Introducing Instagram to your strategy? Here’s what you need to know

Sahail Ashraf posted on 8 February 2022

Instagram is a massively useful platform for brands. But if you haven’t really pushed on the platform yet, it looks like 2022 is going to be the year to do just that.

If you haven’t yet included Instagram as part of your marketing strategy, 2022 is perhaps one of the very best times to get started. In this quick guide, we will look at some pointers you will have to bear in mind for your Instagram strategy this year. By the end of the post you should be able to get the most out of the platform in the year ahead.

Suggested and chronological

Instagram is always changing, and in January Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram revealed that it was testing the ability for users to change the way they see their feeds. Users will be provided with a toggle option to switch between three different views of the Home Screen – home, favourites, or following.

That, on the surface, doesn’t have a huge amount of impact, especially if you are just starting with the platform. However, as you develop content, it may be worth thinking about how you can gain even more impact with the ‘splash’ you make with your visual content. Meaningful, attractive content will obviously still have a huge role to play on the platform. Essentially, the more impact and value you bring, the more you will have an opportunity to feature in any ‘toggled’ content.

Video merging

Instagram has always been a visual platform and in 2022 there is a possibility that it will work hard to merge it’s video offerings and streamline things a little.

Okay, it’s not really a problem, but Instagram does have more than one excellent way to create and enjoy videos. Stories, Reels and standard feed videos are all still popular and some kind of unification looks like it might be on the cards in 2022. 

It is likely that we will see Instagram pulling all video formats into one feed this year. It’s impossible to know what this will look like but expect to see one video feed with toggle options on it.

Carousels

Carousels have only grown in popularity for marketers and we can expect this trend to continue in 2022. The best thing about Carousels is that they are engagement magnets. When all 10 slides are used in a Carousel, engagement shoots up, too.

There are plenty of ways to make Carousels more engaging for audiences:

• Consider including a ‘swipe left’ option in the caption of the post. Doing this simply builds in engagement to your post
• With Carousels, aim for a mix of images and videos. That increases engagement considerably
• You can have plenty of images and videos if you use all 10 slides in your Carousel. That extra real estate simply adds value to what your audience sees

You’ve got to be real

It’s no secret that audiences are searching for authenticity. Brands can’t really get away with just producing high production value generic videos that shout slogans at their customers.

This year, you can expect to see more behind-the-scenes videos, or content created by company founders. Audiences will be more tuned-in to the stories that brands have to tell. With the world having come out from two years of uncertainty and worry, brands that are real and human will be successful on Instagram.

Small but meaningful

Link stickers are a small feature that may easily have escaped the attention of brands. Stickers are nothing new to Instagram of course, but Link Stickers became available in Autumn 2021 to everyone, and they’re pretty important.

In fact, brands that are looking for a quick and easy tweak that helps their audiences connect and engage with the brand website quickly should incorporate Link Stickers as a priority. Because they are still relatively new, it’s time to adopt them and run with them.

Collaboration

This one is pretty exciting. Up until late last year, there wasn’t really a way for brands to collaborate directly with another brand or Influencer. It wasn’t something that could be done openly in the app. You would have to Tag people and then build up a relationship etc. 

You still need those relationships, but an extra layer of convenience has been built in by Instagram that we can see really taking off in 2022. 

Now, after a photo or video has been created you can Tag a collaborator and then ‘invite’ them. That means you both get credit for the content, and most importantly, content appears in both feeds. We can see real brand relationships being strengthened with this feature, and if you’re starting out and are able to work hard on building relationships, this will be a way to supercharge your engagement.

Whichever way you look at it, Instagram is a great place for brands to be in 2022. While key principles are still there as regards the quality of posts etc., new features like Collaboration and the potential merging of video show that Instagram is really working hard to help brands get more for their marketing spend.

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