Over the years, Instagram has become way more than a photo-sharing app. In fact, it sometimes feels that it’s become everything but. To support this claim, Instagram has just made product tagging available for everyone. That’s right, other than people, you can now also tag products in your posts. It will make your posts look as if they were sponsored, yet you won’t get paid or get a commission for it.
This feature isn’t entirely new, as it has been available for a while to business and creator accounts. However, as Instagram announced last month, it’s now being expanded for personal accounts to use as well. Keep in mind that your account needs to be public for this, though. The feature is also still limited to the U.S., but it’s possible that we’ll see it rolled out globally over the coming months. We’ll keep an eye on the announcements.
So, how do you tag a product? It’s pretty straightforward. Create a post on your Feed, upload the photo and tap ‘Tag people’. Search and tag the brand first: two options should show up at the bottom labeled “People” and “Products,” and you should choose “Products.” From there on, it’s the same as tagging people: tap the photo to start tagging products.
Product tagging is only available for Instagram posts, but it0’s only for now. Instagram says that they’re working on adding it to Stories, too, and we’ll let you know when it happens.
So, what’s the point of product tagging anyway (other than turning Instagram into even more of an online store)? For individuals like you or me, it’s basically promoting someone’s products without getting compensated for it. So thank you Instagram, but no thank you. However, it could be a very useful tool for small businesses. They can either tag products themselves on their personal profiles to show them off, their friends can do it as a sign of support, or they can pay influencers to do it, why not? Product tagging can be both an unnecessary or an awesome feature, it all depends on what you use Instagram for. And as I’ve mentioned, few of us still use it to showcase our photography, anyway.
[via Digital Trends]
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