Instagram Guides Feature for SMBs - why we find it underrated?
Update as of December 2023: Instagram Guides are dead, long live Collections.
One thing is sure for all things and it applies to social media too: change is a constant. Since they didn’t prove to be wildly embraced by users, Instagram Guides have been shelfed. All existing Guides will be converted into collections. If you did love Guides and invested time in creating a few, here are some ways you can mimic them:
create a carousel post and pin it at the top of your profile
create a reel from the content of the guide
add a highlight to your account, using the content of the guide, this also allows you to keep updating it should it be a dynamic one.
Launched in May 2020, the Instagram Guides feature was initially enabled only for Health and Wellness creators. It was a covid-19 “reaction & support” feature aimed at enabling experts and content creators to create, share and spread well-being tips. Didn't we all need those very much at the time and still do!? Meanwhile, the feature enjoyed great response and it seems it was asked by many other users, so in November Instagram rolled it out to everyone.
We think it is great, super versatile in the way it can be used and also highly undervalued. Many asked for it but not everyone saw its potential after the full roll out.
So who are Instagram Guides for and how can they be used?
Instagram guides look and work like albums for content. It allows you to group together content using the taxonomy that makes more sense for you. Instagram starts by giving you 3 guide types to choose from - let’s look at them:
Guide for Places / Locations - think of Best places to eat in Paris or Top secret destinations in Europe. It is a perfect fit for sharing your location-based recommendations - city guides, restaurants, cafes, parks, spas… the choice is yours.
Guide for Products - Best looking wool sweaters for spring 2022 or Favorite sustainable products for house-hold. So here's a way to share and keep updating a list of your favorite products. The only requirement is for the products to be present on an Instagram shop, yours or someone else’s.
Guides for Posts - here think of virtually any way of combining and labelling content, anything that makes sense for the content you produce, support or “consume”, but mostly think of any grouping that creates value for your followers or potential profile visitors. For example, for the @journee.digital account, we created the Digital Marketing & Tech Guide for Small Businesses and we added to it all the posts we have under this editorial series.
What's awesome about having a Guides section on your Instagram account?
Creating an Instagram Guide does not always require you to create new content. In a Guide you can combine your own past posts, that can be resurfaced and repurposed, with content created by other public accounts on Instagram. You can even create a Guide bringing together only content created by others - the only requirement is that you have found and previously saved the posts you wish you include in the guide.
It allows for (your) most relevant posts to be easily surfaced, visualized and browsed through together. Like this key content pieces don't get lost in the feed as time passes by.
An Instagram Guide brings consuming scrollable content and storytelling to a whole new level. Having guides on your account allows the other users to follow a curated flow of posts, including all the commentary each received throughout time and it makes the original posting date irrelevant.
Being able to bring in your guide content from other creators opens up the door to many more ways of mutual support and partnership. For example, it is an excellent way of validating, supporting and promoting the work and content of other creators, of your partners or simply brands or accounts that you value. Additionally, very cool guides can be created in collaboration with your partners, so it is an excellent way to complement each other's skills and bring forward reinforced content for your common audiences.
Once created, guides can be easily updated as well as shared in stories or DMs.
While the usage of Guides for places and products is quite obvious, let’s brainstorm some ideas for creating guides from posts:
Recipes - if your account has a food & cooking theme. It is better to split them by theme or main ingredient type so that they become easier to browse through versus a super long one that contains all your recipes. Be mindful though of the amount of guides you create in total, do not over-do it either.
Step-by-step instructions guide for virtually anything! How to knit a sweater from selecting the model and the wool all the way to creating a customized label with a sweet message on it. A guide like this can cover anything from the DIY theme to how to create and launch an advertising campaign or fix your bike wheel.
Gift guide for the ones who have it all / for your best friend’s wedding / for your friend with pet/ for new parents. Recommend gift ideas, experiences, out-of-the-box or hand-made presents.
A list of tips for specific situations or categories of consumers or clients. This is the route we have selected at Journee to kick off our first guide, one that shares tips & tricks around digital tools, digital budgeting, platform selection and time allocation for small business owners.
Promote a cause - provide the story, the resources and summarize the efforts done so far and the success achieved. Show users how they can contribute as well.
Tell the story of a brand or a project. Can be a selection of posts that introduce users (new followers for examples) to the main chapters and characters of your brand - from launch day, company values, posts about the founders and main products to key company milestones.
Spotlight your partners, your joint projects or simply their success stories. Why not? Supporting each other is the best way to build a trust-worthy long term relationship.
So how are Instagram Guides different compared to the Highlights feature?
Because we get it, highlights are quite popular and they have a sweet spot visibility wise as you land on the profile view.
Guides offer a richer and easier navigation and reading experience compared to the stories highlights feature.
You can scroll down at your own pace.
Every post in the guide has a title and can also have an excerpt to give you a better idea of what the content is about. You can choose only the ones that interest you the most and ignore the rest.
You can click in and out of every post without leaving the guide.
Guides can be shared, as a collection or as an album of content/posts. They can be shared in stories or DMs.
You can share the guide in your stories after you create it as well as later on, to bring attention to an updated version.
You can send it via DM to someone asking you about a topic that one of your guides addresses.
Other users can share your guides in their own stories or send them as DMs to their connections.
Highlights do not offer the same, not as a collection of posts, only as per individual story in the highlight and even that is at times quite restricted when it comes to sharing, depending on the settings you have in place.
One thing is true for both Guides and Highlights - having too many Guides or too many Highlights at the same time will only make each of them less visible and harder to find. So be strategic and selective when you decide on the total number of Guides or Highlights. Also a guide with 45 posts might be too heavy, so again keep it short and sweet in terms of number of entries, so as to facilitate their consumption.
Once you have an Instagram Guide, how can you make the most out of it?
The key is to keep it updated and share it as much as you can.
Bring it back into your stories every time an important update was brought to the content.
Use it and incorporate it when answering DMs that you receive in your account.
Push it via DMs to the accounts with which you have an interest in creating a connection or building a relationship.
Send your “Brand Story” Guide to your new followers.
Ask your partners, the one that you have synergies with around a specific content theme, to share your relevant guides in their stories or DMs.
Incorporate guides it in a reel
And lastly, how do you actually create a Guide?
Here is a step-by-step guide since we having a guides theme:
From your profile, click the create button (plus symbol in the upper right corner).
Select Guide further down the list of post types.
Tap on guide type Posts
Start choosing posts to include in your guide by selecting them from your All Saved or Your Posts views. You can swap between these views and select content from both.
Tap Next and add a title and description for your Guide. If you would like to use a different cover photo, tap Change Cover Photo and go ahead.
Add a title and optionally a short description for every post in the guide.
Tap Next in the upper right corner and then tap Share.
Voilà, c'est fait!
That’s it for our guide to the Instagram Guide Feature. Hope we inspired you to create your own. Go ahead - do one today and share it with us! We will gladly share our thoughts and feedback.
About Journee - Digital at Ease
Founded by two digital marketing professionals with extensive international experience, Journee GmbH is a female owned digital marketing and technology boutique consultancy.
We aim to make a big difference for the small: small business owners and solopreneurs looking to start and advance on their business digital journey.
Our combined expertise covers digital marketing, digital analytics, advertising, marketing technology as well as overall digital strategy support and mentorship.