A Recap Of All The New Features Rolled Out By Instagram In 2021

Are you looking for the latest features rolled out by Instagram to use in your 2022 marketing campaign?

With over 2 billion monthly active users spanning across various cultures, regions and demographics, Instagram indeed offers an unparalleled opportunity for marketers to promote their offerings to their target customers using creative content.

However, this social media giant has grown rapidly in its features and scope over the years.

As a result, only the most flexible and up-to-date marketers can make the most of the new opportunities it constantly offers. Any delays and your competition will take over!

So, do you want to leverage the new features of Instagram and stand out from this huge competition?

Keep reading to find the new Instagram features from the past year that you must apply to succeed as an Instagram marketer in 2022-

Professional dashboard 

Instagram started off 2021 with a much awaited Dashboard feature that helps Businesses and Creators to track and improve their performance on Instagram. 

So, if you have a business or creator account, you can now find all the key performance metrics about your Instagram account in one dashboard. Moreover, the dashboard provides you with expert tips and guidelines to boost your Instagram following!

“Recently deletedâ€� feature 

No more worries about accidentally deleting your content!

Instagram now has a Recently Deleted feature that lets you restore deleted files.

You just need to go into the “settingsâ€�, navigate to  “accountâ€� and then open the “recently deletedâ€� folder. Here you can access and restore your deleted content for upto 30 days after deletion.

Live rooms 

Instagram now has a “Live Roomsâ€� feature that lets you video chat with upto 4 friends at a time. And yes, it provides a lot of creative filters to apply during the chat! 

Moreover, Live Rooms also offers many features to support creators and marketers such as-

• “Badgesâ€� that can be bought by viewers to support the broadcaster financially.
• Live shopping feature to buy products during the stream.
• Feature to organize fundraisers for companies.

Above all, it provides the opportunity to promote products/services to a targeted audience just like a simplistic and convenient webinar.

Instagram Insider

Instagram has launched its own digital magazine called “Instagram Insider�. This digital publication provides a deeper insight into the working of the platform and answers the questions that are frequently asked by users.

It offers a great chance for marketers and creators to understand and use the platform in a more effective and efficient manner. Remember to check it out!

Remix feature

With the innovative remix feature, you can remix the reels of other users and share them along with your own reels! This feature provides every user with unprecedented opportunities for content curation and collaboration with top influencers. 

As a marketer, you can now enhance your promotional content by including the most popular reels on Instagram. This will help you to easily attract and impress your target audience without any special efforts.

Caption Sticker

Captions can greatly increase the reach and impact of your Instagram content and the reason is simple! They are the ideal option to get your message across to those with impaired hearing or the lots of people who watch reels on mute.

All you need to do is add a captions sticker and Instagram will create and add captions to your video automatically. Isn’t that convenient?

New metrics

In line with its initiative to support the growth of new businesses and creators, Instagram has now added more metrics to its Insights feature. The key metrics that have been added include Engaged audience, Reached audience and Accounts engaged.

Owing to the new metrics, you can now get a better understanding about the reach and engagement of your live streams, reels and posts. Naturally, this will help you to make improvements in the content and get better access to your target audience.

New Collaboration options

A new feature called “Collab� is being introduced to allow users to collaborate for sharing Feed posts and Reels. Any user may invite another user to collaborate. And if the invitation is accepted, the new posts or reels will be shared with the followers of each of the collaborating users.

The collaborated posts or reels would show the name of both user accounts in the header along with a shared view count and common likes and comments. This is indeed a useful feature for collaborating with other marketers or users to enhance the reach of your promotional content.

Expansion in data tracking period 

Data tracking through Insights has been one of the most useful features for businesses on Instagram to judge and enhance their performance on the platform. 

Recognising this significance, Instagram raised the period of data tracking from 30 days to 60 days for all business accounts. This change is helping marketers to raise the accuracy of their analysis and forecasts while making more informed decisions.

Translation of text overlays

Another handy feature added by Instagram in 2021 is the translation of text in stories. Using this feature, the text overlays added in stories can now be automatically translated into the viewer’s language.

This is indeed a great support for marketers who are looking to enhance their reach and make entries into new markets.

Advertisements in the shopping tab and reels

Here’s some good news for marketers looking to sell on Instagram!

You can now add clickable advertisements to the shopping tab itself. 

The ad can be an image or carousel and clicking it would lead to the product page, where key details and purchase options are available. Moreover, you can now add advertisements in reels which will appear like any other reel but with a sponsored tag.

“Limits� and “Hidden words�

Are you tired of abusive comments and messages that tarnish the impression of your products or services? Just define the limits! 

The options to apply limits against abusive messages or hide specific words are now available under the privacy settings. 

These features would help you to easily block abusive and slanderous messages on the groups that you choose. However, the limits feature applies to only non-followers or those who recently started following you.

Sticker links

To the delight of creators and businesses, Instagram removed the criteria of having 10,000 followers to be able to add links in Instagram stories! Moreover, visiting a link has been made more intuitive by the option for clickable sticker links instead of swiping.

So, links can now be added by all users in Instagram stories using highly customizable stickers. This makes the sharing of customized promotional links much easier for new marketers and enhances the potential of promotion using Instagram stories.

Map searching feature

Feeling lost? You can now find nearby businesses using the map location search feature. Just click Explore and then the Map icon to find the local map with all the cafes, restaurants, bars and entertainment venues in the area!

This feature is especially useful for marketers to raise the online presence and promote their business on Instagram. So, as a marketer you must add your business to the Instagram map for boosting your visibility and attracting more local customers.

Partnerships

Instagram also came up with new partnership features to help content creators and brands to come together and create sponsored content more easily.

This feature update is aimed at helping content creators to communicate and collaborate more directly with brands on Instagram. Moreover, it opens a world of opportunities for affiliate content marketers to work with top brands on the platform.

IG live scheduling

Instagram has released new IG Live tools that help creators to easily schedule and promote their future live broadcasts.

You can schedule live sessions upto 90 days in advance and promote your upcoming live broadcasts with a feed post or stories stickers along with reminders for those who sign up.

Other features added in 2021

Here are some more features added in 2021 that can be relevant from a marketing perspective-

• Feature to upload photos and videos through desktop added to make the platform more accessible and convenient.
• Favorites and chronological ordering of posts added in user feeds to allow them better control over their feed content.
• New update to block any content that promotes racial bias.
• “Black owned businessâ€� tag that can be added to profiles of businesses owned by individuals from the black community.
• A new feature for embedding Instagram profiles on other websites.
• New audio tab that finds all reels that are using a particular song along with an option to save and use the song for your own content.

Conclusion

So, now you’re well aware of the brand new features rolled out by Instagram last year. If you want to make your content stand out from the competition and gain some loyal followers, you must incorporate all the above mentioned features to your Instagram marketing strategy.

It's time to get your Instagram marketing off to a flying start this new year by utilizing these new features now!

Do you think we missed something important? Please comment below and let us know your opinion!