Instagram is a valuable way for marketers to help share their work. The visual elements provide a creative opportunity to attract and engage potential customers, and updates to the app make it even easier to convert leads. But one thing has remained a mystery: the ideal length of an Instagram post. If it’s too long, you risk losing their attention, and if it’s too short, you risk not providing potential customers with all the information they need.
That’s where Instagram Guides come in. This new feature from the popular social media platform allows you to combine multiple related posts into one place. Each one will link back to the original post, but this strategy will enable you to add new information or connect different ideas.
Table of contents
Instagram Guides became available to all users in late 2020 after the platform test drove them with select users. Let’s dive into the different ways you can leverage this tool to help meet your inbound marketing goals:
So what are Instagram Guides?
Think of them like a blog post. You’re able to build out more written content and use visual elements to help make your work more engaging.
There are three different types of Instagram Guides you can make, depending on what works best for your brand:
- Posts – where you can group similar content or topics together to share more information at once. An example of this might be a series of posts related to a specific campaign.
- Products – where you can create a list of items that you sell through your Instagram shop. Around the holidays, this type of guide was heavily used by a bunch of different brands to create gift guides.
- Places – where you can group together a series of posts around a specific destination. This allows you to show different recommendations for restaurants, attractions, or shops, as well as travel tips.
Which type of guide you use depends on what type of business you are or what kind of content you’re trying to share. Want to see more examples? We’ve set up our own on our Instagram page– like this one we put together on different marketing tools. Check them out!
Benefits of Instagram Guides
Instagram Guides are the solution for adding long-form but digestible content to your account. But this isn’t the only benefit they can have for your account.
Creating (even more) shareable content
Word-of-mouth is just as important in the digital world as it is in real life. Instagram allows users to share guides to their stories or in a direct message, so people who like what they see can help spread the word about your work.
Keep visitors around longer
Longer, engaging content means that visitors will spend more time on your page to learn more about what you do. Additionally, creating a list of different products or services you might have that can solve their problems (think of something like “Our Top Ten Products for Oily Skin”) allows them to conveniently view your products and the ease of access means an increased chance of conversion.
Increased searchability
The rollout of Instagram Guides came with expanded search capabilities as well in order to keep users on the app longer. Now, users can search for keywords instead of just names, usernames, places, or hashtags. By optimizing your new guides with relevant keywords, you now have another opportunity to increase your brand’s visibility.
Updating or refreshing content
Instagram Guides are an excellent opportunity to reshare some of your best-performing and/or related content while also adding new information to refresh and increase engagement on these posts. This is a great way to remind your followers about your expertise or work, and engage new audiences.
Collaborate more easily with influencers
Guides are a great way for influencers to help market and recommend your business. You can organize all the posts and content (like a list of their favorite products from your brand) they create in one, easy-to-find spot. Not only will visitors be able to see the complete list of the influencer’s recommendations, but they will also have an additional opportunity to purchase those products themselves.
How to build an Instagram Guide
Head over to your profile and click the + symbol in the top right corner (the one you use for posts, stories, or reels). From the list of options, click “Guides,” which should be at the bottom, and pick which type of guide you want to create.
After that, you can start to add the different posts you want to be featured in your guide, and customize the title and description to go along with each. This doesn’t change the original caption for the post, and you have the choice to share your own posts or ones you’ve saved from others.
You can create a custom cover image for any type of guide as well to help it look more streamlined and professional.
Once published, you can find all of your guides under this icon on your profile:
Best of all? You can update, edit, or remove these guides whenever you need to. This keeps your work relevant, allowing you nearly unlimited opportunities to increase your brand’s visibility.
Overall, Instagram Guides are a creative way to help grow your page and share more about your brand. Adding them to your page can help refresh content and attract new visitors, making them an important part of your social media strategy.
Looking to build out your social media strategy? Here are our tips on building one, as well as advice on when to post to increase your visibility and how to set up a social media schedule.
