The latest Instagram update has provided us with this rad new feature called “Guides.” There are three types of guides that you can create Places, Products, and Posts. Creating one of these guides is an excellent way to combine your content and share other people’s content on Instagram.
What Is Instagram Guides?
Guides are collections of your posts and other users’ posts related to a particular topic. Think of guides as Instagram’s version of a Pinterest board, a highlight reel for your posts, or as your very own curated digital content zine.
The guides you set up can be about anything you want, but I would encourage you to create relevant guides for your business. For example, when this feature rolled out, I made my first guide for Holiday gift ideas from Women-Owned Business Owners. One of the most significant parts of guides is that they are shareable, meaning that other users can share your guide as a DM, in their story, or as a post.
How Can My Business Use Guides?
With the three categories; Places, Products, and Posts, the possibilities for how your business can make use of this feature are endless.
If you are a retail business, you can use the product guide to feature your specific products and share other companies that go with your product. For example, sell artisan body care products and feature your products. You can add towels or other home accessories that enhance the user’s experience with your product. If you are a store, you can create a guide representing the products available in your storefront.
I have had a few B2B and other service providers reach out and ask me how they can use guides. If you are a real estate agent, you can use the “places guide” and share posts related to specific neighborhoods of cities that you specialize in.
B2B service providers can create guides related to your industry’s news, your posts related to the industry, and share other users posts that resource another part of your industry that you do not specialize in but are essential.
Share Your Guide
Since this is such a new feature that snuck in the right under the holiday time, many users are not aware of this feature. To bring awareness, make sure that you share the guide that you worked so hard to create in your stories and on your feed.
If you need ideas on how guides could benefit your business, reach out for a FREE 20-minute consultation on making this feature work for you.