Attention, Social Media Marketers: You Can Now Save Pics on Instagram

Are you using Instagram as part of your social media marketing mix? Given the network’s increasing and sustained popularity, particularly among younger audiences, you absolutely should. The Facebook-owned network continuously adds new features that not only make it more attractive to its users, but also to brands looking to reach these users.

The latest example just occurred last month. In December, a new feature (available for both iOS and Android phones) enabled users to bookmark images and video they want to return to later. The fact that you can now save pics on Instagram has potentially significant advantages for marketers embracing the platform.

Explaining the Update

How can marketers save pics on Instagram? At its core, it’s a simple update: any user on Instagram can now bookmark any post on the network for the future. Rather than disappearing into the depth of the news feed, these bookmarked posts will be saved to a new, special ‘saved’ page on your Instagram account.

Bookmarking is not a public activity, only you will see the fact that you’ve bookmarked a picture or video, or gain access to your ‘saved’ page. The feature allows you to revisit anything interesting you see at a later date without having to search for it.

Building a Better Instagram Presence

For users, it’s a cool new feature. For marketers, it can be a crucial part in building a better presence on Instagram, in more than one way:

• Keep track of social media influencers. Saving pictures allows you to capture influential moments that you can take advantage of later. For example, you can bookmark an image that an influencer posts to see whether it gets traction. Once it does, you can begin to engage with it to take advantage of the influencer’s clout.
• Create and enhance your content calendar. Given that you should post more than once per day on Instagram for maximum engagement, finding relevant content to post on a regular basis is crucial. Bookmarking images allows you to find relevant content that, even if you already have something planned for that day, can be accessed for later availability.
• Build a longer-lasting brand presence. Finally, don’t underestimate your audience’s ability to bookmark your posts. That, of course, makes publishing high-quality, relevant images more important than ever. Compelling graphics, and even infographics, can now make a longer-lasting impact than the otherwise short lifespan of your typical Instagram posts.

Long-Term Implications of the Feature

Of course, the new bookmark feature can do more than just allow you to stay in the minds of your audience for longer than the network’s otherwise short shelf life. Ultimately, it’s an indication that Instagram (through its parent company Facebook) is willing to innovate in order to stay relevant and useful to its users.

In fact, it follows in a line of other updates that serve the same purpose. Instagram Stories, for example, were a purposeful attempt to keep users in danger of jumping to Snapchat on the platform.

In other words, being able to save pics on Instagram is more than just a cool new feature for users and a potentially useful tool for marketers. It’s also a hint at long-term viability for both audiences. Social media networks, outside of Facebook, tend to have a relatively short shelf-life as they capture the moment before fading into the background after a few years. Instagram is continuously taking steps to ensure a more lasting impact.

For marketers, that’s a deceptively important point. You want to invest your resources not in fads, but lasting media that can reliably reach your audience for years to come. Instagram’s bookmarking feature is only the latest indication that the network fits the bill. To learn more about building a brand presence on the network, contact us.