Rules? Yes, there are RULEZ if you dare dabble in the ever-changing world of Instagram. Don’t stress, we’re here to guide the way through navigating Instagram for business and making sure ALL your content is good content. Over the past year, Instagram has introduced a number of new features — from Music to doubling the number of shots you can include in a carousel — and to work with the ever-evolving algorithm you’ve got to work smarter (not harder etc) and more strategically to engage your audience. 

In a nutshell? More Reels, more realness, shorter keyword-focused captions, and collaboration with like-minded brands and creators. Let’s unpack below.

Reels are here to stay

Since launching in 2020, Instagram has continued to push for creators and content makers to lean into Reels as an answer to the voracious appetite for video TikTok has inspired. As an agency, we’ve only seen the demand for motion rise year-on-year. No video content? No problem. Stitch together a Reel using stills or find a nice, naturally lit table and capture a simple moment on iPhone. If you’re after something a bit more high-production but still very social ~ such as this QT Hotels Reel we prepared earlier ~ get in touch. 

A couple of things to remember with this one:

• Get your specs right. It’s 9:16, always. Why? It’s all about the screen real estate and posting in 1080×1920 takes up all the space on the screen. Hot property, not to be wasted. If you’re posting in landscape all this prime content space is taken up with a thick black border, not your brilliant content.  
• Keep your content front and centre. When you post a Reel, the highest performers get shown on your home feed and the Reels discovery page. Although we recommend keeping your specs as 9:16, when viewed on your homepage it gets slightly cropped at the top and bottom and when it’s in your Reels feed your text will be overlaid at the bottom of your video. In short, keep your vid in portrait but make sure all the action is happening in the middle of the screen. It helps to have a private test Instagram so you can do a practice post to make sure your subtitles, graphics and all the good stuff is not obstructed by either view. 
• Find the right *trending* music. Instagram has listened to the people and really given audio access a new look with their ever-expanding, free-to-use-sound library! Copyrighted music was once a tricky hurdle for creators to constantly sneak around, but has now become imperative to tuning into audiences and finding the rhythm of their consumers (ok, enough with the music puns now). So, see what songs are on repeat, adopt them into your own content and make sure they aren’t a stretch away from your brand- but have fun with it! For those who prefer the sound of their own voice (kudos to you) you can always lean into creating Reels with great original audio (ASMR, interview) or utilising Instagram’s voice-changing features (why not talk about your brand as a chipmunk?). Don’t forget, this doesn’t just apply to your video posts, single image and carousel posts can and should have a soundtrack too!

Write shorter captions

Find the most efficient (and brand TOV-relevant) way to write captions for your posts and stories. Let’s face it, we can all get a little fatigued by content at the best of times, so make it easy (and engaging) for your audience to digest the key info. For captions, try and get it under two lines (about 100 characters) to let your visuals do the talking. Keeping it short and sweet but with all the good stuff — SEO matters when it comes to captions as well as a few relevant hashtags to get the right eyes on your content. 

Create a mix of high and low assets

Time to talk realness — that’s more lo-fi, on-the-go, authentic and fit-for-platform. Some accounts can be all of this, all the time, while others might just need a sprinkle of it. That content split really depends on your brand’s look and feel and overall social aesthetic but as a whole this kind of authentic, genuine content is becoming a solid trend on socials and snoozing on it will result in losing (reach, engagement and audience attention). We suggest leaning into it a little. Try some BTS videos in stories, create a piece-to-camera vid for your next announcement or stitch together a bunch of phone footage for a monthly wrap up (check out our guide to shooting video on your smartphone). Balance this with your polished, considered photography, video and campaigns to give the audience a look at your whole business — not just the shiny stuff. It’s about creating content that feels fit for the platform, a Reel that’s been stitched together in-app, using trending music and leans into the trends of the week can sometimes feel more timely, relevant and, ultimately, engaging. 

Grow your reach with the Collab Tool 

Events, campaigns, competitions and… product collabs — all excellent opportunities to leverage the Collaboration tool. Not only does it make it super clear who you’re working with, but it also gives you the added bonus of tapping into your collaborator’s audience. The great thing is it shows up on your feed and THEIRS, ultimately doubling your reach levels — organically. Ready to do this thing? Peep our quick guide to using Instagram’s Collab Tool here.

Bonus! You can still add Collaborators & Story mentions AFTER posting!

It’s a social media manager’s dream! The dreaded fear of forgetting a tag after posting is no longer! Instagram now allows you to add collaborators AFTER going live and this goes for both posts and stories – double the rejoice! The same applies to Instagram Stories when you click “add mention” in the menu.

Do stories still matter? Yes, kind of

Stories are a great way to connect to your existing audience and provide a more unfiltered glimpse into your brand or restaurant. It also remains a great way to drive direct links to shop, view your website or drive sign ups to your email newsletter.  With this in mind, keep them short (a couple of slides max) to the point (a few words) and experiment with paring back your feed posts and upping the frequency on stories to keep your page visible at the top of your followers’ home feed. What really sets Stories apart are all of its interactive features. Think using polls to get your audience’s opinion on a new dish idea. Always lean on the link button to funnel your audience to your website, to buy a ticket to a special event, or to a recent article about your brand.

Make your content more accessible

Make sure your content is for everyone by leveraging the accessibility tools on IG and following a few simple tips. It may at times be a bit of extra work, but that leg work means everyone is able to enjoy your content. How good. Image descriptions are a simple way to make sure people with a vision impairment can understand your content — especially if you’re tightening up your captions to be shorter and snappier. You can add these in at the bottom of the caption or add it into the alt image text for each image so you can keep your captions a little cleaner. Adding in subtitles for videos and making sure graphics are easy to read are also top ways to make your content more accessible. 

You CAN post 20 slides per carousel… but does that mean you should?

It’s no secret, as Instagram grows the one thing that also continues to grow is how much content users can post in one sitting. The biggest level-up of course has been the huge jump from 10 to 20 shot allowance in carousels (Photo dump? No. Think photo FLOOD!) This also goes for Reels, which have been extended to 3 whole minutes instead of 2. While that is always a win for brands and unlocks so many creative paths for producing content, take a beat and remind yourself what the post’s purpose is. Curation is key! Could this carousel serve as a city-guide, or showcase iterations of your signature dish over the years? Could you use colour to create synergy and diversify your photo dump? There’s no harm in going the extra mile and using those additional spots* – the man of the ‘Gram (Adam Mosseri) even confirmed why carousels get more reach than photos through one simple rule – more pieces of media equals more interactions! 

*Just watch out, carousel posts with more than 10 frames can’t currently be boosted – make sure the content shared in this format is any you needed in your paid content mix.

Instagram grid view dimensions could be changing – so your content needs to as well!

It’s hard to imagine a world without the perfectly square equal grid tiles on an account – but alas, Instagram has made it clear these are on the way out and the 4:5 ratio is rolling in! While this shift towards vertical dominating content is still in its early stages, content creation is all about getting on the front foot – so start tailoring your shots for both the classic 1:1 and the taller 4:5 now! More for the graphic designers out there – when splitting content over three holding tiles, make sure the illustrations are made with 4:5 in mind and have a bit of breathing room at the edges (que our earlier point about keeping your content front and center!). It’s a great reminder that strategies shouldn’t rely solely on social dimensions – it needs to be adaptable for any platform and any size – the visual appeal comes from your message and how you chose to convey it!

It’s all about the views, baby (to a degree)

Let us rephrase what I said just before – it is all about the messaging but visual storytelling is EQUALLY important. You can have a tear jerking, heart throbbing, oh-so-moving brand message but if you can’t convey it to your audience and grab those eyeballs – you might as well be tweeting about it. Instagram now prioritises ‘Views’ as the primary metric across reels, posts and carousels. Meaning the number of eyeballs is now the most important carrier of performance – regardless of format! For reels it’s all about that three second rule – any time spent on a post below that – bzzzz, no view!

Overwhelmed? Don’t be. We live and breathe this stuff from social media strategy to crafting a distinct art direction and creating killer content. We love emails too, so get in touch to say hello.

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