Instagram is 10 years old! The popular social media platform has been an ever-present icon in our lives and they’ve decided to celebrate this milestone with a few new features. We’ll look at the latest updates, including a certain Instagram icon easter egg, and look back at how Instagram has changed over the years. The good, the bad, and the food pics.
What’s New?
Stories Maps
Instagram Stories are the little time-sensitive posts that appear at the top of your feed. These photos and videos disappear after a while similar to Snapchat. You can also save your Stories to your profile if you’ve got a particularly funny video of your mate dancing to ABBA. This is nothing new. What has surprised people is the introduction of Stories Maps.
Stories Maps gives you a private look at where you’ve posted Stories over the past three years. It’s a great way to walk down memory lane and take a look at your most popular places for Stories (far too many at the pub). Furthermore, you can also see a calendar with the dates you captured your Stories.
This feature, while showing off the capabilities of Instagram, does also remind us that privacy is at a premium. Instagram have shown their hand by showing how they track your movements, even with ‘temporary’ Stories.
Instagram Icon Easter Egg
This little Easter Egg is one that’s got people frantically searching for how to do it. Luckily, our social media expert figured it out long before I had to. This hidden setting allows you to change the Instagram app icon on your phone.
Whether you want to go old school with the Classic brown polaroid camera logo, show your support with a pride logo, or look trendy with the Designer grey-on-black logo, changing your logo is quick and easy. All you have to do is:
Make sure you have the up-to-date version of Update
Navigate to your profile
Open up the hamburger menu at the top of your page and go to ‘Settings’
Drag down on the screen with your finger until you see four emojis at the top of the screen
Let go and you’ll be taken to a menu where you can choose the app icon that best suits your style
We’ve also created a little video to help you out.
IGTV Instream Shopping
Instagram sees its future in eCommerce as well as social media. Their IGTV updates make purchasing a little bit easier. If a content creator adds an IGTV video and applies shopping tags; the video will show to viewers with a shopping bag icon at the bottom. This icon sits next to the message icon and makes the transition from scroll to purchase just that much easier.
From Valencia to Global Icon
Instagram hasn’t changed as much as the likes of Facebook. At least not drastically. Launched on iOS in 2010 and Android in 2012, Instagram didn’t have DMs or Stories. Photo capabilities were also limited, as you had to crop images to fit the square Polaroid shape and photo filters were very limited. Who can forget names like Clarendon, Gingham, Lark, and Juno? These filters defined aesthetics and were the precursor to influencers, Instagram Face, travelling to a holiday destination for the ‘Gram and spending at least five minutes trying to get the perfect photo of some latte art.
The format, however, has stayed similar to the initial design. Instagram may have a few new bells and whistles but its success comes from the Occam’s Razor approach; humans are visual creatures and like looking at nice pictures. Instagram figured this out a decade ago and seems set to stick to this winning formula for years to come.
Social media is a powerful tool that has become a key part of digital marketing. Whether Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook, good social media management is key to getting your name out there and driving conversions. If you’re interested in Instagram marketing or want to know more about our complete digital marketing solutions then give us a call.
