There’s al lot of changes going on within the social media platforms.  Here’s a quick update to help you along the way.

INSTAGRAM

Want more people to see your Instagram posts?

It’s important to understand the distinction between tagging an account and @mentioning an account. These terms are often used interchangeably but they’re actually different.

An @mention is accomplished by placing the @ symbol in front of somebody’s Instagram username in a comment or your caption to mention them and get their attention. Only the content creator can tag people in the post itself but an @mention can be done on any content by anyone. when an account is tagged on Instagram, the content is housed on a separate tab on their Instagram profile. The tagged content basically becomes a giant gallery of user-generated content about the brand.

If you aren’t using reels, you really should be! Instagram reels are discoverable through hashtags and the Explore feed. Instagram Stories, on the other hand, are typically shown only to your existing network. There’s no way to explore and discover stories the same way you can with Instagram reels.

 

FACEBOOK

Speaking of Instagram, you can now do Reels on the app on Facebook and share your Reels you create from Instagram to your business Facebook page!! This means that Instagram Reels is what will grow your audience. Posting relevant content and using relevant hashtags will help you get in front of your audience.

Then once your reels draw them in, Instagram Stories is the ideal spot to nurture your audience, as is Facebook  stories. You should be using them more than you are posting on the platform.

PINTEREST

Pinterest is rolling out new features for advertisers and brands to promote their products to users on its site. The launch marks the company’s latest initiative to grow online shopping and advertising on its platform.

A new “slideshow for collections” feature pulls products from brands’ catalogues and automatically turns them into a “collections ad.” Pinterest notes that this new feature will help advertisers easily produce video-like content tailored to individual users. The aim is to encourage shoppers to purchase more items at once, as the company notes that shoppers on Pinterest have 85% bigger baskets than shoppers on other platforms and spend twice as much per month. Since shoppers will be browsing more than one product at a time through the slideshow feature, they’re more likely to purchase additional items.

Pinterest is launching another new feature called “merchant details” to allow brands to showcase their values on their profile. Brands can showcase values such as “responsibly sourced” and “inclusive.” Further, companies can also highlight communities that they are a part of, such as “Women-owned” and “Black-owned.”  The company is also expanding its Verified Merchant Program, which helps users find vetted brands, to Austria, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. Brands who have been vetted get enhanced distribution and a “verified” badge on their profiles.

People who use Pinterest weekly are 7x more likely to say it’s the most influential platform in their purchase journey, compared to social media platforms.