How to Use Instagram Guides for More Visibility

Want more exposure on Instagram? Have you considered curating Instagram guides?

In this article, you’ll discover how to create Instagram guides that people love and return to regularly.

What Are Instagram Guides?

Instagram guides are not new, they have been around for quite some time. Whilst they are a great feature, not many dental practices use them, by incorporating them into your brand strategy; you can stand out from the crowd.

Instagram guides live on your profile page and are essentially a collection of Instagram content that you can curate for your audience.

With guides, you can organise posts based on a theme of your choice and display them with short explanations and calls to action (CTAs) that prompt your audience to take the next steps. A good example of this would be a treatment FAQ, with some patient images and testimonials.

Guides can include static posts (both reels and image posts) from any public account. That means guides can feature content from your own account or others’ accounts including influencers, patients, or partners.

How to Create an Instagram Guide

Creating an Instagram guide takes just a few minutes. Let’s walk through the process:

#1: Decide on an Instagram Guide Strategy

First, get clear on the strategy you plan to use. Do you want followers to explore your available treatments, get a feel for the ethos of the practice, learn about your business locations or partners, or explore your practices’ Instagram content?

Then decide on your guide content strategy. Will your guide display content from your practice only? Or will you curate content to showcase user-generated content (UGC) from patients or influencers?

#2: Curate Instagram Content

Next, locate the content you plan to include in your guide. During the guide creation process, you can search for content and add it on the spot. Or you can save content in Collections for use at a later time.

?#3: Build Your Instagram Guide

Once you’ve planned your Instagram guide, you’re ready to start building the final product. ??

Guides are can only be made in the app for the moment.

In the Instagram app, navigate to your profile, tap the plus sign in the upper-right corner, and select Guide.

Note that the Guide option only appears in the full Instagram content creation menu, not in the shortcut located in the menu at the bottom of the screen.

The post based Guide interface has a two options for adding content. You can scroll through all of the items you’ve saved, from either your content or that saved from others OR your posts tab to scroll through your account’s content.

Select at least one post to add to the guide and tap Next. Note that you need to add at least two items to any guide to publish it to your profile.

In most cases, you’ll probably want to add five or more items to create sufficient value.

#4: Optimise Your Instagram Guide

Next, add a title and a short description to the guide and each individual item.

Use these tips to optimise your guide content:

·????????Keep titles consistent.

·????????Use descriptions to increase taps. Although descriptions are optional for guides, they can significantly increase click-throughs to the original post. Use them to pique interest or insert CTAs to drive action.

·????????Optimise guides for search by including keywords within your descriptions

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Want to set a different cover photo? Not a problem, you can set the cover manually by tapping Change Cover Photo and uploading an image from a feed post.

#5: Share Your Instagram Guide

After optimising your content, you’re ready to publish and share your guide. Tap Next in the upper-right corner and either share it to your profile or save it as a draft. Note that you can tap the Preview link to see how the guide will look to your audience.

Any published or draft guides will automatically appear on the Guides tab of your Instagram profile. Although followers can find your guides by browsing your profile, they won’t see guides on your grid or in their feed.

Keep an eye out for a follow up blog post on how to get more eyes on your fresh Instagram Guide.

Conclusion

Guides are ideal for curating content, sharing recommendations, and highlighting partnerships. With Instagram guides, you can create content that provides ongoing value for your audience, and set yourself apart from those practices who are not using this feature as part of their brand strategy.