New Instagram Features & Metrics And How Small Business Owners Can Use Them
Instagram has rolled out some shiny new features and metrics, and while they might seem like small changes, they can actually make a big difference to your marketing if you know how to use them.
Let’s go through each update, what it means, and how you can make it work for your business.
1. Reposts: A New Way to Share Content
What’s new:
You can now repost other people’s public Reels and feed posts directly to your own feed. These reposts will show up for your friends and followers, and you’ll have a dedicated “Reposts” tab on your profile so people can easily find them later.
Why this matters for small businesses:
Reposting gives you an easy way to keep your content flowing without having to create every single post from scratch. It’s also a great way to build relationships with others in your industry.
How to use it:
Share customer content: If a customer posts a photo or video featuring your product or service, repost it (with permission). This acts as social proof and shows others you have happy clients.
Educate your audience: Repost helpful tips or resources from other credible accounts in your niche. It positions you as a go-to source of useful information.
Collaborate: Use reposts to highlight partners, suppliers, or complementary businesses you work with.
2. Friends Map: Location-Based Content Discovery
What’s new:
The new Friends Map shows where your friends are (if they opt in), as well as location-tagged Reels, posts, Stories, and Notes. Think of it like Snapchat’s Snap Map, but inside Instagram.
Why this matters for small businesses:
If you have a physical location, location tags are your friend. They help people nearby discover your content, and potentially pop in for a visit.
How to use it:
Always add a location tag to your posts, Reels, and Stories.
Share behind-the-scenes content from your shop, café, or office so people feel more connected to your space.
Create content tied to local events or seasons. If people are checking the map during a festival or market, your content could appear.
3. Friends Reels Tab: Content Your Followers’ Friends See
What’s new:
This new tab will show Reels your friends have engaged with, plus recommendations from “Blends” – Instagram’s way of curating content it thinks you’ll enjoy.
Why this matters for small businesses:
If your content is interesting, entertaining, or useful enough for someone to like, comment, or share, there’s now an even bigger chance it will be seen by their friends too.
How to use it:
Create content that sparks conversation or makes people want to tag a friend.
Share quick tips, relatable moments, or “before and after” transformations, these tend to get high engagement.
End your Reels with a call-to-action like “Tag a friend who needs this!” to boost shares.
4. New Metric: When People Liked Your Reel
What’s new:
Instagram now tells you the exact point in your Reel where someone clicked “like”.
Why this matters for small businesses:
It’s great for understanding what’s working in your videos. You can pinpoint which moment made people react positively.
How to use it:
Look for patterns, do likes happen at a funny moment, after a certain visual, or when you show a product in use?
Use this insight to create similar content in the future.
If likes happen near the start, your hook is strong. If they happen at the end, you’ve kept viewers watching, well done!
5. New Metric: When People Liked a Carousel
What’s new:
You can now see which slide in your carousel someone was on when they liked the post.
Why this matters for small businesses:
It helps you see whether people are engaging early on or sticking around to the later slides.
How to use it:
If likes drop after the first slide, work on making your opening image more eye-catching.
If likes peak in the middle or end, you’re keeping people engaged, so keep that slide style in your content mix.
Use storytelling, start with a hook, build curiosity, and reveal the main point or transformation towards the end.
6. Views as the Main Performance Metric
What’s new:
Instagram is now putting more focus on “views” instead of “accounts reached” as the key metric for performance.
Why this matters for small businesses:
Views tell you how many times your content was watched, not just how many people it reached. This is a more accurate measure of interest and attention.
How to use it:
Track views over time to see which topics and formats get the most attention.
Experiment with different lengths for Reels; short and snappy might get more views, but longer, more engaging ones could build trust.
Don’t panic if views dip; use it as a sign to try a new angle or style.
Final Thoughts
These updates aren’t just nice to know; they can give you real insight into what’s working, help you reach more people, and make posting easier.
The key is to not just know what the update is, but to think about how it can support your goals, whether that’s getting more customers, building brand awareness, or engaging your current community.
So, which of these updates will you try first?
Dani x
