Social media is a fantastic way to enhance your profile and create a buzz around your business – but if brands don’t keep up with the latest social media changes, their content can miss out on significant engagement.

To help keep you up to date, we’ve looked at the three main social media changes so far in 2017, and how businesses can take advantage of them.

Instagram Story Ads

Instagram wasn’t originally a go-to platform for businesses, but as 700 million people now use the photo-sharing app monthly, it’s no surprise more brands are using it.

Instagram Stories launched in 2016, allowing users to upload a photo onto their ‘story’ which expires after 24 hours. The feature, very similar to Snapchat, lets you update followers on your day-to-day activity without affecting your main Instagram feed.

Now, full-length video adverts can be inserted into Instagram Stories, popping up once a user has clicked on their followers’ stories. This is a paid service, but guarantees a brand gets in front of its target audience.

LinkedIn layout

The social media network for professionals had made a big change by rolling out a completely new layout. The updated format is similar to Facebook, designed to keep users on the site for longer, making key features including connecting with people and job search easier to use.

The site has also revamped its messaging tool to feature read receipts and tells you when someone is typing out a message to you.

Businesses who work on a B2B basis should definitely take advantage of an improved LinkedIn by posting regular updates from an official company profile.

Check out this article we wrote about what content to include in your profile.

 Facebook instant articles

Instant articles on Facebook are a way of streamlining the way your web content appears on mobile. Via instant articles, a user can click on your content and read it without leaving Facebook.

Due to enhanced graphics and easy scrolling, instant articles have been tipped to help boost brand engagement.

Now, they’ve introduced page swipes, allowing users to read multiple pieces of content on your website while staying on the social media network.

Instant articles take some setting up, but once you are up and running make sure you’re sharing content on Facebook, as instant articles may provide an increase in readership.