WHAT'S UP WITH THE IG GUIDES??
If you've been on Instagram the past few weeks a lot, I mean A LOT has changed. New buttons, new button arrangement, and for the majority of our profiles, you may have noticed ANOTHER new way to create content.
INTRODUCING: INSTAGRAM GUIDES.
What are Instagram Guides? Basically, a round-up of places, posts, or products you want to highlight on your page/feed.
The posts flow together, are numbered, and have space for the user to put the guide together using titles and headings for each specific post.
Is this useful for your brand??
MAYBE.
I've already created one Guide on my page; "The Best of #Theguidebook". This guide features a round-up of my own IG post that mention or feature #theguidebook. This Guide makes it easy for me to share content specific to #theguidebook in one place without having to flood my stories and allows those posts to be super easy for first-time visitors to my page to find!
I don't think everyone will need this guide or even utilize it the best, but I think it's def worth exploring for particular niches.
The pros and cons of creating a Guide:
Pros:
You can create a Guide using Places- They show up on a map, and you can pull from any public post on IG that tags that place! So it's an excellent way to post about places you don't have current photos of.
You can create a Guide using Products - It appears that if you're following a page that has a shoppable IG (or your IG is shoppable), you can make a Guide using those products! The best part? You can include multiple shops/products in your guide! Perfect for creating seasonal gift guides!
You can create a Guide using posts - What's impressive about this is you can use your post or post that you've saved! It's the perfect way to highlight other creators, create niche guides using more than just YOUR content, or repromote your content again!
The Guides are dated and editable - you can create a guide for one month and then add or remove things from it later on as things change! Def a helpful feature for keeping things timely and up to date.
The cons?
As far as I can tell, there's no way to track Guide metrics. This means there's no easy way to know if you're seeing any social return from creating these guides. Obviously, you can follow the individual post included (if they're yours) and see if those metrics change, but it would be nice to see how people looked at your Guide in general.
People are not used to using Guides, so they may not seek out information there. This means creating more posts to promote the Guide, and honestly, without knowing metrics, it may not be worth it.
Your Guide MAY pull your website traffic. If your website is very blog heavy, you'll need to be careful with guides. You don't want your Guides to make your website unnecessary. Creating short and simple guides but leaving long-form content for your website may be more ideal.
The content has to be already created and live on SOMEBODY's feed to be used. Meaning if you want to do a product round-up Guide, you need to already have products in your IG store or post about them on your feed. This may mean that strategically planning a guide could take a few weeks.
Guides that I'm looking forward to seeing from potential niches?
Trainers:
Top healthy restaurants in **city name here**
The best work out clothes for budget shoppers.
Amazing outdoor workouts that take under 30 minutes.
Hairstylist/MUA:
Top Holiday looks
Hairstyles that take under 15 minutes
7 Make up looks using 1 pallet
My favorite product round up
Fashion Influencers/Boutiques:
Wearing 1 scarf 5 ways
Best places in **City** for grammable pics!
A day in the life (using map locations)