Instagram Guides

Instagram’s New Feature Can Give Your Business A Boost

Instagram Guides is a new feature that looks very promising for business accounts, especially if your main source to attract leads and sales is through educational content. 

Instagram might just be your must-have social channel in 2021. And even if you haven’t ever done an Instagram Story for business, it’s not late to give the Gram some love.

Especially now that you’ll have a brand-new feed where you can turn your content into digital assets that will turn your Instagram followers into clients … or even better, if your followers can become your best students!

Think about this, for just a second… Don’t we want great students for our courses?

I can already see you, reading this, saying “Yes, please! I don’t just want clients who buy my courses and never use them”.

Think about having the option to create Pinterest boards, on Instagram. This new Instagram format will give you the chance to market tutorials, share tips, and enhance your content with powerful creative tools that will turn your Instagram feed into a virtual magazine.

As a content creator myself, I got very excited when I made my first Instagram Guide.

Personally, I’m thrilled with the Instagram 2021 updates we’ve seen so far. It’s a more robust platform, from the UX perspective. These updates are the first major redesign for 10 years. 

UX experts are calling it a UI design overhaul. I’m personally pleased with what I’m seeing and can’t wait to see what’s coming up.  But let’s not go there.

I know that time is essential and you’re up to getting tips to boost your amazing educational content, so let’s cut to the chase.

How To Get Started With Instagram Guides

The first step to use this new Instagram feature is to make sure your Instagram app is allowing you to use it. Sometimes this can be tricky, as Instagram doesn’t always rolls updates to everybody.

How do you know if your Instagram profile has the Guides feature?

Open your Instagram app, go to the bottom right, and tap on your pretty picture. This will take you to the the new Instagram home page.

If you’re wondering “where is my Instagram home page?”… The best way to remember is “the hamburger menu”… If you see three lines at the top right, you’re on your Instagram’s new home page. Side note here… I’m a leftie… so I always need to stop and make a mental map of where the right side is! So… if you’re leftie, you understand the struggle!

Once you find the most desired Instagram’s hamburger menu, tap there and you’ll see a drop down menu. Go to Create- Guide – You’ll see 3 options: Places, Products, and Posts! Convenient, right? The 3 P’s of Instagram Guides (you can learn it easier!).

How you can use Instagram Guides to get more engagement?

Before you jump into all the features, Instagram Guides will only allow you to select content from feed posts — not Instagram Stories.

If any Instagram Reels or IGTV posts have been shared to the feed, those can be included in guides. If you want to repurpose content from your IGTV, for example, you can only “pin” them (I say “pin” them because it’s just like creating a Pinterest Board) if that IGTV is on your posts feed. You won’t be able to create a Guide going from IGTV to Guides.

No worries, I’m covering all of it here, step by step.

Just keep reading.

Once you create your first Guide, your profile will have the Guides icon, right after the IGTV icon.

When your users tap into your Guides, they will be able to see places that you’ve created using Guides.

How To Create a Places Guide on Instagram

Places Guide will be a tremendous opportunity for location-based businesses.

You will be able to leverage Instagram geotagging marketing with Instagram Guides. 

If you’re a location-based business owner, using Places Guides will help you reach people who are searching for your services.

If you’re a content creator, this update is allowing you to “pin” a post that you’ve tagged by using the location feature using the Places Guide Placement. 

The more content you share via Places Guide, the more chances you’ll get to reach more people; especially if you pick a highly-populated location. 

This next part is important!

Instagram is marketing for you!

Instagram is going to pull up all public content tagged with that location, not simply your content at that location. If you run a local business with a physical location (like a restaurant or retail store), this could be a great way to highlight user-generated content (UGC) on Instagram that showcases your business location. 

While this update is being done, you won’t see your Guides on Explore page.

But we know that Instagram SEO is getting more features and are expecting to see more improvements this year.

How To Create a Products Guide on Instagram

The Products option lets you pull in Instagram posts related to a single product. After you select Products as the guide type, you then have to choose from an Instagram Shop. 

The shops of accounts you follow will populate first and you can scroll through those or search for a specific account’s shop.

You’ll be able to create a Guide from products you can search or wish lists you’ve saved.

If you want to work, hand by hand with an Instagram expert, I’m doing a new Instagram Training. 100% virtual. This might be great if you want, not just to learn, but incorporate this into your Instagram Marketing 2021 plan.

Instagram Products Guides and E-Commerce

E-commerce business owners! This one’s for you!

You can boost your shop using Product Guides. Take advantage as much as you can!  And if you don’t have a shop installed, this Instagram Guide to installing your Shop will be helpful.

I highly recommend having a Instagram Shop.

Users are able to purchase from you, by simply taking a screenshot of your product.

Yeah… phones are very smart!

This is just like taking a picture of a QR code! But instead of a QR code, your products will have a recognizable link.

Note that this feature is available from some shopping carts like LiketoKnow.it.

How To Create a Posts Guide on Instagram

As soon as I saw this feature, I thought about using it to feature freebies, highlight your accolades, pin your best performing content, run a giveaway, highlight educational content, step-by-step tutorials … and many other ideas!  

Consider watching: Instagram Trends To Watch In 2021 (click to open a new tab and save it for later).