Product Guides: A Thing of the Past

The Latest Carousel Craze

Since Instagram’s carousel ad feature came out, it has captured the attention of advertisers everywhere. The feature enables users to consolidate up to ten photos or videos into a single post. Carousel’s popularity has continued to grow, especially with advertisers, as it increases engagement and interaction with viewers. 

Recently this year, Instagram ramped up its carousel feature with a new option to turn carousels into Instagram Reels. Image content from carousel ads will be converted into content for a video Reel. However, the Reels will not have music and can only be up to 10 seconds. Carousel ads are automatically qualified for this option when you select Automatic Placements. If the Reels option isn’t right for you, you can choose to do Manual Placements and deselect the feature. 

You might be asking the question “How do I know if carousel ad Reels are right for me?” This feature is only relevant for the following goals: reach, brand awareness, traffic, video views and app installs. If those are not your purpose, then this new offer is not for you. The ads will be available in every country that has organic Reels. An important note is that this is a brand-new feature. Carousel ad Reels are not yet offered to all advertisers. As the feature continues to roll-out, more people will have the opportunity to try out this feature. To learn more about carousel ads in Instagram Reels, check out “About carousel ads in Instagram Reels”.

In less cutting-edge news, Instagram now offers the opportunity to comment on posts using GIFs. On May 16, 2023, Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri announced that GIFs can be used in comment sections. While this is a new feature for Instagram, for many individuals the thought “well, finally” comes to mind. This new move feels old and dated; like it should have been done years ago. On Instagram, users have already been able to reply to stories with GIFs and use GIFs within stories. Instagram trails behind other competing social media apps that have offered commenting with GIFs long before. Even though this feature isn’t brand-new in the social media world, it was still a necessary advancement by Instagram.