Dive Brief:

• Instagram has updated its user experience to let users share up to 10 photos or videos in a single post per a company blog post.
• Users can use a new icon to select multiple photos and videos to create more of a story out of a typical Instagram post. People viewing the post will see blue dots at the bottom of the screen indicating the post has more to see.
• The new post format also users to easily swipe through multiple images for a slideshow effect and is similar to the Carousel ad format that Instagram rolled out in 2015.

Dive Insight:

The update to Instagram’s user experience reflects the important role visually driven apps like Instagram and Snapchat are playing for consumers, who do not want to be confined to posting just one image at a time.

For marketers, the takeaway is that posts with multiple elements for viewers to navigate through are working on mobile and the approach should be taken into account when putting together creative content for Instagram and other visually driven apps. The update also allows for marketers to create a more storytelling type experience for organic Instagram posts that will have more longevity and shareability than Stories posts on Instagram or Snapchat.

For Instagram users, the new experience brings a Stories-like approach to regular posts with a navigation that is well suited for mobile as proven by the success of Snapchat Stories, Instagram’s copycat feature with the same name and even the older carousel ad format that allowed advertisers to create more of a storytelling effect through a related series of images and videos. Instagram Stories has proven quite successful for the platform, having launched in August and now reaching 150 million daily users. Instagram is looking to build on that success by recently bringing ads to Stories.