In the modern web-content world, Instagram always stands out. We can admit that the essence of this platform lies in creating, curating, and sharing content.
When Instagram announced "We want to offer a way to our users to more easily discover recommendations, tips, and other content", we knew that something riveting is about to enter the content world.
In May 2020, Instagram revealed a new way of sharing content in the form of "Guides".
The new Guides feature is an extended way to share and consume content on Instagram. The Guide format includes a step-by-step flow of curated content for the users.
It makes the creation process easy. You can showcase your products, how-to guides, tips-tricks, share commentaries, and more. When Instagram recently launched the Guides feature, it was mainly catered to a group of creators.
Recently, Instagram announced that the Guides feature will be available for other creators also. Now you can also jump on the wagon and start creating guides for your audience.
This sudden shift indicates that more and more users are demanding such type of content. It's no surprise that last year Instagram users spent an average of 30 minutes per day on the platform.
Let’s understand why marketers should use the new Guides feature.
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First and foremost, you can start promoting your products in a descriptive & step-by-step form. The goal is to create actionable content on the basis of a set of instructions. So, it can help you boost brand awareness.
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This feature increases the user’s time on your brand page, since they don’t have to access any external blogs for more information on the products or services being talked about.
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You can also use the Posts Guide feature wherein you can select up to 30 best posts from your feed and convert them into a long-form Guide. You can also link product guides directly to your shop or website.
The new feature allows visitors to share these guides on stories, direct messages and even direct links to the guide that can be shared outside Instagram. Thus, expanding the reach of your brand and products.
How to create an Instagram Guide
Let’s take a look at how you can create your first Instagram Guide. Make sure you follow the steps:
- Open the Instagram app and head over to your profile
- Now, click on the "+" icon on the right side of your profile page
- Under the list of "create options", choose Guides
- Decide what you want to write about. You can choose from places, products, or posts
- Select an image. You can choose from your feed or saved posts
- Now, create your guide
To define your Guide's content:
- Start with a title & create an introduction
- Add text to each guide step & include images to make it visually appealing
Note: You are allowed to add images and videos from your feed or the saved ones.
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Organize your guide and make sure everything is in proper order
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Post your guide, or save the draft to post later
There you are, with your first Instagram Guide.
Actionable Tips to Use Instagram Guides
Instagram Guides are highly shareable. This is a great chance for creators to start creating shareable content and expand their reach.
Right now, Instagram allows you to create three types of Guides: Posts, Places, and Posts.
So, we have listed few ways on how you can kick-start your "Guides" journey:
- How-to Guides: Instagram released this feature to spark a movement in long-form content. Considering this fact, nothing is better than How-to guides and tips. If you’re a brand, create a long list of all the How-to topics and link it to your website.
This way you’re delivering more than what you promised to your audience. In return, your audience will share your wealth of knowledge with others.
Take a look at heads_together welcoming guide on the topic "Our guide to kindness".
- Travel Guides: Travel bloggers and creators can get a little creative with travel guides. People want to know the best places to travel, the pocket-friendly places to stay, or local places to visit.
You can go ahead and create a full-fledged guide that will answer all their questions in one go.
You can take inspiration from condenast traveller recent guide on "The cheapest, nicest places in the world".
- Product features: When your latest product is in the pre-launch stage, you only think about marketing. Not anymore, with the help of Instagram Guides, you can prepare your product guides beforehand and share them with your audience.
The best part is, you create a quick, easy and smooth process for sales. Your audience reaches their destination with just one click on the guide.
There are few brands who have started implementing this method. See how this brand is crushing its sales launch.
- Gift Guides: These types of guides are highly engaging. People love holidays, gifts, and decorative guides on every occasion. So, you can make the most of gift guides by curating content from the past and assembling it into one long-form guide.
To make it easy, you can design guides for every holiday season: Christmas, new year, employee day, and more. If you’re a beauty or wellness creator, start with skin and beauty gift guides.
For example:Honest Company shares a holiday guide with an interesting title "Honest Holiday Gift Guide".
- Weekly and yearly roundups: These roundups are trending nowadays, so introduce roundups guides to your audience. Weekly roundups about your best products, your top product reviews will develop a trust factor with your audience.
You can also start doing yearly roundups on topics like "Year in review: the biggest social media trends", and more.
If you’re looking for an easy approach, look at Sooverit shop’s recent guide "November Faves". It’s a monthly roundup where they share favorite local/sustainable brands from the previous month.
- FAQs: Frequently asked questions are a gem for any influencers, businesses, and marketers. You can notice that often your DMs are flooded with queries from people. These queries will become the core of your FAQs guides.
You can choose the most asked questions, make a list of them and start preparing guides to share with your audience. Keep it concise and relevant.
You can look at the simple Care Guide created by Vestiaireco on “5 ways to keep Clothes Clean without washing”.
- Share Hacks: These guides cater to mostly home living and indoor services. Still, everyone can share some behind-the-scenes hacks. Marketers can show hacks for productivity.
Influencers can show their routine hacks and organizations can present some product packaging hacks.
Here is an example of the brand Westelm. They often show trending hacks on stylish, modern living designs.
To conclude, Instagram is leaving no stone unturned to support businesses, organizations, and creators.
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