Heard about these new Instagram features?
We all know how much architects, designers and creatives love Instagram! You’ll want to be all over the latest features just released so you can adapt the way you use Instagram in 2022. We’ve outlined all the latest information about the new tools so you can maximise your feed and profile.
There are 6 new features of Instagram we want to share with you. Whether you want to boost your engagement, heighten your interactions with your audience, lower your screen-time as a personal user or get that chronological feed feature back - we’ve got you covered!
Here are the 6 new and exciting features:
New customised Instagram feed
Subscriptions
Improvements to live scheduling
Customised grid
Profile embed
Messages updates
Customised Instagram feeds
Finally a tool we’ve all been asking for! Ever spent ages making content for Instagram and not get the engagement and traction you were hoping for? Due to Instagram’s current algorithm, it filters your most engaged with accounts to the top, making it easier for your followers to miss your content. With the new customised feeds it can now be filtered to home, favourites or following. Gain loyal followers who constantly engage with your content by getting your followers to add your business onto their favourites feed! Here’s how each of them work:
Home - the feed we experience now, putting accounts you interact with the most at the top.
Favourites - your own curated lists of your favourite accounts, prioritising your favourite accounts.
Following - a chronological list of all the accounts you follow, subtracting the algorithms, no favourite accounts.
There are many benefits of a customised feed. Firstly, followers who add you into their favourites or following, are most likely loyal clients and customers. Tap this and be sure you are taking quality time to engage with this audience, to grow their trust and loyalty. Secondly, the following feed allows more visibility for your business, if you are consistently posting, as well as posting at optimal times of the day. Thirdly, make content more concise and clear, since it will be reaching are more targeted audience.
Subscriptions
This new feature is coming out at the end of 2022. It will allow you to create a more sustainable, recurring income and develop deeper connections with your engaged followers.
Subscribers get exclusive access to:
Instagram Lives
Creators can go live exclusively to their subscribers, allowing creators (i.e. businesses, influencers, etc.) to foster a more loyal and interactive community.
Stories
Create stories just for your audience.
Badges
Creators will see a purple badge next to their subscriber’s comments on posts and in their direct messages thereby allowing them to prioritise these individuals. Get more personal with your audience with this feature.
However, subscriptions may only be applicable to certain industry types (i.e. coaching, training & entertainment). Therefore, it is important for other industries to understand the implications this may have on their engagement rate and thus the importance of creating valuable content that aligns with their audience.
Improvements to live scheduling
Scheduling posts on instagram has been limited to posts and stories. Now, you can schedule lives too! Instagram has created a badge under users profiles, letting your audience subscribe to your live videos. For business that have regular live content schedules, this is great because you’ll create an audience that looks forward for these weekly lives.
Live video content ideas if you’re a creative business or individual:
Your creative process e.g. sketches, design thinking (stay tuned for an in-depth video from Markedly)
Important business updates (events, promotions, discounts and launches)
Q&A sessions
Tutorials (product or process demonstration)
Personal and fun videos (get to know the team, follow me for the day)
Customised grid
This new feature is yet to come. As a business or individual, has your aesthetic instinct kicked in and thought why did I post that next to that colour photo? You end up sometimes deleting those photos because it doesn’t suit the aesthetic of the feed. Well, that’s going to change with the new rearrangeable feed. Rearrange posts for aesthetic reasons or put your more valuable posts at the top of your page, similar to Facebook’s pinned post. Make your first impressions count!
Profile embed
For years, users have been able to embed a post or video from their Instagram profile onto their website.
Now, you can embed a miniature version of your profile on your website without having to use third-party tools. Please note, this feature is only currently available in the US.
Messages updates
Replies
The new message updates allow for fun interactions between you and your audience. This new function of replies acknowledges direct replies to certain messages within the conversation. Letting you scroll back to yesterday's conversation and replying to that direct line of topic.
Custom emoji reactions
Like Facebook, when you long hold a message, it provides different emoji reactions. Now, you can do that for Instagram messages! Get creative and customise those emoji reactions.
Polls
Create a poll within your messaging thread. Ideas and community growth can stem from asking your audience their opinions. This is another benefit of Instagram lives. With the new function of subscriptions on stories, use this to your benefit and create polls your audience can actively engage with.
Reasons to create polls:
Ask your audience which service or product they use most, gauge the interest of your consumers
Educate your audience with a pop quiz, share knowledge and be a knowledge leader
Push brand promotions, ask your audience about your new promotion, with true or false questions
Discuss trends, generate conversations
Animated message effects
What's more personal than sending a message? Adding a bit of jazz to the message, now you can send messages with a customised effect. Have more fun with attaching a more fun and emotional reaction with your audience.
