On 30th June, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced some major updates for Instagram. These changes are to take place on an experimental and phased manner. Read on to know what they are and what do they mean for your handmade business…
New Updates to Instagram
Adam Mosseri took to Twitter to announce some major changes to Instagram in these 4 key areas- Creators, Video, Shopping and Messaging.
1. Creators:
There will be a shift in power from Institutions to Individuals. Earlier this year Instagram had announced that they had begun testing their native affiliate marketing tools. Once launched, creators can tag and share products they love and earn commission on them! Testing will start with small group of US-based creators and businesses including Benefit, Kopari, MAC, Pat McGrath Labs and Sephora, and will expand to more partners in the future.
Earlier this year Instagram had also announced creators on Instagram are eligible to earn an extra payout when they meet certain milestones while using badges in Live, such as going Live with another account.
What this means for your handmade business
Influencer Marketing is going to be the next big thing. It will be easier to derive ROI from influencer marketing campaigns, which was very difficult to do earlier. It is high time you include Influencer and/or Affiliate Marketing in your social media marketing strategy.
2. Video
Over the last few months Instagram had been making it clearer that its algorithm will favour videos and reels over any other type of content. Taking the step forward Adam Mosseri announced that Instagram is no longer going to be the square photo sharing app anymore. The company is looking to lean more into entertainment and video to compete with platforms like TikTok and Youtube.
Instagram will show recommendations in users’ feed, which won’t necessarily be accounts that they may be following. Instagram is going to roll out Topics, where a user can choose which kind of topics they want to see more of.
Most importantly, we are going to witness changes in how a video is displayed on Instagram. Videos are going to be more full-screen, immersive and mobile-first.
What this means for your handmade business
Reels and videos are going to be indispensable for your content marketing plan. Entertaining and experiential videos are going to get a boost over boring text based or image content.
Stories are going to be important.
With recommendation and topic features, it will be easier for businesses to grow organically, kind of like Reels.
3. Shopping
With the pandemic, the shift to ecommerce has accelerated by leaps and bounds. Now e-commerce is no more a good to have model for businesses, it is a must have model.
What this means for your handmade business
Whatever fears and confusion a business had about whether they should start selling digital or not, now is the time to shed those. With more and more consumers working from home, the amount of time spent by consumers online has increased. Having an e-commerce store or FB/Instagram shop is of primary importance. If you don’t get the share of your consumers attention, you competitor will!
4. Messaging
Mosseri revealed that data suggests a shift in Instagram users’ interaction- from Newsfeed and Stories to messaging. He did not touch upon this subject as much as the others, but it can be safely predicted that the experience of personal messaging on the app is going to change.
What this means for your handmade business
Though it is not very clear what kind of changes can be expected in messaging, but it is important to utilise the already present and most neglected features of messenger like Automated replies.
Your interaction with consumers on DMs might become another important parameter for your engagement ratio.
So, over the next few months we are going to witness a marked change in Instagram usage. But how exactly the changes are implemented is something to watch out for.
But it’s time to think hard and revamp your Instagram game. Let us review your social media marketing strategy with you.
