What are Instagram Guides?
Guides were originally launched in May 2020 by Instagram to support wellness as a result of the pandemic, and then later released to all accounts in November 2020. They are exactly what they sound like – a guide to content about your brand.
The concept is pretty simple – think of a topic for your brand based on the types of posts you already have on your feed – then pull together those posts into one scrolling page with additional text to bring it all together. You can create as many Guides as you’d like and share them in your Stories, quickly and easily!
Why should you create a Guide for your brand?
Organic reach on Instagram is becoming more and more difficult, and to get a leg up over paid content you’ll need to take advantage of all the features available to you on the platform.
Guides are awesome at helping you create new content for Instagram without actually having to generate new posts or Stories.
You read that right – since you are simply curating a series of posts from your feed that you’ve already posted, you don’t need to go through the process to generate anything new.
Guides take maybe 5 mins to create. And I’ve included a step-by-step tutorial below with a video to walk you through it. You got this.
What can I create Guides about?
Every brand is different, so you’ll have to think about the kind of content that will be most interesting to your audience, but here are some thought starters:
- Your brand’s Content Pillars. Don’t know what Content Pillars are? Get caught up here.
- Instructional content. Guides are great for creating step-by-step or how-to posts (like recipes or different ways to style your shelves). I scoured the internet to find examples of designers using Guides in their business and found zero to share here with you – so there’s a massive opportunity for home brands to leverage this new feature. Check out the Guides by Headspace, AFSP, and Sudahdong for inspiry in creating yours.
- Product catalogs. Anyone selling anything on Instagram can create product catalogs with Guides. If you have a retail shop, you can use them to curate your favorite products, seasonal collections, or create basic category Guides – like seating, lighting, textiles, etc. The possibilities are only limited to your imagination (and current posts – but plan ahead and even that won’t stop you). Check out @baileyjst for product curated Guides.
- Style guides. Here’s where it gets kinda interesting…@apartmenttherapy mined their #apartmenttherapy hashtag for holiday decor from their readers and created a Guide with scenes from their fans and followers. That’s huge! But even if you don’t have a trove of user generated content, you can still curate from your own content for different seasons or holidays, events or industry-related posts, local businesses you want to support or makers you love, etc.
- Year-in-review or day-in-the-life guides: Give your clients insight into how your business works with Guides that tell a story about what they can expect when they hire you or work with you.
So how do I create a Guide?
Open Instagram and tap the + sign in the upper right corner.
From the Choose Guide Type menu, select the type of Guide you’d like to create (Places, Products, or Posts). Keep in mind you’ll only be able to add content that you have posted to your feed – but that can include Reels or IGTV posts, just not Stories.
- Places: Input a location listed on Instagram (for the example below I’m using High Point Market). Instagram will pull up all public content geotagged with that location, not just your content. This is great if you run a local business and want to feature posts from your fans and followers. You can choose up to 5 posts.
- Products: Use the Products tab to curate posts related to products on your Instagram Shop. Input your shop name (or the shops of accounts you follow if you’re creating a shoppable Guide for a client for example). Select the shop you want to feature and then scroll to choose the first product for your Guide. You can also select and add posts about the product from your feed or your Shop. Add additional products to fill your Guide, a title and description for each product and then publish!
- Posts: Create a Guide from your posts or your saved posts. You have the option to include up to 30 posts.
- Published guides live on your profile page as an icon (that looks like a little book, or guide) in the menu next to IGTV, Reels, and posts you’re tagged in.
Editing your Guide is super easy.
Publish your Guides and share freely on your Stories or DMs (especially useful for shopping guides or how to work with us Guides!).
Recap
Use Instagram’s new Guides feature to curate your posts and enhance your brand’s #socialStorytelling on Instagram. Don’t forget to share your Guides in your Stories, and have fun! ✨
