Instagram has launched ‘trial reels’
Instagram is experimenting with a new feature designed to help Reels creators refine their content strategy. This latest feature enables users to put their reels before a sample audience who don’t follow them.
This feels like a nice, safe way to experiment with your content, get an idea of how an audience responds to it and tweak accordingly.
It’s essentially a little focus group within Instagram itself. A nice idea.
Instagram has said:
“We often hear from creators that they feel nervous about posting too much to their audience or trying out new content that’s outside of their niche on Instagram, for fear of it not resonating with their followers. Trial reels will be shown to non-followers first. Now, if you want to try out a new genre, storytelling format or topic, you can easily get a gut check on how your content might perform.”
It works like this:
When posting a Reel, select the Trial mode to share it with a small pool of users who don't already follow you.
Trial Reels stay hidden from your profile grid and Reels tab, and only you can see that they’re in Trial mode.
After 24 hours, you’ll get engagement metrics like views, likes, comments and shares—plus insights compared to previous trials.
From gauging user interest to refining messaging, this could be an interesting way to experiment with content on Instagram!
Is it officially the time of the B2B influencer?
Once the domain of flashy consumer campaigns, influencer marketing has found its way into the B2B world.
From the rise of EGC (employee-generated content) to the fully-fledged B2B influencer, LinkedIn is now a hub for industry thought leaders to get their voices out there in ways we’ve not seen before. Well at least in B2B…
If you’re anything like me, your consumer purchases are heavily influenced by people, they’re often quick and impulsive, and if a brand does anything well on social, I’m sucked in. But, as we know, B2B buyer decisions are long, complex and often with bigger budgets. However, LinkedIn’s new survey shows that – maybe – the mentality is the same:
87% of B2B buyers prefer content from trusted influencers over branded sales messages.
The right influencer, be it an industry analyst, academic, or even your employee, adds what they call a "halo of credibility". But really, it’s about humanising a brand with the same all-too-successful B2C principles.
What are the key takeaways from the survey?
Go beyond big names with massive followings. Micro-influencers with niche expertise often deliver better engagement and trust on B2B platforms.
Your team can be powerful advocates. LinkedIn data shows employees’ networks are, on average, 12x larger than a company’s followers.
Influencers shine during the consideration phase, providing trusted insights that shape buyer decisions.
Combine videos, posts and live events to engage diverse audience segments.
On LinkedIn, Thought Leader Ads outperform traditional formats, delivering double the engagement and significant cost savings in lead generation.
It’s an exciting time and for B2B, why not give these developments a go!
Instagram could be hiding Reel views
In a move that seems at odds with their latest algorithm decision, placing views as the key metric on all of Meta’s platforms, Instagram is testing the ability to hide the Reels view count on your profile.
The new option would enable creators to hide the view count display in their Reels tab. Now, why would they want to do that, I hear you ask?
According to Instagram, this could get more people checking out more of your Reels, rather than just jumping to the best-performing clips. Interesting in concept, but would eliminate the ability for users to get a sense of best-performing content.
The industry keeps giving users the option to move away from the so-called vanity metrics, but have we become too reliant on engagement metrics for this to catch on? How would you measure success without these numbers on social?
It is only in its test stage and, if successful, would still be a case of opting in or opting out. I don’t see many people opting in, do you?
Instagram broadcasts are no longer unidirectional
Until recently, followers of a broadcast channel could only engage by liking and reacting to messages, much like WhatsApp channels.
However, that is no more. Users can now reply to messages and engage with one another in the channel. While the account owner can monitor and delete these comments, it does entirely shift the premise on which these channels were built. You can, however, opt-in or out, so it will be interesting to see how many accounts choose to embrace this new feature.
Accounts can also use prompts to “kickstart conversations in your channel with Q&As and daily check-ins”. This feels like a nice engagement hack, particularly for smaller businesses with really niche and engaged followers.
They’ve also given accounts new metrics to monitor success within these broadcasts. Users can now track total number of interactions, story shares and poll votes to measure content performance.
It will be interesting to see the impact these updates have on engagement!
