I love hearing about the latest features that are coming to Instagram! If you aren’t already following @creators or @instagramforbusiness on Instagram, you should right away. These two accounts shared great resources for those creating and using the platform to grow. These could be tips for growing your community, do’s and don’t’s, etc. However, this week, Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Facebook) and Adam Mosseri (Head of Instagram) went live and shared some of the tools they are working on to support creators. Here’s some of my take aways:
Creator Shops
Shopping on Instagram is a thing. They have already rolled out Shops for business pages. which some creators have set up but the team acknowledges that creators set up their own shops. Many creators monetize by selling their own products – it totally makes sense!
Affiliate Tool(s)
Again, Instagram creators are already using the platform to help drive traffic to their affiliate links. They have been for years! It’s nice to hear that Instagram is working on a way to support those that do affiliate marketing so they have better luck earning a commission from the traffic and sales they are able to deliver.
Branded Content Marketplace
Instagram is working on a way to connect brands with creators. They know this is already happening off platform so it is in their best interest to support both the brand and the creator with access to audience information and further analytics. It was noted that this marketplace will be favourable to creators but they did also note that some brands may be paying too much or too little for their brand partnerships with creators.
Some other things I took away is that Instagram understands the importance of having content that has some stability behind it. In other words, it’s hard to sell content and reach when the algorithm really dictates how well a piece of content may do in regards to reach and engagement. They also mentioned showing Reels content on Facebook Stories and other ways to distribute content cross-platform which I thought was really neat!
These new Sticker features were not discussed on the Live but were shared with me from a follower. It looks like Instagram is testing a “Link” sticker that will allow you to add a link which could be useful for multiple links rather than one link in a Swipe Up. It’s uncertain if this is available for everyone, creators, or those with a certain follower count. There is also a “Super Mention” sticker that seems to be affiliated with monetization — so it sounds like there is some potentially exciting things to come to the platform.
Does this excite you as a creator? Send me a DM on Instagram + let’s chat! @boywhoblogs