How Can Brands Make Use Of Instagram Guides?

If you also love to keep up with the Instagram world, just like us, you must have noticed that the app recently launched its new feature – Instagram Guides.

Ever since its launch, there has been quite a buzz around it. This new feature enables the sharing of curated and scrollable content. Users can now share and consume useful tips and recommendations in an easily digestible format.

Brands will be able to create engaging organic content together with the top creators in their niche or industry to deliver the comprehensive content that the audience craves.

Initially, Instagram started the venture into Guides as a response to the Covid-19 outbreak, in an attempt to provide resources to the people who are struggling amid the pandemic. At first, this feature was available for a few exclusive health and wellness advocates, but recently we have been seeing users from different industries gaining access to it. Meaning the feature will be available for all soon.

Instagram realized that there was some free space for them to promote the mental well-being of their users, and integrating the Guides feature means that the users can access the long-form categorized content on Instagram itself instead of having to navigate away from it to some third party platform. For instance, now, users won’t have to visit the creator’s website, blog, or YouTube channel to read the in-depth content. They can simply gain access to it via Instagram Guides!

Let’s see how this brand new feature, Guides, will change the way creators are developing content for Instagram and how brands can become a part of it.

How Does Instagram Guides Work?

With Instagram Guides, the idea is to enable people to gain authentic information and inspiration from their favorite user accounts.

You can find Guides in the feed tab of the creator’s profile between the Grid and IGTV icons. Guides will let users share content in an easy to share, consumer, and digest format. You can also share it to your Instagram stories using the paper plane icon and In-Feed posts.

How Can Brands Work With Instagram Guides?

This new feature will mean a few things for brands and content creators. First and foremost, now they can guide the customers straight to the in-depth content on their Instagram page, cutting off the need to move on from Instagram to any other third party platform.

This is great for both brands and creators, but brands might need to give it an extra thought. If a brand is used to leading their consumers to their blog or product pages directly from their Instagram post, they will have to figure out ways they can work with content creators or make Guides themselves to keep up with the latest trend. For brands that are utilizing Instagram’s Shopping and Checkout tools, this probably means that their customers might never have to exit the app.

Now, this does not imply that blogs and navigating to third party websites will become unnecessary. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. However, brands will have to think of ways in which they can utilize organic content to link to their product pages instead of linking them to their website directly.

How Can Brands Work With Guides to Their Advantage?

As of now, it appears that Instagram has enabled this feature for creators and brands focused on developing health and wellness content to help people get through this tough time. However, we expect it to be available for all users soon.

Here are a few ways in which we think the brands can work with guides to their advantage.

1. Sponsored Guides – Even though brands are unable to create their own Guides currently, we expect to see more sponsored guides on creators’ pages. Meanwhile, brands can work with content creators to create a Guide that will feature the brand’s product or service. For example, a beauty brand may work with a makeup artist to pull a beauty guide together for the audience in paid partnership with the particular brand.
2. Featuring Products in Organic Guides – The chances are that the brands will collaborate with the content creators to get their products and services featured in the creator’s guides. While they may need to follow the usual Ad Disclosure Guidelines, this partnership will help brands to raise awareness organically and subtly. For example, a restaurant owner might ask the creator to include their restaurant’s name in their “Best Places to Eat” Guide. This will be a great way to increase brand awareness, organically, and authentically.

Conclusion

This new Instagram feature ‘Guides’ has made a whole new way of curating and consuming content on the app. It has opened up new opportunities for effective and engaging storytelling on the social media platform.

If you can think of new ways how your brand can work with Guides to its advantage, do share them with us in the comment box below. We hope this information was useful for you!