable content for your target audience, and give them a little laugh throughout their workday.
We predict that 2022 will only bring us more Reels and a bigger focus on E-Commerce on Instagram. So you should definitely start planning content and ideas for your Reels in advance. Use a Google Doc/Sheet to plan all of your content and schedule it out using a tool like Later or Facebook/Creator Studio. You don’t have to worry about posting everyday then!
There’s loads of other trends and updates to Instagram all the time, so let us know if you want this to be a running series. You can reach out to us on our socials on Facebook and Instagram (obviously).
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