How to use Instagram Guides in your Marketing:

Launched back in 2010 by Kevin Systrom, Instagram has grown to become one of the most popular visually-focused platforms in the world to grow your business. With the new update of the guide option on Instagram, netizens, creators and business owners can now shoot reels and videos as guides to showcase their products and services.

This new update gives you one more opportunity to engage with your users by providing them with unique content that you can share and inform about topics that interest your audience. Let’s find out more about what Instagram guides are and how you can use or create them.

What are Instagram Guides?

Instagram guides are a series of Instagram posts created to share helpful information with your audience. Each post in a guide links to a traditional Instagram post or a product page where users can complete a purchase. 

How to create an Instagram Guide?

To create an Instagram guide, click on the plus sign like you would to post an Instagram post, video, or start a live, the dropdown menu will have an option for guides as well because of the new update. 

1. Create a cover image that includes a title and a brief description
2. Create consecutive posts describing the topic in the cover image.
3. These topics can range from fashion to food. The trending topics are travel and shopping and for small businesses, this helps to link their product guides directly to their shops on Instagram.

Types of Instagram Guides:

1. Products
2. Places
3. Posts

Product guides – This is perfect for Home improvement brands to create repair and renovation guides. Fashion influencers can use it for cosmetic guides as a step-by-step guide for different makeup looks and products. Food bloggers and food enthusiasts can showcase delicious recipes and the cooking process of making those recipes. These guides link directly to Instagram shops and help small business owners to market their products more effectively. This is yet another opportunity for brands to connect with their audience and share information that attracts their audience.

Places guides– is perfect for travel guides and influencers for location-based tips. Places can also be used by food bloggers to showcase the different restaurant recommendations in the city.

Posts guides – for any informative content that you’d like to share that includes life hacks. This option can also be used to repost old Instagram posts.

How to find Instagram Guides:

You can find the Instagram guide option by going to the creator’s main page and looking for the ‘Guides’ icon.

Examples of Instagram Guides:

1. Beats by Dre

The idea of marketing today is to reach out to your audience at a more human level and beats by dre have done just that, they have created a guide celebrating small black businesses, this is a thoughtful post and it reaches out to their specific audience as well. This kind of guide falls under the Posts category.

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2. Red Bull

The brand Red Bull has created this guide to showcase their products uniquely and attractively influencing their audience to buy their products. This kind of guide also falls under the post’s category.

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3. Condé Nast Traveler

This is the perfect example of a Places guide because as the title suggests it talks about the cheapest and nicest places to see in the world. 

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4. Lush

This is a couple of examples of a product guide by a cosmetic brand that have displayed their products and prices and details about the product, which is directly linked to the Instagram shop to buy the product immediately if they want to, or if they’d like to explore more products as well.

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How to use Instagram Guides for Marketing?

Technology has always been a boon for marketing over the years and with the launch of Instagram guides, it has just gotten better. Now users can create long-form content on Instagram as well, which is good news! Let’s look at reasons that will help you market your business more effectively.

1. Make users stay longer

With long-form content users will stay longer on your page to know more about the brand and the products because it is not just one post but a series of posts.

2. Using the power of Keywords:

Due to the inclusion of long-form content, Instagram has changed its search functionality, making it easier for users to search for the guides they want, by simply searching for the keywords of the guide. This is also helpful for users that may not remember the brand’s name.

3. A new way to reach your audience:

Every brand wants to be an expert in its field. This new guide option can help you make your brand an expert in your specific field or niche. These Instagram guides help you create unique and creative content that showcases your products and services and informs your audience about solutions or tips while using your product or service. Tips, tricks, and step-by-step guides are a few of the ways you can create content that reaches your audience and brings your audience to your brand.

4. Grow brand loyalty:

 Marketing on Instagram isn’t something new. Brands have already created a bond with their audience with constant engagement. Creating these guides gives businesses another opportunity to build on the existing brand loyalty. Creating guides that can help solve your consumer’s problems or help them use your products more effectively will only make the bond stronger and make your audience want to stay loyal for longer. It is the perfect way to influence your audience to trust your brand through storytelling via the guides.

5. Rise in Conversions:

The option of creating product guides allows you to create long-form content showcasing your products, which is the best new way to increase conversions for your brand. Displaying your products in the form of  these guides directly links them to the Instagram shop where users can immediately purchase the product or look for more products from your shop.

6. Good for collaborations:

Collaborating with famous and new influencers through Instagram guides can help small businesses and big brands reach a larger audience. These guides are shareable content, and collaborating with influencers can help you stay at the top of your field.

Conclusion:

Instagram guides are the next best thing when it comes to marketing on social media. It is a great tool to increase brand awareness, brand loyalty and increase conversion rate. This new way of creating content allows brands to reach a larger audience and attracts new customers as well. Instagram guides can also be considered the next best thing for online shopping because the guides can be directly linked to the Instagram shop.