Instagram has grown to be one of the most influential social media platforms in the world. With over 1 billion users, it’s now known to generate the highest engagement rates2. However, the platform isn’t only growing – it’s also evolving.
That’s why we’re going to talk about all those new 2021 Instagram updates that have been rolling out recently.
1. Professional Dashboard
At the beginning of 2021, Instagram launched a new tab called Professional Dashboard. Think of it as your main dashboard within the app. Inside this latest Instagram update feature, you’ll find all of the main tools and resources:
Overall account performance
Instagram Insights
Promotions
Branded Content Approvals
Instagram Shopping
Saved Replies
Furthermore, you’ll find some tips and best practices for your Instagram marketing strategy:
2. Instagram is hiding likes
The social platform will no longer publicly display the number of likes generated by posts. This means that the exact number of likes given to any individual photo or video will only be known to the user who posted it.
This update has been gradually introduced since 2019, and by now, there’s a big chance you’ve experienced it as well.
You’ll be able to see Instagram likes for your own accounts as well as any other public Instagram Business account.
3. Suggested posts
Once you’re done scrolling through the most recent posts of the accounts that you follow, you’ll start seeing suggested posts (based on what you like and who you follow).
How to turn Suggested posts off
The new feature infuriated many Instagram users – mainly because of its intrusiveness. Unfortunately, you can’t turn this feature off.
All you can do is inform Instagram that you’re not interested in specific posts. To do that, tap the three dots above the post, and then click on “Not interested”. This way IG should better target their suggestions.
4. New Instagram Story features – interactive stickers
In the last few months, Instagram has added quite a few brand-new Story stickers that can make for a better interactive user experience.
Challenge sticker
Since so many people started 2020 by being stuck at home, Internet challenges have become more popular. This particular Story sticker allows you to join challenges which are named with a hashtag to make it more recognizable and to increase their reach, and then nominate other users.
DM Me sticker
Instagram introduced the new DM Me sticker to prompt messaging interaction. From a brand perspective, this sticker can help you showcase your product with a CTA to ‘Get more info ‘or something along those lines. That in turn would help drive more direct discussion, and would be another consideration to keep in mind.
Stay home sticker
In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, you can remind people to stay home by adding the “Stay home” sticker to your Instagram Story. This will also change the colour of your Story ring and you will be placed on top of your followers’ Story feed.
Food orders sticker
When you add a Food Orders sticker to your Instagram story, people can tap the sticker to order your business’s food from your partner’s website.
Gift cards sticker
Similarly, to the Food order feature, when you add a Gift Cards sticker to your Instagram story, people can tap on the sticker to buy gift cards from your partner’s website.
5. Posting to multiple accounts
This one can be quite the time saver, but only if you’re planning on posting the same kind of content to different Instagram accounts. Basically, you create a post using one account, and then just tick some boxes in case you wish to post it to.
For an Instagram post, the Publisher allows for almost all of the native publishing features that Instagram has to offer, and more.
You can tag other users in your photos, mark the location, and even schedule the post’s first comment!
6. New Instagram Story features – notifications
Reposting the Stories in which someone tagged you is getting more and more popular nowadays. Essentially, it’s part of user-generated content which is known to be a very effective form of social media marketing.
So, Instagram made it easier for us to notice whether we’ve been tagged in a Story or not. Not so long ago, we had to bother to go to our inbox, and if we’ve been tagged by someone who we don’t follow, it would end up as a message request.
It’s much easier to find these mentions and navigate between them, so the whole process of reposting isn’t much of a hassle anymore.
Create Story template
With the new Create mode, Instagram users can play around with Story posts even more. The main purpose of this feature is to combine interactive stickers (e.g. questions sticker), text, and drawings without the necessity of having a photo or video in the background.
To access the Create mode, click on the camera icon in the top-left corner and then swipe right at the very bottom of the screen.
7. IGTV Preview
IGTV videos, which can be explained as longer forms of video on Instagram (longer than 60 seconds), has been getting more traction recently.
So, in order to make IGTV posts more visible to other users and increase their organic reach, Instagram decided to treat them as if they were regular Instagram posts.
This means that your newly published IGTV video will be seen in your followers’ news feed as well as your profile feed. There’s only one difference. It’s going to play as a 60-second preview that will try to navigate users towards the full video.
You can also leverage these previews in your Story posts. When you share your IGTV post to your Instagram Story, it will automatically play a 15-second preview.
8. New Instagram inbox organization
Instagram has recently divided the inbox into Primary, General, and Requests tabs. Primary is where messages from the people you follow will land.
The rest will appear as a Request, that you will be able to move either to Primary or General.
Think of Primary as an inbox for issues that need to be addressed quickly, whereas General contains the messages that you can come back to later.
9. Suggested unfollow
You may be wondering why you’re losing followers all of the sudden. Or maybe you’re looking to unfollow the accounts that you least interact with.
Whatever the case, Instagram introduced this sneaky little feature of suggesting which people you should unfollow.
The “least interacted with” are your suggested unfollows. If you feel like your feed is getting a little bit too crowded, you may try using it.
10. Instagram Alt text
Instagram introduced a new option of adding alt text to images. This way people with visual impairments can enjoy the social platform more.
But maybe there’s more to it. Adding alt texts to website images helps for better SEO ranking. Maybe this time that could also be the case?
Hopefully, by adding these extra descriptions to your photos, you’ll be able to rank better in specific hashtags. It’s not something that Instagram has officially stated, but still, it’s worth giving it a try.
How to:
When posting your photo, click on “Advanced Settings” at the very bottom
Under Accessibility you’ll see “Write Alt Text”
Why is it Taking over Facebook?
1. Instagram Is More Mobile-Friendly
Given that it was a mobile-only platform for many years, and its narrower array of content types, it’s no surprise that Instagram is a better mobile experience than Facebook. Facebook has come a long, long way in this regard, but Instagram is made for the phone, period.
2. Instagram Has Better Stories Integration
Again, this one isn’t a shock, since Instagram is where Zuckerberg and friends first incorporated the “stories” function that was inspired by Snapchat. Facebook has stories of its own now, but the interface tie between Facebook News Feed and Facebook Stories is murky and tenuous, at this point.
Instagram Stories are also far more popular than Snapchat’s version.
3. Instagram Is More Commerce Friendly
Direct commerce on Facebook has bee tried several times, with only modest success.
But commerce on Instagram is woven so tightly into the experience, that it feels like a very natural extension of the platform. I’ve personally bought a bunch of stuff on Instagram, and the sophistication of the targeting algorithm is very strong.
4. Instagram’s a Better Place for Brands
From a marketing standpoint, the constant changes to Facebook’s display algorithm for News Feed make it increasingly difficult (some say futile) to try to gain organic reach for company posts. In comparison, while Instagram makes changes, to be sure, they are less draconian, and the brand/user coexistence on Instagram is much better overall.
There are many brands whose content is genuinely a pleasure to encounter on Instagram. Not sure that’s often the case with brand Facebook posts.
5. Instagram Has Better Discovery
Due to the heavy emphasis on hashtags from the beginning, and the widespread use of five to 20 of them in posts, it’s easier to discover content that you like on Instagram. Because of the ability to get content “found” on the platform, publishers have flooded the hashtag system and gamed the system. As a result, the Instagram Explore tab has declined in quality recently. Mark Zuckerberg announced that a new Explore is on the way, with better curation.
Facebook is still a behemoth and is the only social network that approaches ubiquity. But Instagram is turning into a BETTER social network, in my estimation. If that continues, it’s entirely possible that Instagram becomes more popular than Facebook, at least among young users.
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