The Future of Instagram Marketing in Four Major Predictions

All social media platforms are constantly evolving, as is the way users interact with them and the technology involved! Instagram is no exception– this platform is not only wildly growing even this year already, but the trends in its usage, its capabilities, and how it acts is changing even now. While it’s impossible to know the future with technology and especially social media platforms, knowing how to market based on future projections is something viable! Here are four of our projections for how Instagram may be changing this year and how they may impact your marketing strategy!

1 – Shopping Tags – Instagram has recently introduced a feature that allows businesses to add pricing information to pictures of their products! These tags are available to view once the image is selected, meaning simply scrolling by this advertisement is still easy for users, but it’s also a quick way to share information for those who are interested in the content.

This non-intrusive way to add links and information to your products should be utilized when posting products or even talking about services, as it’s highly possible these will become more common and even expanded upon later this year.

2 – Image Recognition Searching – Instagram is already notorious for its Explore page which collects content they believe a user will enjoy individually, now even with categories to organize the possibilities. While Instagram currently focuses on tags to do this, we predict that this platform will follow Facebook’s lead with image recognition and begin to use the content in posted images to do this as well.

This means your images are more likely to be associated together or to your optimal customers when they relate most to your industry and to each other! This means trying to post the most relevant photos possible to your business is increasingly important, as is maintaining similar color themes and items so users who do like your content will continue to see it.

3 – Increased Focus on Stories – Instagram introduced stories last year to better compete with Snapchat, but the usage and capabilities of this feature are always growing! Many users use stories to share pieces of their daily lives, but businesses have also been taking advantage for better marketing, product highlights, and even paid advertising.

Since this feature is increasingly growing, it would be smart to start taking advantage and following the trends with them and their latest features! For instance, have you seen the poll options yet? The themed hashtags that change every few months? The location filters and GIF keyboards?

4 – Location Marketing – Location is of prime importance to marketing as is, but Instagram is starting to focus more and more on this aspect! They’ve already introduced location tags for stories that let you market directly to your city or general area, but they also have hashtags, location markers on maps for pictures you publish, and they’re bound to add more features!

To start, embrace the existing location markers and expect that according to our predictions, they’ll be enhancing and adding more to the existing array! Snapchat has a widely popular way to search for stories via map, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if Instagram incorporated a similar feature!

At i3, we take pride in staying in touch with the latest trends in social media and other technology! We pay close attention to the marketing industry, its trends, and its upcoming news, so you can rely on us to share this information with you. Give us a call today and we’ll be happy to share our know-how!