Instagram has been busy this fall making regular updates and expansions to their popular social platform. One of the most exciting updates is one that allows wedding pros to use Instagram Guides.
Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of these before. Now is the perfect time to learn all about this feature and start using it to grow your wedding business.
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT INSTAGRAM GUIDES
What is the Instagram Guides feature?
The Instagram Guides feature is a way to share long-form content on Instagram. It’s a format that allows you to share curated and easily-digestible content with your followers.
Guides have been around but were only accessible to a certain audience (mostly heath and education-based accounts). With the most recent update, this feature is now accessible to everyone.
Unfortunately, there is no search feature for Guides just yet, but it won’t be far behind. For now, you can create your own and keep an eye out for the Guide icon on accounts that you currently follow.
Look for the Guides icon on the homepage of the accounts you follow —
Types of Instagram Guides
There are three types of Instagram Guides you can create.
- Places
- Products
- Posts
The purpose of these categories is to allow you to create a curated list of places that you recommend, or products that you are promoting, and even categorize posts into a curated topic.
Place Guides allows you to put together a recommended list of locations with map specifics of any business on Instagram. Product Guides allows you to access any products on the Instagram Shop feature. Post Guides allows you to curate content by topic into an easy-to-digest format.
For wedding pros, this could be a great way to repurpose — and reorganize content you’ve already published to Instagram.
Think about ways that your ideal client will want to digest your content.
Are you a travel agent specializing in honeymoon experiences? Create a Guide by location topic such as Honeymoon Locations for Adventure Seekers, etc. If you’re a wedding photographer, you could put together a curated Guide for ideal locations for engagement photoshoots.
The possibilities are endless for all three types.
What Instagram Guides Does and Doesn’t Do
The Instagram Guide feature does —
- Allow you to be found by keyword, so utilize topical keywords when creating your titles for the guides.
- Let you continually edit and update your Guides, so you can tweak it as content requires without having to create something new.
- Enable you to share Guides in your Stories so your followers can know when you’ve created a new list.
The Instagram Guide feature doesn’t —
- Allow you to add a link just yet, so be sure to create your own call-to-action on purpose.
- Have any analytics to show who is interacting with the content yet.
- Allow you to use hashtags, but this is where keywords will become more relevant in being found.
Instagram is going to start pushing this feature and has recently added more emphasis on keywords in their recent updates. Now, you can search topics without having to search hashtags.
How do you get Guides on Instagram?
It’s now available to everyone. Here’s how to access the Guides feature and get started creating your own.
Tap the plus sign in the upper right corner to find the drop-down menu below. Then, tap the Guide feature to select the specific type of Guide you would like to create.
Select the type of Guide you would like to create.
From there, you can tap Places to start finding a location for your Guide —
Or tap Products to find a store or products for your Guide —
Once you select your store, you can begin selecting the products you would like to have on your list.
EXPERT HELP FOR YOUR INSTAGRAM GUIDES
Now that you know what the Instagram Guides feature is and how it works, we have a few expert recommendations for getting started.
Helpful Resources
- A Quick and Easy Tutorial — We’ve included images to show you what to look for as you get started, but there’s nothing like a good tutorial video, so we’ve included a simple one to get you started.
(If you prefer a more in-depth look, here’s another good tutorial.)
- A Guide to Guides from Later — These guys are experts at keeping small business owners and their teams in-the-know about all things Instagram. When you’re learning a new topic, it helps to get a look from all angles.
- Updates from Instagram — Learn all about the dozens of updates to Instagram over the last few months. This will help you do even better as you embrace the new Instagram Guides feature.
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Written by Corrie McGee
