As Instagram celebrates its 12th birthday in 2022, it boasts more than 1 billion users.
Once a photo and video sharing app, Instagram has evolved quickly to be a top social media platform. In addition, it is also a powerful marketing tool for your business. Though it is primarily used for personal purposes, it can benefit your business, especially its new rollouts.
With the right marketing strategy, business owners can promote products or services, increase sales, boost brand visibility, and even host a shop on Instagram. This article aims to educate businesses about the latest Instagram Features for Business and use them effectively.
Instagram Features
Whether you are selling a product or a service, the latest Instagram features can help you get ahead of your target audience and create brand awareness. Here are the top Instagram business features you can use in your marketing strategy.
Professional Dashboard
The professional dashboard is one of the latest features geared towards businesses. It is a central destination to track your performance, access professional tools, and explore resources specially curated by Instagram. The three key features of Professional Dashboard include:
Track Your Performance:
Gain information about the insights, reach, and trends related to your account. You can also get in-depth knowledge about how your business interacts with its followers. In addition, with the information presented, you can time your posts to have the most reach based on when the audience is online.
Grow Your Business
Access the various tools geared towards running your business efficiently in a central space through the Grow Your Business section. In addition, you can also discover new tools that help build your business since any new upgrades will be present the professional dashboard. Finally, if you are monetizing your business, information related to the space will also be here.
Stay Informed
Learn how to make best use of the Instagram features for business at the stay informed section. In addition, it holds specially curated educational resources, tips, tricks, and guides for inspiration. Above all, you can also find tips and tricks from other content creators to make engaging content.
Live Rooms
Another great launch in 2021 is the Live Rooms, where you can connect with more than one Instagram account and participate in the same live session. Now you can host a podcast, jam session, meeting, or tutorials with other influencers, artists, vendors, or businesses.
Live Rooms gives the creators creative opportunities to build their business and earn money. For example, live viewers can buy badges for their hosts and show them, love. And there are also more exciting features such as fundraisers, shopping and many more yet to come. Clipchamp has a great article on using Live Rooms.
IGTV, Instagram Feature for Business
Though not a new feature, IGTV has evolved a lot since those 15-sec videos. Now you can create 10-minute videos showcasing your products or services. This kind of video can help take your content to the masses and build a relationship with them.
9 out of 10 users watch regularly watch Instagram videos. So doesn’t it make sense to use the platform and use videos instead of static photos? IGTV videos are more approachable and draw better attention than photos.
In addition, IGTV video descriptions can hold clickable links. This helps to take your products out to the viewers in real-time.
Instagram Shopping
Instagram shopping can help you take your products to your followers. In addition, Instagram continues to support businesses through its eCommerce features. Currently, you can shoppable posts and tag your products directly to those posts.
In addition, create IGTV videos and share the link for the products used in those videos directly in the description. Moreover, businesses can also add shoppable links during Instagram Live broadcasts.
Another feature businesses can use is the Instagram Story Stickers. Creators can use the tappable stickers in their Instagram stories and make the contents shoppable.
Instagram Checkout
Instagram rolled out the Checkout feature back in 2019, allowing shoppers to make the payment within the platform itself. This feature enables the businesses to convert followers to customers right there on the app.
Since its launch, the Instagram checkout feature has proven to increase the conversion rates for small businesses. However, the feature is available for selected brands and influencers in the US only.