Instagram has been listening to your complaints, and they’ve been testing some solutions. And we are crossing EVERYTHING that these Instagram tests come to life because they are GOLD. Keep scrolling to see what we’re so excited about…

Meta introduces a new Paid Ads Traffic Campaign Conversion Location – Instagram Profile Views

For those who are looking to increase their Instagram profile views, Meta has delivered the goods with a new Conversion Goal to improve Profile Views. The ads will only appear on Instagram placements and send people to your profile, so the focus isn’t necessarily on growing your following or taking other actions (like clicking through to your website). But if you’re looking for brand awareness or have a clever Instagram profile with an optimised bio, organised story highlights and pinned posts that direct the traffic, it isn’t completely ruled out that they’ll take action when they land on your profile.

Because it is a traffic campaign, we are curious to test the quality of the traffic, because we know that Meta will choose quantity over quality by default. We’re even more curious to see how measurable this new update will be, given that the native trafficking in the platform is a little limited. But if it’s part of an overall strategy to direct more traffic to a profile, we’re all for experimenting!

If you’d like us to take over the split testing of your ads, reporting on the results and maximising your return, book a chat here. We’d LOVE to dig into your account and report back on the ways we could improve your results (it’s our PASSION).

Instagram Events have gotten an upgrade

Instagram Events have gotten a little glow-up over the weekend and we are LOVING how much more discoverable they are now! Businesses can create a physical or online event that can be either public or private (invite only). They look to still follow the same format as before, so brands can still tag them in their posts to promote them, but now those following them can easily discover them too! A much-needed upgrade.

Spotted: Instagram testing hiding read receipts and longer Reels

App Researcher Alessandro Paluzzi is back at it again spotting more killer Instagram tests. We’ve been dying for both, so let’s dig in. The first one is the ability to mark a message as “unread” and actually have it stay that way. This test looks like you’ll be able to toggle on “Disable seen status” so that your messages don’t display when others have seen your message, giving you more time to go away and gather all the info you need without feeling rude to your recipient. It’s a much-needed update for those busy business owners who desperately need that rest on the weekends, but let’s be real they still wanna know what people are DMing them about. We’re all for this test. Fingers crossed!

The second Instagram test looks to be bringing back longer-form videos to Instagram (lol RIP IGTV). Obviously backtracking from their decision to scrap the format, they’ve been spotted by Alessandro Paluzzi giving users the ability to expand their Reel time out to 3 or 10-minute long videos. With the popularity of long-form storytelling content on TikTok, we’re not surprised that they’d be bringing this back. We’d love it if they could hurry up and do it so that we can keep repurposing our storytelling TikToks without having to cut them down for Reels.

Instagram announces they’re testing sharing public comments

Adam Mosseri recently shared in his IG Updates Channel that they’re currently testing the ability “for public accounts to share comments from any public feed post or Reel to their stories”. We’re excited to see how public creators and business owners with authority use this to bring awareness to misinformation, highlight important points of view or just offer a different point of view. It could even prevent some of the trolling that happens on the app with more accountability happening for those who drop nasty comments and run. Could be a fun test to see if anyone uses it!

Threads adds some new features

Threads seem to be testing new features to get people back on the app. Including testing keyword searches with users from Australia and New Zealand this week. It seems like a basic functionality requirement, but it hasn’t been a feature of the app owned by Meta to date. The second update spotted is the integration between Threads and Instagram, with this prompt to get users moving over to the app spotted in-feed over on Oh My Digital.

A lot of Instagram tests this week. Showing us that Meta and in particular, Instagram aren’t just cruising along. They’re actively working on listening to what their customers are asking for, and working on delivering just that. As always, if you want to chat or have a peep at the ways we can help you speak the language of your audience and reach more of the people looking for your solution to their problem. Feel free to check out our services here.

XOXO

OMD SQUAD