6 Instagram trends you should follow in 2018 - Caspian Digital Solutions
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2018 Instagrams Trends to Follow

2017 marked huge success for Instagram and the innovative app is on its way to hit a record of 1 billion users in 2018.

Instagram is an innovative and immersive photo and video app which keeps updating cool features and tools to keep its users engaged and active on the platform. Let’s take a look at the recent trends on Instagram and what it has in store for the businesses and influencers in future.

Storytelling at its best

Instagram stories are trending on social media like never before. This unique and adaptable feature of Instagram is one of the main reason of its success among the masses.

Instagram is continually releasing new story features like a boomerang, GIF stickers, Face filters, Superzoom, type mode and highlights to increase the user engagement with stories.

While type mode allows the users to show text in their stories, highlights give them the ability to display the stories they want to be seen continuously. Instagrammers can also archive their stories to their profile, unlike the previous feature that disappeared after a day.

IGTV is the latest addition to Instagram. It provides a whole new experience of video streaming by showing videos from popular Instagram creators worldwide. The wide range of features and regular updates on the platform indicate why it is a popular choice for marketing among the top brands.

Instagram for Business

Instagram has around 25 million active business profiles and much to your surprise 80% of its users follow at least one business account. It is considered a valuable investment by most of the top brands which have achieved success on the platform.

Apart from that, the influencer marketing strategy is a 1 billion industry on Instagram. Influencers are able to attract a good amount of traffic to the business accounts by means of sponsored content.

Instagram has shown proven success in supporting a wide range of businesses like beauty, food, travel, auto and fashion. The launch of new features like Shoppable posts is a great opportunity for businesses to tag their products on their organic posts. People can now easily discover and buy products through features like ‘Shop’ feed and product tags.

Enhancing discoverability on Instagram

Instagram’s introduction of following hashtags has made it much easier to discover and connect with videos, photos and people related to the hobbies, interests, communities and passions of the Instagrammers.

The use of hashtags has been designed to keep the users engaged on Instagram and provide better functionality for them. For Instagram users who feel their account is full of content that is irrelevant or not in line with their interests can just search for a particular interest or category and follow it.

Apart from that, users who are searching for a particular category and aren’t sure about who they should follow can also discover relevant profiles through this new feature.

The rise of Instagram Pods

Instagram has removed many of the accounts with fake followers and fake engagement in the past and many influencers are discouraged from using bots for the fear of facing the same consequences again.

The change in algorithm has led to rising of Instagram Pods to boost the post engagement. Pods are a group of 10-15 (or more) Instagrammers who come together to like and comment on each other’s post every time a pod members posts on the group. The idea behind the pods is that high engagement on a post signals relevant and engaging content and hence Instagram moves the post up in the user’s feed.

While pods are not the same as bots because they comprise actual profiles who are connected to each other, it is difficult to gauge their fate in the coming years since they may be seen as a less genuine engagement.

Growing number of Micro-influencers

Micro-influencers have gained popularity over the past few years and even the big businesses are going for a variety of micro-influencers to promote the brand, products or services. While the trend is likely to continue in the coming years, it is important for companies to consider the limitations before making a decision.

Working with several micro-influencers instead of a single macro-influencer requires a greater investment of time and coordination efforts by the marketing teams of the company. It is also important to exercise due diligence in order to ensure that their followers and engagement rate are authentic.

Companies new to the process can consult influencer marketing agencies to find out which influencers are appropriate for their campaigns based on the key performance metrics.

Live/video streaming on Instagram

Instagram is known for its innovative and engaging features which draw in audiences from across the world. The introduction of live videos in 2016 was followed by a further update which allows the users to add guests to their live video streaming. This clearly indicates the efforts of Instagram to increase interaction by creating dialogues and increase the scopes for creating a variety of videos in the near future.

It will be interesting to see how the trends are shaped by the upcoming features and tools on Instagram.

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