Instagram

Recent changes and how they may affect you.

There’s has been many changes to Instagram of recent time, that may have flown under your radar. Here at This Is Union, we’re committed to keeping you up to date with the latest changes and trends that may affect you, from the world of marketing and social media, who knows you may need us to help you with them ;).

Our guide:

So, what are the changes then? The change of swipe up / story link stickers, the removing of the 'share to stories button' and what we now do to still share other people’s content, how captions on reels work, how keywords and SEO work on Instagram, and finally how stories can be turned into Reels.

 

The Change of Swipe up / Story Links –  

Are you a business or high-profile creator? Because this change is targeted towards you and lucky for you, we're giving you all the info you need to know about it! Check it out:

1. The Instagram swipe up feature helped brands and influencers reach their audiences and gain more followers by allowing them to add links directly to their Instagram Stories.

2. Most importantly the biggest change with this new feature is that stickers allow viewers to engage with a Story, whereas the swipe-up feature didn’t allow replies or reactions.

3. However, as we mentioned, access is limited to those accounts that had access to the swipe-up feature. So, your account must be a business account with 10,000 followers or be verified on Instagram to use a link sticker.

 

The Removal of ‘Share to Stories Button’ –

Since their introduction to the widely popular platform, stories have been a key feature for many of Instagram’s users. But for some users having the ability to share posts from their own and others’ feeds onto their stories has been removed.

The thought process behind the change from Instagram is to encourage the app's users to be more creative as opposed to just straight re-sharing feed posts to their stories.

So how do you share to stories instead now? The new process will show a list of content or posts that you have recently seen or saved in the app, including both feed posts and Reel content. That can then be shared with the users’ stories, appearing as a small sticker (Which can then be resized).

 

How Captions on Reels Work –

Before looking at how captions work for Reels, we need to understand the 4 key reasons they should be added to your content: 1. It allows for better accessibility to your content, by assisting viewers who have hearing loss and/or associated disabilities. 2. It is estimated that 80% of Instagram users watch content with the sound off, which means you could be missing out on connecting with the majority of your audience.  3. Videos with captions or text on them are generally viewed for longer. 4. And finally video captions are great for improving SEO.

So how do they work then? Obviously, the first way to add captions is by typing the copy yourself onto your content, through Instagram’s built-in text tool (or use the dictator tool on your keyboard if you’re feeling lazy ;)…)

Alternatively, another way to add captions to your content is through the use of an automatic captioning tool. There’s a number of apps that can help you with this: 1. Captions for TikTok app – this gives you the ability to add captions during filming or in post-production. 2. Clipomatic – has various different text bubble options that can be added to your content. 3. And finally, Brivvio – Which is aimed to be more professional by allowing you to add your name and title to the video, and your logo and website at the end if you’d like.

 

Keywords / Instagram SEO–

Instagram SEO is a key process of optimising your content to rank your profile higher in the Instagram search results. Following key Instagram SEO methods, you greatly improve your chances of being discovered by users who search for keywords, which means more views, more likes, and more followers! So, what do you need to do…?

There are 5 key things you need to do in order to optimise your account and its content:

1. Identify and prioritise keywords – What do you want to rank for? You need to identify and research this before changing anything on your account.

2. Establish KPIs to measure impact – With Instagram insights this is very easy to do with a business profile. For a successful account, you need to establish a few KPI’s such as impressions, reach etc… that way you can measure the impact of your content.

3. Optimising your profile – Once you’ve established keywords and KPIs you can then optimise your profile or posts individually. This can be done by changing your username to contain the keyword likewise with your bio (These 2 are the biggest weight carriers to optimisation).

4. Optimising individual posts – This is not as key in optimising your SEO, however, is a useful habit to get into. To optimise a post, make sure to include a high value of keywords in the caption and reinforce this through hashtags on the post.

5. Alt text to Images – And finally image optimisation, which is key for websites and blogs, is also available on Instagram, when uploading an image select “Advanced Settings” – “Accessibility” and add your alt text to your image in there.

Instagram SEO is not only free but incredibly impactful, why wouldn’t you do it to make your business or account stand out?

 

Developing a New 'Montage' Feature –

Instagram is very keen on making Reels its new flagship feature in order to rival ‘TikTok’. The latest incoming change from Instagram comes by the name of its ‘Montage’ option, currently being tested internally. This feature enables users to splice their Instagram Stories frames, into short Reels video clips. It’s a very simple and logical tool that doesn’t require many steps take a look below:

1. First of all, your Stories frames are shown to you in sequence in the editing tool.

2. From there, you then allow Instagram to automatically formulate a video combining elements of each frame.

3. And finally, Instagram will then recommend audio to go alongside your new Reels clip which will automatically synch with the transitions they’ve added.

Yes, it’s really that simple to have your own Reels created with your stories that have been archived in the past, just think of all the memories…

If you need any more information about any of these changes, or anything else social media related then be sure to get in contact with us today. Don’t forget we’re not just a blog, we’ve got all of your marketing needs covered as well, take a look at some of our work here.

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