← Social Media Marketing Talk Show
Social Media Marketing Talk Show
Instagram Updates: Edits App Features, Inbox Tools, Pinnable Comments, and More
00:11:33
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- [00:01]
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I have some really exciting news. We just released our second annual AI Marketing Industry Report and it's free. You'll be surprised by how often marketers are using AI and the tools that they're using. This is a comprehensive study of more than 730 marketers, and it covers how marketers are applying AI to their work, the benefits of AI, the big concerns marketers have, and a whole lot more. Even though I'm the author of this research study, I can say with full confidence that this is the most comprehensive study of AI adoption among marketers that I have ever seen. Get your free copy now by visiting social mediaexaminer.com aireport25 this might be just what you need to get your boss or your clients moving along with those AI initiatives you want to start. Get it now@socialmediaexaminer.com Airport25 hey, it's Michael Stelzner here. After running Social Media marketing world for 12 years, I've noticed something fascinating about the marketers who attend. They usually fall into two camps. Camp number one is those who show up because they have to. Their results are declining. They're scrambling to catch up. And camp number two is those who show up because they want to. They're already achieving a level of success, but they know that change is coming and they want to go so much further. Both learn valuable insights, but their outcomes are completely different. As Emily Ray Shutti said, I came away with a million ideas and new creative ways to approach my work. My business has since doubled in size and revenue. The AI revolution is here. Instagram algorithms keep shifting, Facebook's ad costs keep rising, and the list goes on and on and on. What type of marketer will you be in 2026? Join thousands of marketers at Social Media Marketing World 2026 this April in Anaheim, California. Save big when you register today at Social MediaMarketingWorld.info welcome to the Social Media Marketing Talk show, your guide to the ever changing world of social media.
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On today's show, we're going to make sure you're up to date on Instagram's latest changes. Some important stuff here, including a new way to have a call to action on your Instagram content. Always good for businesses, right? Also, some potential huge algorithm shifts that I think will affect certain audiences more than others and could be good or could be bad. So we'll update you on that and if part of your marketing happens in the dm, some cool updates for you there as well. My name is Jerry Potter, host of the Social Media Marketing talk show, a Social Media examiner production. We break down all the latest social media news and what it means for marketers like you. Well, one thing we're always wondering when we're investing our time in a platform like Instagram is like, is it on the rise, is it on the decline? And there's all these different things out there. But one thing is undeniable. Instagram is still growing. Instagram reached 3 billion monthly active users. So that's a huge milestone as a big part of the world's population. Now do point out that, you know, they always twist these the way that they Sound the best, I.e. monthly active users monthly, meaning that could include people that only sign in once a month. But obviously a good sign for those of us that are investing any of our marketing time or money into Instagram. They say the growth is attributed to messaging reels and then recommendations. And I'd shared this actually with some of the Social Media examiner team recently. I have a 15 year old son and we just kept asking for him to ask for like TikTok or YouTube or something else like and he just, he would know I want Instagram. All my friends message each other on Instagram. So the messaging thing is obviously where they're investing their time, both Instagram and the people. So not surprising there at all. Another interesting move from Instagram is they're launching a native iPad app. So if something doesn't have an iPad app, you can usually load the iPhone version and then make it bigger, but then it's pixelated and it doesn't look very good. So after 15 years there's going to be an iPad app. And I think this is an interesting move, especially when you hear what's included. It feels to me to be in the same path as how we've heard about. YouTube has become so much more of a living room TV platform than it was in the past when it was mostly like on mobile devices or computers. So when you open the iPad app, this is good to know so we know what our audience is going to experience. Launches right into reels for what they call a lean back entertainment experience. So that's sort of what I meant by that, you know, living room viewing. So we may see reels, views go up simply because of this and then also right at the top, stories are going to be there. So the main thing they're trying to add with this is the ability for people to multitask and do more than one thing in Instagram on the same screen. The other thing that's interesting too is there's a newly added following tab and it gives you three different views. One is basically all, which is going to be the what we normally see when we log into Instagram. But then you'll also be able to switch into Friends and then also latest a chronological feed which I know a lot of people say they still want. So that is all going to be in there. And reels, by the way, they say now account for over 20% of Instagram usage. So that's moving a big way, a lot in that direction for sure. All right, some other updates we've got to talk about, but if you're looking to update your marketing and take it to the next level, after 12 conferences and tens of thousands of glowing testimonials from attendees, Social Media Marketing World is still the number one place to improve your marketing. AI has obviously changed marketing, so that's been a huge part of the event now. And being there in person is the best way to attend because in addition to discovering the latest marketing strategies, you also make valuable connections. It's amazing what happens in the hallways at this event that doesn't happen at a lot of events. You get to connect with other marketers on a very similar journey. These connections can't be found anywhere else. Learn more Grab your all access ticket today. Go to social mediamarketing.world again, social mediamarketing.world. all right, a new way to pin your comments so you can actually have better calls to action. Instagram has now expanded the pin comments feature. We've had this for a while where you could pin a comment, but now we can pin our own comments. So previously you were only able to pin other people's comments on your posts and reels. So this will now work on posts and reels. And rather than only being able to pin other people's, you can do your own. So first of all, this is a real good excuse to comment on your own post before anybody else even does, right? So it shows that there's comments. I know as marketers, sometimes we do that, we're like, and I'm just going to go ahead and leave a comment myself. So it looks like there's a comment there. But the rollout began this week and you should have this soon if you don't see it yet. But it's an opportunity to add additional context calls to action. You still can't have a clickable link, as far as I know, unless something changed in the last 48 hours or so. But you can have a clickable link there, but still a call to action to a URL that's easy to remember, like social media examiner.com for example. Answer frequently asked questions. And one of the things that I really like about this is the ability to provide updates. So imagine that you posted a piece of content and it's like, okay, what's going to happen? We'll find out, we'll tell you later. And then you're actually able to go in and then provide an update. Or if people asked a lot of questions or commented with different things, you can come back and pin the most frequently asked answer to the most frequently asked question there at the top. It's a feature that I use on YouTube a lot and this is where really, really powerful. So watch for that. You should have it soon if you don't have it already. All right. Algorithm changes rarely as marketers do. We look at this as good news, right? We're usually like, oh good, let me roll my eyes as far back as they will go. But Instagram says they're going to begin testing user controlled algorithm tuning, starting with reels, basically allowing users to add or remove topics of interest. So we've heard a lot about that. Giving people more control of the short form video feeds on multiple platforms, letting people reset their algorithm, different things like that. If you also watch videos, you also know how quickly. If you watch two things about a new topic of some sort, like, apparently I love backyard swimming pool makeovers, a bunch more will fill your feed really, really quickly. But they're going to give people the ability to add or remove specific topics of interests. So this could be good because if you have something that people actively know they want to see, then they may add you as a topic of interest. At the same time, if it's not something that people actively know they want to see, then this could absolutely hurt our reach really, really soon. You know, I've worked in marketing of some form in my entire career and used to have access to focus groups where they would put people in a room and actually ask them questions and things like that. And one thing that is true, and anyone who's done a lot of market research in any industry can tell you, is that what people say they want versus what they actually want are not always the same thing. So it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. The other thing too, you know, you might think about your audience and if you have an audience that's very active in terms of like choosing what they want, they're very specific. Maybe they have more free time to go in and customize These things, those are the audiences I think that we might see the fastest either growth or drop if they go in and start making some of these changes. Me, I'm way too busy and lazy and focused on other things to ever go in and even answer any of those. So, like anyone who is targeting me, you're probably not going to see any change. All right, Instagram is adding some new Inbox tools. If you do marketing in the DMs, it is in the beginning, it was real hard, right, that single inbox, but they've added all kinds of new things over the years, and now a few new things you're going to be able to do. One, you're going to be able to create new folders so you can organize messages and really streamline some of your communications. So that's massive, especially if you're trying to organize leads or keep track of things for certain promotions or, you know, even categorize things. Like, if you did a big promotion, then you could put everything in a folder and then go back and reference it in the future. Also, filtering options, you can sort messages by follower count, like how many followers the person has, verification status, and some other criteria as well. And then this I like. I think this is my favorite one. A new dedicated folder for story replies has been added. So now you can have your story replies separate from your general messages. And so it just gives you another way to organize. If your brand posts a lot of stories and you get a lot of replies, great to be able to kind of separate those out. That way you can prioritize either replying to people who reply to your story or prioritize the main inbox, whichever one happens to be more important. All right. Instagram is expanding its Shots image sharing feature. So if you haven't seen this, Shots enables users to send unedited, unfiltered photos to mutual followers, which then disappear after a single view for the recipient, but you'll still be able to have them as the sender. I am a huge fan of this for us as marketers for years and still today, you know, I consider myself a recovering perfectionist. But as businesses, as markers, we kind of feel like, oh, we've got to get this perfect. Maybe you're not the boss, you're the marketing person, and you want to make sure you get everything perfect for your boss. So that's a lot of pressure. That's why I loved when Stories first came out for Snapchat and then came over to Instagram, just because it gave us this incredible way to Put out stuff on the fly, take a deep breath and not panic about it. So it'll be interesting. I think for certain brands you could try this from a marketing standpoint because it's kind of like, hey, just send this quick, unedited, unfiltered photo sharing what you're doing, something that's going on, any number of things like that. And of course, as you know, with new features, the people that use them first often get the big benefit of increased reach. Now since they do go out to mutual followers, it'll depend on your follower account, of course, and, and how many people actually have the feature so far or don't. And another thing, to make content creation easier, Instagram's Edits app, which is their free app where you can actually publish straight to Instagram, they've added a couple of new features that are helpful. One, you can now switch any main clip into an overlay and vice versa. So all of a sudden now you can, you know, reorder things on the timeline in that way, which is really nice. And then another one is a sound effects save. So as a video person myself, I've been studying sound design a little bit and those are those things where, you know, something changes on the screen and there's like a little sound effect or something like that. And when it's not overdone, like it's just constantly popping at you every time something comes on the screen, it's actually very soothing to watch. So this new feature now allows you to save frequently used sound effects for quick access in future projects. So maybe you only use two or three sound effects in all your videos now. You don't have to go in and dig them out and find them every single time. All right, quick reminder. Learn about your all access ticket for Social Media Marketing World today. Go to Social Media Marketing World again, Social mediamarketing World. And if you enjoy this podcast, you'll probably love the Social Media Marketing podcast as well. You can find it wherever you listen to your podcasts. Until next time, may you be wise with your marketing decisions. Thanks everyone. Bye.
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The Social Media Marketing Talk show is a Social Media Social Media examiner production. For more social media Insight, visit social mediaexaminer.com this is the year to finally come to Social Media Marketing World 2026. Grab your tickets right now by visiting social media marketing world.in fox.