New year, new trends! In an effort to remain a major player in the game of Instagram, one of the smartest moves you can make is to stay ahead of the Instagram marketing trends at all times. This means understanding what the general population (or even better your audience) is interested in, keeping up with the newest Instagram updates, and making sure you implement the most popular updates into your marketing strategy before/while it’s trending! If you miss the boat on what’s favored, that could negatively effect your engagement, exposure, or even worse, your company’s revenue.

Additionally, with Instagram’s rapid user growth rate each year, it’s become pretty evident that this social media platform is not going anywhere any time soon and is, in fact, where most business will remain taking place. 

There were more than 1 billion active users on the app in 2018, with numbers expected to increase in the new year. So what are the real active Instagram followers interested in? Let’s take a look at some of our 2019 Instagram marketing trend predictions.

1. IGTV

IGTV was introduced in the summer of 2018 in an effort to allow users to post longer video times than the average Instagram Story. Even though Instagram Stories now allow you to record a video for essentially as long as your little heart desires, there’s still a big draw to IGTV.

It didn’t gain much momentum at first, but now with constant improvements and the endless opportunity to market and utilize high-definition content, it’s becoming more and more appropriate for content sharing.

As a brand or business, you’ll of course want to increase your reach for marketing purposes as much as possible, and what better way to do so than to tap into the new generation of video lovers with IGTV.

It’s pretty important to realize that the younger generation of buyers love keeping up with vloggers and brands on their phones, so it makes sense to begin implementing video into your marketing strategy to appeal to the consumer. Hence why Instagram designed IGTV to keep up with competitors like YouTube and create a one stop shop where the viewer can have all of the same benefits as say, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube combined. However, instead of having to inconveniently switch your phone to the side to watch a video, Instagram keeps things vertical for a more user-friendly experience.

In fact, IGTV is expected to even take the place of YouTube in a few years time, so it’s looking like it’ll be important to begin building up that presence now before entry and exposure becomes difficult due to over-saturation.

With IGTV, Instagram’s goal is to encourage the creation of vertical video sharing since mobile views are at an all time high, and vertical content is what’s most convenient for the viewer.

To sum it up, if content is king, than vertical content is emperor.

2. Features of the Future

All viewers on Instagram want a personalized experience that is catered specifically to them. If the viewer cannot relate to the content they’re viewing, that equates to disinterest in the app and ultimately less screen time spent on Instagram.

Low screen time is definitely not the desired outcome Instagram is looking for, so in an effort to keep people gramming and scrolling for as long as possible, the app needs to be a place of familiarity for the user.

Since Instagram is a place for users to connect, the programmers over at Instagram are constantly pushing out new features to create an overall better user experience for everyone.

In 2019, we’re expecting to see more interactive features such as voice notes, text for the visually impaired, and improved direct messaging chats, that are all aimed to help more and more people connect.

Take advantage of all the new features Instagram pushes out. These features are solely designed to get as many people as possible involved in the content being added to the app.

Make sure your Stories are an interactive space that invites people to not only engage with your content but also give you feedback on what they like and maybe don’t like.

Features such as quizzes, questions and polls allow the user to respond to your story and are a great way to gather data on your followers so that you’re able to cater marketing campaigns specifically to your audience. Plus, playing around with features is one of the more enjoyable aspects of Instagram, so have fun with it!

3. Instagram Shoppable Posts

Instagram has brought new meaning to the saying ‘at the push of a button.’

Online shopping has never been easier with the product tagging feature on Instagram. Now, the discovery of things you love is made simple with shoppable posts. Think about it from a viewers perspective: you see something you like and just by clicking the image you’re able to see what the item is and buy it directly.

Furthermore, there have been talks about Instagram introducing it’s very own shopping portal where the app will be a one stop shop for all buyers and you will not even have to visit an external website. It’s the easiest way to convert new followers into paying customers.

This will be a huge game changer for all the e-commerce businesses out there as purchasing power will have never been made simpler and it’s bound to be a hit for the consumer as Instagram shoppable posts have already increased sales for businesses by as much as 30%.

4. Nano Influencer and Brand Takeover

It’s simple: nano brands and influencers have hyper-targeted followings hence better reach. They grow faster and bring in better engagement. There’s no if ands or buts about it.

Businesses are forking out the big bucks to get influencers on board to promote their product and influencers are looking to work with brands who will help them gain more exposure. In both circumstances, it’s important that followers on either side are relevant accounts with larger followings tend to have a broader range of people following them, which means their following is a lot more difficult to effectively target.

Begin focusing on nano influencers as they’ll most likely have a super-targeted following that will be most beneficial for your brand or business.

Plus, with a constant rise in the desire for user-generated content (UGC), you’ll want to try and intertwine that into your account’s feed as much as possible by collaborating with influencers.

Why is that? Users prefer user-generated content as it provides them with a more authentic feel and shows that other people support and trust in your brand.

Friendly tip for choosing influencers: Have a scroll through their follower list to get a glimpse of the demographic of their followers. If they’ve purchased followers and have fake accounts, you’ll be able to tell quite quickly as it will most likely be a lot of spam accounts and/or accounts with no photos and strange names. Hence why growing your account with real active followers is super important because no one wants to collaborate with someone who will not bring them positive results.  

5. Instagram Story Ads

As if Instagram Stories were not big enough in 2018, the new year is looking even more promising for Story Ads. Mobile revenue on Instagram was estimated at nearly 7$ billion in 2018, where it’s only meant to increase in 2019. People love visuals!!

Advertisers: This is one of the best ways to engage with your followers! But keep in mind that the stories must flow with your brand or image. Use tasteful ads that align with your brand’s image so that users do not realize they’re looking at an ad. It needs to be as natural as possible.

Instagram Story Ads are already making some adjustments in targeting with things like geo tagging, hash tagging and account tagging, along with interactive add-ons. This is only expected to improve over time, where targeting will become even more precise.

The introduction of the ‘Close Friends’ feature was already a step towards making your sharing list even more specific. We expect the introduction of more features similar to this so that marketers have a better chance of reaching their desired target audience.

With new longer than ever recording times, limitations for the creation process have been eliminated, allowing you to create the advertising story of your dreams.

Let’s face it – Instagram is constantly evolving, and as marketers it’s our job to make sure we’re on top of it so that our marketing efforts are as successful as possible. It may be a difficult task to take on at times, but Instagram does a pretty great job at making the whole process fun and entertaining for both the creator and the viewer.

It’s important to remain on trend and have fun while doing it! You’ll be able to tell if a marketing campaign is designed with enjoyment or just posted out of necessity.

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