by Brittany McSorley
Part of our job as Cape Cod social media marketers is staying up to date on the latest developments in the digital marketing world. If you’re a small business owner trying to keep up, read on to stay in the know.
Instagram Notes
For starters, Instagram rolled out a new feature last week, expanding the use of Notes to Reels and posts. According to USA Today, “Notes previously appeared at the top of the inbox or above the profile photo. The update allows users to share notes on posts from friends or brands, reacting (ostensibly) in real time, and see reactions from others while scrolling.”
This feels reminiscent of Instagram launching Threads last summer. Back then, the platform was offering users an alternative to Twitter; expanding Notes could be a similar move to incorporate more text on the image-focused app.
Is sharing Notes a viable marketing opportunity? You can share notes you’ve made with two groups: “close friends” or “followers you follow back,” so it may not be the most effective tool for small business marketers, but we think it’s worth it to give any new feature a try. You never know what the next big thing might be.
Carousels
If you’ve been seeing more carousels (posts with multiple photos) on Instagram lately, it’s no coincidence. According to Rival IQ, researchers at Hootsuite recently “found that carousels earn more than 3x the average engagement of a static photo post on Instagram.” These dynamic alternatives to single-photo posts are effective on Facebook as well.
While curating carousels means more work for content creators, the improvement in reach seems more than worth it; small business marketers should aim for multiple photos per post for peak engagement. For extra credit, try a “seamless carousel,” one larger image broken up into multiple slides. The temptation to scroll through those posts to get the whole picture is irresistible, so engagement is pretty much guaranteed.
Reels
It hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that Reels have come to dominate the Instagram algorithm over the past few years. Video’s superiority over static content seems official and permanent, which leads to an important question: Are Reels now a requirement for effective social media marketing? All signs point to yes.
According to CMSWire’s breakdown of Sprout Social’s midyear marketing trends research, Instagram is the top platform of choice for users across age demographics. The study also found that Stories and Reels were the features used most over a period of six months. So if the majority of your marketing content is still photos with video lagging behind, you’re probably losing out on a bigger online audience. As with carousels, this trend means more work for content creators, but the boost in engagement is significant. And as with carousels, Reels are becoming more prominent on Facebook as well as Instagram. We at KDC utilize Facebook Reels for all of our clients and recommend small business marketers do the same.
As always, we’ll continue to keep an eye on digital marketing trends and share best practices (or at least best guesses — things change really quickly online).
