2018 has witnessed a billion of people taking to Instagram. This indicates that everyone's favorite photo-sharing app has more to offer to businesses and their consumers.
What's also been remarkable about Instagram is that it has been churning out new features, to transform into a business-friendly platform. It is quite evident that things are about to get exciting and creative in 2019.
The platform is no longer limited to a social network for posting pretty images. It is helping brands to engage with their target consumers, share new experiences, and build a loyal community of followers that keep coming back for more.
Let us ponder over leading trends that will simplify the business processes in 2019.
Image Source: Instagram marketing statistics
- Instagram Story Ads: New era in the sphere of advertising
Instagram stories have turned out to be one of the greatest and popular features of the platform since it was introduced in 2016. Businesses have found brilliant ways to utilise this feature and communicate with their target audiences. With Story ads, you can incorporate your banners between the slides of other people's stories.
You must remember that if you want your ads to drive conversion and give you a great ROI, the ads should be of high quality in terms of design and style. They should also be aligned with what the target audience wants to buy. If carried out well, you will definitely see why Instagram is the most popular social media platform today.
Available in close to 50 countries, Instagram now presents shoppable posts. This allows the brands to share clickable links that form a quick connection to products and support the buyer's journey. E-commerce brands are creating campaigns to reach the Instagram audience in an instant.
From browsing the app to discovering a bouquet of products, from checking out to completing the order, Instagram is simplifying things beyond bounds. The system simplifies the ability to use Instagram as a browsing app. Since the platform is all about visuals, it makes sense for brands to introduce it for consumers who like to "window shop" online.
More and more "Instagram friendly" venues are popping up across the world. For instance, restaurants are placing more and more emphasis on the presentation of their food because they know it is going to appear on someone's Instagram feed.
The following is a quick guide to creating Instagram destinations.
- Set up an offline place where consumers can come to click Instagram-worthy photos.
- Encourage the visitors to share pictures of the "destination" with social media shoutouts.
- Share uploads from visitors with your Instagram followers by re-posting or adding them in your Stories.
- Reliance on Niche Content
Marketers are focusing more on content than ever before. The need for good content is only going to rise.This also indicates that there are more marketers competing to grab the attention of the same audience.
As a result, we are witnessing a huge number of brands really narrowing down their focus to target a specific section of their overall audience.
Here are a few tips to produce niche content.
- Think about the different sections of your audience.
- Instead of targeting everyone who might prefer your services and products, put emphasis on a particular section. For instance, if you own a paper helpservice, consider the audience who is interested in seeking your support.
Image Source: Pexels
Given the humongous amount of information being uploaded by Instagram users every day, it's become quite simple to get all kinds of information about the users. This has opened up promising opportunities for enhanced personalisation, which has helped in improving consumer experience.
Content, emails, products - each of these can rely on the consumer's purchase history, clicked links, and other behaviour patterns. For example, Netflix presents shows to watch depending on your taste, Amazon and eBay show products depending on the ones you have bought before. Much like Facebook, Instagram has caught this trend of personalisation in recent times, bringing the target consumers even closer to the products.
- Greater Emphasis on a Brand's Instagram Bio
Presenting a perfect and accurate description of your brand, or investing time to create a perfect Instagram bio will be a vital practice in 2019.
Your Instagram profile is a platform that offers insights on who you are, what you do, and why people should follow you. So, it goes without saying that it is one of THE most significant aspects of your Instagram strategy optimisation, and shouldn't be ignored.
Recently, Instagram has been reportedly playing around with different ways of presenting the user profiles. This will not only improve the user experience but also get brands more clicks with that contact button.
Image Source: Pexels
No so long ago, if you posted a vertical video, people would ask you to turn the camera next time for a video to fit the horizontal frame.
But things have changed for the better.
With Stories, IGTV, and Live gaining more popularity, vertical videos are in vogue. This allows the freedom to upload vertical videos without the black bars on the side. For Instagram, getting more efficient at video production can allow you to enhance your content performance in 2019. You don't have to excel at it right away; you can take it slow and upload experiment with your video content. As you go forward, you can incorporate brilliant vertical videos in your feed.
The age of DM is here.
In 2018, Instagram witnessed the rise of DMs, making it possible to share Stories or posts, send gifs, voice messages, and even do a video chat. Direct Messages on Instagram is slowly becoming a potent platform, and many are already seeing it as a great alternative to WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
In fact, there's already a standalone Instagram Messenger app, with limited availability for iOS. In 2019, we might witness Instagram removing DMs from the platform, and present a separate messaging app instead, exactly what Facebook did years ago.
Wrapping it up,
As 2019 progresses, Instagram is likely to unveil such innovations to assist both businesses and consumers. Now, you must be quick to adapt to the changing trends of the platform, or else it'll be difficult for you to keep up with the requirements of your target audience.
Though it may seem tedious to stay ahead of an ever-evolving social media channel, a little commitment and the right social tools can make sure that your investment over Instagram is far from being futile. Watch for the latest trends and adapt to the changes that the future holds.
Author Bio: John Mark is an academic professional with special expertise in academic writing. He has been working as an academic help expert at Myassignmenthelp. Apart from this, he loves blogging.
