This year Instagram has been on constant trending growth.
The social network has become so popular that it recently achieved the sixth place of popularity among worldwide users.
This year we saw the birth of IGTV, a platform to compete directly with Snapchat and YouTube; the birth of Instagram Shopping, which wants to compete with Etsy and eBay.
Now, Instagram has a new surprise for us: redesigning the user profile.
This here and that there
Instagram announced they’ll be moving things constantly, so we can expect changes on the top part of profiles, buttons, messaging and stories.
The first noticeable thing are the changes in the order of data.
While right now we have the profile picture, followers and accounts followed on the same line of vision, the changes will affect the name, profile picture and contact data on the same line, while the followers would be under with a smaller font.
Finally right at the bottom, we would have the buttons for follow and direct message.
More options for business accounts.
There will also be big changes on business accounts.
We will have all the profile changes we talked about plus, more button options, and tabs.
The buttons included are: call, email, address (which will probably open on Maps or Waze) and order (which would allow us to make a purchase from the store).
Meanwhile, the tabs to be added are: IGTV and Store.
The store tab seems to be sort of an announcement that Instagram will allow us to have a virtual store on-page, which had been announced but hasn’t really grown yet, as it is still on testing phase.
For the time being, we remain using “Swipe Up” on stories to lead directly to the user’s store outside of Instagram.
What will happen then?
We can’t really know how Instagram will look like on the beginning of 2019.
However, the moves they are testing sound interesting.
For us, i.e. it makes us think about the yellow pages, but made out of photos resembling more of a catalog, something that Google doesn’t have and that could lead to Instagram breaking that particular mold on social networks.
While users have been leading the way to these changes thanks to natural interactions and sales through private messaging and selling groups on Facebook, it was kinda obvious that Instagram would look for a transition that solidifies it as THE virtual mall.
As marketers, we are in time to plan a way that helps us take these new options and making our client shine through them with whatever sticks on Instagram in the end.
Sources
www.theverge.com
www.socialmediatoday.com
www.instagram-press.com
www.searchenginejournal.com