5 Instagram Trends That Should Be Part of Your Social Media Strategy

 Instagram trends tend to come and go all the time, but there are some that seem to be consistent on the app. Let’s look at which trends you should be paying attention to if you want to elevate your profile and increase Instagram followers.

5 Instagram Trends to Note When Planning Your Social Media Strategy

1. Instagram Shops Will Soar as Pandemic Fuels E-Commerce Sales

First, what are Instagram Shops? Instagram Shops are virtual marketplaces where Instagram users can sell products through the app. Using Instagram Shops, you can link products directly through your posts and build up a marketing strategy that exists in the same app as the sales you make.

Instagram Shops are trending with the general rise in online shopping, as well as the recent increase in support for small businesses. This feature offers a great outlet for small business owners to build up brand recognition on Instagram and create a community on their pages, and then shift followers’ attention to their Instagram Shops.

While developing your own Instagram strategy, keep in mind the various aspects of Instagram Shops and how this tool can be beneficial to you. Instagram is a great place for you to cultivate a community and interact with your followers.

Instagram Shops, in turn, gives you the chance to turn your followers into customers. So, whatever you must sell, consider offering it on Instagram Shops. This can lead you to an increase in sales as well as followers.

2. Influencer Marketing Continues to Rise

Another Instagram trend that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere is the trend of influencer marketing. This trend refers to popular content creators who work with brands to promote products among the communities that they, themselves, have created on their pages.

Influencer marketing is a consistent Instagram trend due to the permanent nature of social media. As long as social media exists, there will be popular content creators. And if these influencers have a platform, they will run collaborations and contests with brands.

When you think of it, influencers are simply users who are paid to produce advertisements, and their ads are effective because they have wide bases of followers who put a lot of stock into what the influencers have to say. So, it makes sense that this “trend” is really something more permanent.

You can easily use influencer marketing as a part of your social media strategy. It may seem daunting to develop a partnership with a big-name influencer but remember that social media influencers exist at all levels.

To ease yourself into the world of influencer marketing, first try working with a micro-influencer who has a smaller following and lower prices. This is still an effective marketing strategy, and it’ll help you to promote your page to increase followers and boost your products or services.

3. The Big Push to Long Form Video Will Continue With Instagram TV (Not IGTV)

Wait a second – what is Instagram TV, and where is IGTV going? After introducing and testing out IGTV, a separate app where Instagram users could go to watch videos, Instagram is going in a different direction by introducing Instagram TV.

Instagram TV is more of a tool than an Instagram trend, but it still counts. Using Instagram TV, users of the app will be able to view videos without opening a separate app, but this is not to be confused with Instagram Reels, which are short videos published on Instagram.

Instagram TV videos can be up to 60 minutes long, giving users a platform to produce long videos in addition to the short productions on Reels. Instagram TV will replace IGTV on Instagram, and it will essentially serve as an Instagram-based counterpart to YouTube.

Long form content is trending thanks to the increase in popularity of video creation that has arisen from TikTok. With the infamous rise of TikTok, social media users are increasingly interested in video content. And, while TikTok is reserved for short videos, there’s now a trend in long form video content as well.

When developing your Instagram strategy, remember this information and keep in mind the importance of varying the content that you publish. Instagram was once known as a photo sharing app, but it’s now shedding that label to emphasize the expansive features that it offers.

While Instagram TV content can be up to 60 minutes long, you don’t need to produce videos of that length. However, you should be producing video content of some sort. When planning your Instagram posts, focus on the importance of feed posts, Story posts, photos, Reels, and TV videos.

There are a lot of options for how and where to publish content on Instagram, so don’t be afraid to experiment with all of them. This is the only way to determine what kind of content is most effective among your followers.

4. Live Streaming will Keep on Growing (Especially In Instagram Live Rooms)

Another Instagram trend/tool that you should pay attention to is Instagram Live Rooms. This feature allows you to go live on Instagram with up to three other users, and followers seem to love it.

Another form of social media content that has risen in popularity with the increase in video content is live streams. Across social media sites, users love tuning into live videos to hear from their favorite content creators and celebrities – and Instagram is no exception to this trend.

So, Instagram Live Rooms were released to give users the opportunity to go live with other creators in a form of collaboration. This has been a hit among users across the app, so it’ll likely continue to trend well into the future.

How can Instagram Live Rooms be of benefit to you? Well, first, you should not overlook the importance of going live on social media, in general. Your followers will love having the chance to ask you questions in real-time, especially if they’re also getting a true behind-the-scenes look at your life, whether this is your home or your work environment.

Instagram Live Rooms, furthermore, offer you the chance to introduce other users onto your page. Whether you’re going live with a celebrity or influencer, or you’re going live with someone who’s part of your company, there are a lot of benefits involved with going live in collaboration with someone else.

By hosting a multi-user live in an Instagram Live Room, you can ask and answer questions of one another, answer questions together in a panel style, or simply have some fun banter while on live for your followers to observe. This gives you a chance to show off your personality and form or enhance relationships with other creators.

5. Carousels Get High Engagement

The final Instagram trend on this list is the carousel-style Instagram post. This trend isn’t new, but it has been consistently popular since it was released. Carousel posts are available only for your Instagram feed, and they allow you to publish up to ten photos or videos in a single post.

Users can swipe through all of the content in a carousel post and enjoy multiple photos or videos at one time or take in a lot of information from multiple informational slides in a carousel post.

This Instagram feature continues to trend primarily because of how useful it is. Carousels allow Instagram users to publish high volumes of information or visual content in a single post, as opposed to creating multiple separate posts and cluttering their followers’ timelines.

This Instagram trend can be easily used by anyone. If you have a lot of information that you would like to relay to your followers, without writing a long caption, you can include it all in graphics in a carousel and tell users to swipe through all the pictures on the post.

Also, if you have a set of multiple products that you would like to advertise in a single post, this can be done through an Instagram carousel. Or, if you have an artistic Instagram that focuses heavily on aesthetics, maybe you’d like to post a collection of photos that fit together in a specific theme.

No matter what your reasoning is for using Instagram carousels, this tool can be highly effective for all users. That’s why it has been a top Instagram trend for so long, and why it’s a perfect addition for your Instagram strategy.

Be A Trend-Setter

So, there are the top five Instagram trends that you should be sure to understand and join as soon as possible. Instagram Shops, influencer marketing, Instagram TV videos, Instagram Live rooms, and carousel posts are all terrific trends/tools that’ll help you to improve your Instagram page and boost engagement and followers on your account.

So, try out these various trends as you get the chance – don’t overdo it. You can filter them into your Instagram strategy one at a time if that works best for you! But, when you know which ones work best for your account, come back, and let us know. We’d love to hear all about your success story!