Instagram has been busy lately rolling out new features for their travel and food-obsessed users. Here’s a helpful rundown on how to best utilize stories, polls and galleries to better engage your audience!
Instagram Stories on Desktop
Set to be rolling out to all Instagrammers within a few weeks, stories will now be easier than ever to watch thanks to being available on big and small screens. Sharing cocktails by the pool will be more envy-inducing than ever before!
Instagram Stories Polls
Seen the interactive 2-option poll sticker a lot lately? The new feature allows all users to ask a customized question and see results in real time. And, while the default answers are “Yes” and “No”, don’t feel limited — those can be customized as well. Care to see which potential menu items would be most appreciated by your guests, or which complimentary amenity would provide the most value in the eyes of your traveler? There’s a poll for that.
From the same update that brought us polls come two new handy tools to bring your stories to the next level. A color picker now allows you to source shades for text and brushes straight from your picture or video for a cohesive stories color palette, and an alignment tool is now available for text and stickers.
Instagram Galleries Update
Slideshow abilities have been a savior for those times when users want to post related images but not inundate their feeds with repetitive or similar looking content — think special events, trips or renovations. The one flaw to this feature was that all images were cropped square by default, which was a quick way to ruin beautifully composed landscape shots of beach, mountain and city views. The new version will allow for landscape and portrait images within the same gallery, so your selfies and panoramic shots can be shared side by side.
Have you started experimenting with Instagram’s new features? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!