3 Instagram Features You Need to Try ASAP

Instagram is constantly releasing new features! It can be hard to keep up with the trends and new additions on so many different social platforms. Despite the difficulty to learn all the new features, it is detrimental to your reach and engagement! Instagram pushes accounts who are partaking in their new features, so it is important to jump in and give them a try. Today, we are discussing three Instagram features that you need to try as soon as possible! These features will help you reach more people and keep your audience engaged.

Collaboration Feature

First, the collaboration feature is such a powerhouse feature. If you aren’t using it, you are missing out on so many opportunities! This Instagram feature allows creators to work in real time with other business owners or creators to maximize both of their reaches. Instagram Collabs allows you to collaborate with another business owner on a feed post or Reel. When you collaborate with another business owner, the post or Reel will show up on BOTH of your profiles. Essentially, this shares one post or Reel with two different audiences, increasing your reach and engagement! By doing this, you’ll be sharing views, likes, comments, shares, and saves.

Another reason this Instagram feature is so important is because you’re gaining access to a whole other community. The business owners you should collaborate with are people who complement what you do. You should be pretty cautious with collaborating with business owners who do exactly what you do. Instead, look for complementary business owners who could bring value to your audience and vice versa. Utilizing this feature enables you to grow your audience! When people who are not in your community start engaging with your post, be sure to engage back with them!

How to Do the Collabs Feature

First, create a new post. When you get to the screen below, click “Tag People”.

Then, after you click “Tag People”, you will be taken to this screen. Next, click “Invite Collaborator”. You’ll then find the creator/business owner you would like to collaborate with.

Finally, after your collaborator accepts the collaboration, your post will show up like this! As you can see, both accounts are listed under one posts. The post or Reel will show up on both of your profiles!

Scheduling a Live

Second, you can now schedule your Lives on Instagram! While you may have been going Live randomly before, now you can let your audience know exactly when you will be Live. So why is this Instagram feature so important?

When you schedule an Instagram Live, you are able to share multiple countdowns and reminders directly to your feed, stories, and profile. You can schedule an Instagram Live up to 90 days in advance. Therefore, this allows your audience to prepare ahead of time to attend and can also help bring anticipation for the event!

Not only are you able to schedule your Lives, but Instagram will prompt you after scheduling to share to your feed. When you choose to share your Live as a post, your community will be able to sign up for reminders about the event! When your audience signs up for reminders, they will be notified when the Live starts.

Since you are able to share the Live to your profile as a post, you will want to design a cover photo and write a caption before scheduling your Live!

How to Schedule a Live

First, open the Instagram stories camera and swipe over to “Live”. After scrolling to Live, you’ll see on the left side there is a “Schedule” button. Click the “Schedule” button!

Second, after you click ‘Schedule”, you’ll be taken to this screen! Here you will enter the video title as well as the start date and time.

Last, after adding in all the information for the Live, you can now click “Schedule Live Video”. After scheduling, you will be prompted to share as a post!

Instagram Reels

Last, Reels may be one of the most powerful Instagram features to be released! Video content is what people are consuming most of right now. At Chic Influencer, our most engaged content is always Reels. When you notice people are more engaged with a certain type of content, you want to start producing that content more consistently!

We get it! Reels can be challenging. There are transitions, audio, and text as well as keeping up with the trending Reels. Reels are not a lot of business owners passion, but Instagram is pushing this type of content. In order to keep up with the platform and appeal to your audience, you HAVE to participate in Reels.

Start with producing more simple Reels! Reels where people point at different text are simple and easy to produce. You may be thinking you barely have time to run your business and post consistently, so how will you find time to now do Reels? However, if you do the prep work on your Reels before you sit down to record, you can produce a quality Reel in 10 minutes or less!

You may have seen other business owners succeed greatly from participating in this Instagram feature, but it hasn’t worked for you yet! If that is the case, we suggest you join us for our FREE 5 Day Reels Bootcamp. For more information, read below!

How to Create Reels

You’re in luck because we at Chic Influencer are hosting a FREE 5 Day Reels Bootcamp! If you’re ready to start creating Reels or take your Reels to the next level, please join us!

Join us live February 7th through February 11th! Give us 5 days and you will be ready to rock the Reels!  

You in?

The FREE 5 day Bootcamp will provide a Reel sample and how to training on the following topics:

• The basics: how to create a reel
• Creating the “how to” reel
• Showcasing your product or service reel
• Transitions reel
• Transformation reel using collaboration feature

On top of these trainings, we will also cover:

• How to add text
• How to add layered text
• Audio
• Saving
• Share
• Splicing
• And more of that fancy stuff!

Are you ready to take your Reels to the next level? Enroll HERE!

Want to Learn More About Instagram Features You Should Be Using?

Be sure to listen to this week’s Make Chic Happen Podcast episode, “Social Media Features You Should Be Using to Grow”.

Katy and Melanie are sharing some behind the scenes info on what they’ve learned about social media through their own platforms. In this episode, you’ll hear about three features you SHOULD be using on your social platforms to increase your reach and engagement!

Looking to set profitable goals for your social media this year? Then tune in to this week’s episode!