Instagram’s new "Join chat sticker" lets you ask your followers to join a new group chat. 

The feature was recently announced on Instagram’s official Twitter account: “Introducing the new chat sticker in Stories. Now, there’s an easy way to start conversations with a group of friends right from your story.”

Here's how it works:

• Go to your Stories
• Click on the Sticker button on the top right corner, where you will now find a Chat sticker button.
• Then just name the chat, post to your Story, and let the chat requests pour in.

People viewing Stories can request to join group direct message conversations tied to those Stories, and all requests must be approved by the Story creators.

Today I want to share with you my Top 10 Secrets for great Instagram Stories:

1. Animate Action Cues for Swipe-up (Arrows for example)

2. Design with the right Margins for Username & CTA

3. Always use animations like videos, GIFs or overlays

4. If more than 15sec —> Carousel for more complex stories

5. Mimic Organic Behavior —> stickers, drawing, homemade

6. Always add text layers (70% without sound)

7. Include Branding in beginning & end (99% of not-clickers)

8. Multiple scenes work better to keep user entertained

9. Revers TV-commercial Hero-Stream: Start with highlight

10. Try "behind-the-scenes" like unpacking

What the full video here:

Instagram revealed a new branded content option. Brands can now promote organic branded content posts from creators as ads within the photo- and video-sharing platform’s feed.

"68% of people say they come to Instagram to interact with creators. With branded content ads, businesses have an opportunity to tell their brand stories through creators' voices, reach new audiences and measure impact. Using the tools available on the Facebook ads platform, businesses can reach targeted audiences beyond the people who follow the brand and creator accounts. And by running ads, they'll have access to measurement and can optimize and test their campaigns against their set goals for more effective marketing campaigns. When these ads appear in feed and stories, people will see “Paid partnership with” along with the brand name on each post—which is very important for ads transparency" - published Instagram.

Once brands gain access to the new option, they must complete...

As we recently shared in this Blog, Instagram reached over a billion of users in June 2018. (source->statista.com)

In addition, is also said that almost 100 million of photos are daily shared on Instagram.

For all these and other well known reasons, marketers should have Instagram in their plans. If you are creating a startup or just creating for the first time the Instagram profile for a business, you need to have in mind at least these 5 tips:

1.Create a great, killer, awesome Instagram profile

This is even more important for small companies and Startups. Include the elements that describes better what you are offering. Think about this area as your Elevator Speech.

When posting pictures/videos, think about how they will look like on your board. Try to have as much cohesion as possible when posting.

2. Use Instagram Stories

Nowadays Facebook is highlighting that Instagram Stories is the placement where users spend more time. When thinking on Instagram Stories... think...

July has just ended and hereby the Top Instagram Features of the past month.

1. IGTV Creators Handbook

You can download it here. It is a dropbox file. The guide is composed by 50 pages of best practices and useful tips on how to grow your audience on Instagram.

2. Instagram Topic Channels

Instagram says over 200 million people visit Explore every day to discover new ideas and find inspiration.

They even share a Pro tip: These Topic Channels will show you hashtags related to the channel you’re viewing. Use these hashtags to elevate your own posts and get more reach, because if they’re popular enough for Instagram to list, there’s a good chance people are using and searching for them.Those people are likely your target audience.

3. Video Chat in Direct Messaging

Let this picture explain for itself

Now, you can video chat in Instagram Direct, either with just one person or a group.

4. Music in Instagram Stories

Add a soundtrack...

Have you ever wandered which is the Best Time to post on Instagram? Well, this question has an easy answer.

There are many studies conducted for several companies saying that is better to post at lunch hours, commuting hours, at night... Better to post on Mondays rather than Fridays... However the trust is... Trust your own data.

If you access into your Instagram Stats, you will have access to a chart showing clearly when your users are connected and which are the best hours to post in order to have a better organic reach.

You can also find this information, related to ads, inside Facebook Ads Manager.

Moreover, analyze your overall business data. Access to your Google Analytics account and Analyze per hour/day which is the best time for reaching new audience or even driving more sales.

If you don't know how to create these Customized Reports, you have a simple one in the "Home tab" of Google Analytics. Will tell you which are the best hours/days of the week based on user traffic....

Is Influencer Marketing included in your Marketing Plan?

Are you thinking in hiring Instagram Influencers? Hereby 5 things you need to have in mind before paying:

1. Analyze their audience:

First of all, check their followers, analyze if are more male/female, who of them Like/Comment their posts and if their engagers match with your brand

Analyze other brands collaborating with the Instagram Influencer.

Ask them to share with you their data of average engagement, active followers... If not, don't pay them. If they don't share this information with you that's a clear red flag.

2. Offer no win no fee deals

One common practice is to create a Discount Code together with the Influencer. From each sale coming from the redeemed coupon, you will share a % of the profits with the Influencer. So if you don't win, they don't win.

3. Contest collaboration (giveaway)

One of the best practices or at least gives high engagement results is to create a Giveaway. The influencer will post a...

Might sound as an easy topic, but I have lately received many questions regarding this: What is the different between personal and business Instagram profile?

With a business account, you could include additional information on your profile such as:

• Phone Number
• Email Address
• Business physical location
• If you add 1 contact option, a contact button appears in your profile.
• + You will have access to Instagram Insights.

Note: have in mind that a Business Profile on Instagram can only be connected to a single Facebook Page.

Go to the official guide here.

Instagram Insights:

You will get lot of extra information about your followers and posts.

Here I leave you the official and complete guide about Instagram Insights.

Some time back, we wrote Five Instagram Marketing Tips for New Business. There we talked about:

1. Create a great, killer, awesome Instagram profile
2. Use Instagram Stories
3. Run Contests
4. Cobranding
5. Use of Hashtags

We are now giving 5 more tips :)

1. Play with different types of content

Content is King. Try to create stories with your organic posts. Analyze more engaging content and insist on that. For analyzing you could use own Instagram Stats or external platforms. Combine video, pictures, carousels...

2. Organic vs. Ads

It is very important to keep Ad content away form organic. Even more, if you're on a Sales campaign, post it on organic but delete it when the promotion has ended.

Keep your brand as far as possible from discounts. Discounts are for special occasions or campaigns + potential costumers in a very low stage of the funnel (retargeting campaigns). If not users will get used to buy always with discount and that could carry several problems.

3. Influencer Marketing

...

Instagram was celebrating over 1 year of life and the co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger were recently honored with spots on Fortune’s 40 under 40 and Business Insider’s 25 under 25 lists, respectively.

At that time, the social network had over 12 million of active users. Nowadays, over 800 million :)