6 Biggest Instagram Trends To Leverage For Business Growth In 2022

Instagram Releases Its First-Ever Trends Report. Here’s What You Need To Know. 

Instagram just released their first trends report ever and it’s juicy. They “tapped into the minds of Gen-Z” because they are “consistently creating the reality they want to live in” and shaping culture in 2022. 

You can download and read it yourself by clicking or tapping here

We’ve seen significant changes and paradigm shifts as we approached 2022 in social with Facebook rebranding to Meta and Zuck focusing on AR and the blind-blowing possibilities augmented reality puts in our hot little hands. 

When I think about having the ability to see products and experience services, and virtually try before you buy from a post or video using interactive AR and VR applications, I get a little giddy… not gonna lie 🛍 

Just think about what that can do for your business???

We probably won’t have the whole virtual reality experience in social media marketing in 2022 but the trends and changes we will see guarantee a wild ride. 

Here are the biggest Instagram Trends for 2022 that are set to revolutionize how consumers interact with brands and how we do business on social.


1. Paid Partnerships on Instagram

With cookies and privacy a major roadblock for marketers, enabling influencers to tag your business in their content without dealing with third-party tracking. 

Instagram is rolling out a built-in paid partnership tool that makes it easy for influencers to promote your brand. 

Reach out to like-minded influencers and creators with 10k+ followers and great content. And make an agreement for paying them to promote your brand, products, or services. To promote your brand, all they have to do is use the “Paid Partnership” tag to tag your brand in their content to link to your shop or brand page. 

What’s great about this new feature is that both you and the creator can monitor the results for 14 days using the Brand Collabs Manager tool. Just imagine the reach you can achieve leveraging other people’s content! The tag provides transparency for followers because it tells them that the creator is being compensated in some way for promoting your brand and garners trust. 


2. Content Monetization On Instagram

Instagram has embraced creators’ desire to monetize the video content they work so hard to create. Much like Google Adsense, if you have a business or brand account, you can tap to switch on “Allow Monetization” from your creator settings. Here’s how: 

How To Get Started With In-Stream Video Ads On Instagram

Step 1: Go to your “Account Settings” and tap “Creator.” Once there, tap “In-Stream Video Ads.”

Step 2: Tap “Get Started.” Read and agree to the terms carefully. Once done, toggle to “Allow Monetization” on your Instagram Videos and tap “Continue” to finish. 

Step 3:  Set up how you want to get paid. You will need your SSN or EIN, banking, or PayPal info handy. You can always change where you want your earnings deposited from the Settings, so don’t stress. 

With monetization enabled on your video content on Instagram, you give brands the ability to promote themselves within the videos you create. You earn 55% of the ad revenue generated when your video is viewed (monetizable plays). That money is paid to you monthly. 

You can monitor your monetization metrics in your Insights.  

This is great for brands! As a business, you can invest in targeted Ads and have creators promote your brand, products, and services with their content for you. It’s a win-win and fast way to explode on social🙌🙌🙌Currently, in-stream video ads are available to select creators in the US, UK, and Australia (Canada and everywhere else have to hang tight, sorry😢).


3. Chronological Feeds Are Coming Back To Instagram Along With Suggested Content 

You read that right! Instagram is bringing back the sorely missed chronological feed, so watch for it. 

As part of IG’s push to compete with TikTok and harness that Gen-Z revenue-generating power, Instagram is rolling out their version of TikTok’s “For You” feed with “Suggested” content. 

This is fantastic news for brands because your content can get in front of people on Instagram who are interested in your products and services that don’t even know you exist . . . yet! 


4.  Expect To See All Instagram Video Format Merge. Hallelujah!!

We’ve already seen IGTV merge into Feed Videos and the option to swipe up versus left to see the next person’s story (not much of a change, but hey). But with Feed Videos, Reels, and Stories all still at play, we can expect to see a more streamlined, unified approach to video creation and posting in 2022. 

I don’t know about you, but I look forward to a day when I don’t have to make a Story video, Reel, and a Feed video just to get by content out there. 


5.  Affiliate Programs Are Coming To Instagram

Similar to the “Paid Sponsorship” tag, Instagram is making it easier for brands to connect with influencers and for people to find products and services they want. With the Affiliate feature, brands can have creators promote more than just their brand account. They can have creators tag specific products in their content to drive sales and the remuneration is taken care of for you in the app. 

Research shows that 90% of shoppers are willing to pay more and wait longer for products and services shared in user-generated content. 

How Instagram Affiliate Program Works

Creators who want to earn income promoting their favorite brands simply head to their “Professional Dashboard” and select, “Set Up Affiliate.”

They then navigate to the brands and shops they love, select the products they want to promote, and save them to their “wishlist.” 

From there, all they have to do is take those saved products and include an “eligible for commission” clause at the top when creating your Feed or Story post to promote and get paid. 

With others promoting your products and Instagram shop, you just sit back and watch the sales come in. The Instagram Affiliate Program is like PPC on steroids!!

While creators will naturally want to promote brands they already love, you can reach out to creators that you feel are a good fit for your brand and get them on board. 

Gone are the days where you had to reach out to creators and influencers, negotiate contracts and remunerate them outside of Instagram. Instagram’s Affiliate Program makes promoting your products and making sure creators are paid easy. Connect with me to learn more about setting up an Instagram affiliate marketing program. 


6.  Creator-Led Native Instagram Shopping

According to Instagram’s Trends For 2022 Report, more than half of young people (and us older folks too) are “keeping up their shopping interests on Instagram.” To meet consumer demand, Instagram is making it easier to shop and purchase products from Stories, Instagram Shops, and Feeds. And since social proof is more powerful than self-promotion, enlisting creators to promote your products is where Instagram is putting their focus, and you should too. 

On top of that, Instagram is making Instagram Shops more accessible to businesses of all sizes and following. So if you don’t have an Instagram shop, you need one now. 


In summary: 

The upshot of all these changes means that creator-led shopping is about to go mainstream and we love it!

As these changes roll out, I will be chatting them up on Instagram and our Facebook group to help you leverage them to explode your business in 2022 and beyond. So stay tuned. 

In the meantime, if you have any questions or need help implementing any of these features in your business marketing strategy, I am only a DM away. 

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