7 Instagram Trends Every Marketer Needs to know of and leverage
Trends can be found on every social media platform. in fact, trends are not only something that you can find on social media.
Trends are something that can be found almost everywhere.
Whether it be short-lived trends, or trends that last months, or even years.
Remember the trend of everyone wearing Crocs shoes?
Or maybe the trend of taking a selfie in your mirror with the flash on?
In this article, we’re focusing more on the long-lived trends, because it’s easier adapting and following them, as opposed to the trends that will be over tomorrow.
The two types of trends…
There are two types of trends that you’ll find on Instagram.
First, there are the trends that “never” die.
Then, there are the trends that have a very short shelf life.
The trends that “never” die are things that are always relevant, always popular, and always a surefire way to reach success on the platform.
The trends with short shelf lives are the trends that only are relevant for a few months, weeks, or days. The trends will see huge traction and popularity over a short period of time, then, they’ll be forgotten equally quick as they was made popular.
These are trends like #Dressgate or “Damn Daniel“.
Because the “come and go” trends have such a short shelf life, by the point you’ll read this, chances are they’ve already become irrelevant.
Instead, we’ll focus on the trends that are always relevant on Instagram that will help you build a long-term powerful Instagram strategy.
Why hop on Instagram trends?
Trends can help you gain immense traction over a short period of time, and increase your reach dramatically.
Not only that, trends also lets you know, and give you insights into what people find interesting and appealing.
By keeping updated with the latest trends, you can get your content in front of more people, and more rapidly build your audience.
1.Live video
Live video has exploded in popularity in just a few years.
So much, in fact, that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many more have incorporated it into their platform.
This send clear signals to how social media is evolving, and what people want to see.
They want to see content shared in the now, and on the spot.
What does this tell you?
It tells you that you need to take advantage of the benefits that comes with Instagram live video, and that you need to start broadcasting on Instagram, if you aren’t already.
Live video helps reduce the gap between brand and audience, and makes the content you put out much more personal.
Loft does a great job using Instagram Live video in their Instagram strategy. Their social media managers are within the brand’s target audience, which means that it’s easier for them to create content that their audience will love. Loft is regularly going live on Instagram, when they have anything worthy to share with their audience, and the result is content that is engaging, entertaining and relatable.
Live stream is also great for sharing behind the scenes content!
Your audience love when you take them behind the scenes of your office, co-workers, sneak-peaks, and everything in between.
It helps humanize your brand, and build a better relationship with your audience.
2. Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories has grown immensely in popularity since its launch.
In fact, Instagram Stories now has 250 million daily active users, up from 200 million in April, surpassing Snapchat’s total 166 million daily actives.
Instagram is a social platform that was made to share content in the go. But if you look at the posts that are being shared, that is not always the case. Especially not for brands.
Instead, they run a photo session for 5 days, edit for three, and post for one.
Like Hèrmes:
That’s as far from “in the go” as you can come.
The reason to why brands and people aren’t sharing as many photos on the go as Instagram first anticipated is because the posts are displayed in the feed forever, unless they get deleted. Long story short, it leads to people wanting to have a beautiful feed, this stepping up their post quality.
And that’s where Instagram Stories come in!
Instagram stories, apart from regular posts, are not displayed in all eternity. In fact, they’re only visible for 24 hours, until they vanish.
This has completely changed the way people, and brands in particular share content on the platform, and now through Stories.
Stories allow you to share less high-quality content, and give a more behind the scenes look, just like Instagram Live.
Instagram Stories allows consumers a look into the daily activities of a business rather than just the curated content that is posted in your regular feed. Just like Live video, Stories allows you to share more personal content that humanizes your brand, and lets your audience feel more connected with your brand.
3. Boomerang
A boomerang is an object that you throw and that returns back to you.
But that’s completely different from Instagram’s take on Boomerang.
Instagram Boomerang, has like Stories and Live video gained immense traction since its launch. Just look at the Google searches for the term “Boomerang” over time.
It sure as hell isn’t because more boomerangs are being manufactured.
What is Boomerang, you ask?
This is how Instagram explains it “Press a button and the app does the rest. Boomerang takes a burst of photos and stitches them together into a high-quality mini video that plays forward and backward.”
In short, a Boomerang is a short video of several images that plays back and forth.
Here’s an example of a Boomerang on Instagram:
To get the Boomerang feature, you need to download it from the App store or Android store.
4. Hashtag trends
Hashtag trends are generally the most short-lived version of a trend.
However, if you succeed in hopping on the wagon in time, you can gain immense traction from it.
Since Instagram, doesn’t have a “Trending hashtags” section like Twitter, do, identifying trending hashtags in time can be a challenging task.
Therefore, your most surefire bet is to look at SproutSocial’s hashtag calendar.
These hashtags are not as trending as hashtags related to a world-even to news, such as 9/11, however, they are highly safe bets.
The hashtags in the calendar brings up various hashtag events
Every month, there are around 7 hashtag events taking place, so keep an eye open for hashtags that are relevant to your industry, and implement them into your own Instagram posting strategy.
This lets you be a part of the conversation that is taking place, and interact with other people in your industry that are also taking part.
You’re probably wondering, and no, regular hashtags are not considered to be “trends”.
Regular hashtags such as #sun or #smile are relevant any day of the week, anytime. Plus, these are less effective since they get a fair amount of attention everyday, as opposed to getting a ton of attention some days, like trending hashtags do.
So you get the difference?
It’s similar to if you would have a Ferrari.
The first days, you would probably drive it a lot.
Then after a while, it would get less attention.
The trending hashtags are like the first couple of weeks with your new car, and the regular hashtags are like the everyday encounters you have with it.
5. Influencer marketing
When it comes to social media marketing, it’s not really a secret that influencer marketing is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful soure of marketing.
Simply described, influencer marketing is the use of influential individuals on social media to promote a brand or product.
Social media influencers generally have a large following and are considered to be authorities in their niche, thus making them and their product recommendations more trustworthy than other types of advertisements.
Let’s take a look at the statistics that influencer marketing generates. When reading them, there’s no question why influencer marketing has become a trend in the marketing landscape.
Brands are slowly changing from old expensive, and ineffective display ads such as television, and billboards, and investing that money into influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing is something that has skyrocketed in just a few years. It has gone from brands solely focusing on celebrities on the platform, to now working with influential people who have built authority, relationships, and trust, to a greater extent than celebrities have.
This means that these types of influencers generally generate better results, while also tending to be much cheaper.
Social influencer marketing is also seeing a trend in the ways are spending money on it. The trend is clear, and it doesn’t look like it’s stopping any time soon.
The change is happening, and it’s happening now.
When you look at the statistics influencer marketing is able to generate, it’s not really a surprise that brands are transferring from traditional ads to social media ads, and taking their money with them.
- 70 percent of teenagers say they trust influencers more than traditional celebrities.
- 72 percent of women turn to social media “frequently” for guidance in everyday purchase decisions.
- 92 percent of consumers trust recommendations from peers on social media above all other forms of advertising.
- Influencer marketing campaigns generate $6.5 in earned media value for every $1.00 invested.
- 13 percent of brands generate $20 in revenue for every dollar invested in influencer marketing.
- Google searches for the term “influencer marketing” has increased by 325 percent over 12 months.
The statistics are endless, and the power of influencer marketing equally so.
However, as with everything, eventually influencer marketing will get saturated.This either means that you need new approaches to influencer marketing, or that new marketing sources are demanded.
Everything has its circle of life, and its peak period, but social influencer marketing is just at its baby stages, so you don’ need to worry about it losing efficiency any time soon.
6. Slideshows/carousels
Carousels on Instagram allows for storytelling in your post in a way that was never possible on the platform before the update.
Instagram slideshows has several names.
The most common are:
- Multiple images
- Slideshow
- Carousels
Just know that all of these have the same meaning, so you don’t get confused.
Because when carousels was launched, I sure was, hearing 4 or 5 different names for the same thing. It’s hard not to get confused.
What is Instagram Slideshows?
Instagram slideshows is a feature that allows you to upload up to 10 photos and videos in the same post, that users can slide through.
Here’s an example:
The introduction of Instagram carousels tells us another trend that is happening in social media. People are more interested in storytelling than ever. It tells us that one picture is not enough, because it tells us far from the whole story. With Instagram carousels, you can now upload up to 10 images and videos, and give your followers a complete and in-depth look into what your post is all about.
This is especially beneficial for brands as storytelling has shown to be highly effective in marketing, and in getting your audience engaged.
When Instagram launched carousels, you could only post square images. Luckily, this is not the case anymore. Recently, Instagram also introduced panoramic format for carousels.
What’s more, Instagram has also introduced carousels in ads as well. If this doesn’t tell us anything about the efficiency of storytelling, and the demand for it, I don’t know what does.
With a little bit of imagination, you can do a lot with Instagram’s slideshow, and in that way gain the attention of your audience.
7. Shop in stories
Instagram is a place that highly restrict the clickable links you share on the platform. The only visible place, before Instagram Stories where you could put the link to your website/web shop was your profile. But not anymore.
Now, you can also share a link on every story you share, as well as include fun and appealing drawings and visuals to encourage people to visit your shop.
Look at how Picmonkey created amazing visuals to encourage their viewers to swipe up!
Links in Stories is just a small part of the complete trend that is taking place on Instagram. The massive trend is that Instagram is transforming, and doing everything in their power to make Instagram a better platform for brands.
After all, it is the brands that finance Instagram by paying ads. Regular users are only financing Instagram by looking at the ads, but if there were no brands, there would be no ads.
So the overall trend is that Instagram is working to make the platform a better place for brands’ and links in Stories is one small step in that direction.
The bottom line is that you should let the links in Stories go to waste.
The link in your Story is the only place where you can personalise and encourage people to go to your link in a fun and engaging way. Implement it successfully and you’ll be able to see amazing results from it.
Conclusion
Trends are not only things that blow up in popularity over night, and then disappears equally quickly.
Trends can also be shifts in the marketing and indications on how things are evolving.
By stating on top of the latest trend and indications, you can stay agile and relevant to your target audience.
Are you using any of these 7 things on Instagram?
Which one?
