How to use an Instagram Carousel to your marketing advantage

Instagram marketing can be overwhelming, with all the new updates and various options for posting. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether you should story, reel, IGTV or feed. One often overlooked feature is the Instagram Carousel, which allows you to post multiple photos in one post. Shockingly, carousels have between 1.65% and 5.13% higher engagement rates per post depending on profile size. Here’s a quick guide to carousels and how you can implement them into our social media strategy.

Back to basics: What is a carousel?

Carousels, also known as “multiple-image posts” are posts that include up to 10 photos or videos. When posted, users can swipe through your collection. This allows you to showcase more information in one single post.

When should you use carousels?

You want your posts to be suited to what you’re trying to express. Here are some examples of when to use a carousel:

• You’re showing a variety of options e.g. different services you offer or top new items in your collection.
• Your post would be too long or confusing if expressed in a single post.
• You want to tell a story or explain something in detail e.g. showing feedback to a new product.
• You’re posting multiple photos/videos about the same thing e.g. an event throwback.

Carousels are all about avoiding spam when it comes to posting. Rather than posting loads of separate photos and blocking people’s feeds with similar images, make a collection and post them all together.

Using carousels in Instagram Ads

Ads are another great way to use carousels. Whilst, not every carousel you post will be suited to be used as an ad, you can tailor your posts to be ad-worthy. For example, if you wanted to post what services your brand offers, viewers can swipe through easily meaning that you don’t need to create different ads for each service, it’s all in one! Here’s a great example of using carousels in Instagram ads.

Creative carousel inspiration

If you think none of your content is suited to a carousel, you’re dead wrong! Here are some of our favourite creative carousel ideas that you can use in your next content planning session:

• Before and after reveal: this works for everything from make-up to cleaning tutorials
• Personalised recommendations: this could be recommendations depending on the city for travel accounts, skin type for beauty brands or even star signs for jewellery businesses. Fenty Beauty did this by promoting the perfect lipstick shade for your zodiac.
• Zoom in on those details: an example of this would be posting your outfit of the day, then posting a close up of each item to really show off your style.
• Product reviews: if you have several reviews about the same product, post them all together in a carousel so that people can see just how popular that item is.
• Outtakes: we all know how long it takes to get that perfect insta pic. However, people love to see the human side of social media and posting the bloopers or not-so-perfect pics alongside your chosen photo will show the fun side of your brand.
• Roundup: if you’ve had a busy week, month or year a roundup is the perfect way to show what’s happened. You can post your top highlights from each day to explain an important timeline.
• Look how far we’ve come: this has become popular with the “how it started” trend. You can take your followers on a journey with you, showing how you’ve evolved.
• Continuous carousel: When you post several photos that merge to create one panoramic scene.

Don’t forget your call to action

Behind every post is a reason. Once you’ve got your snazzy new carousel you want a call to action to go alongside it. This could be posting different colour variations of a product then asking followers which colour they prefer. Remember that everything is posted for a reason and you’ll be ready to introduce carousels into your content strategy. Now that you know all about Instagram carousels, we’re sure you’ll be eager to get going! We hope that this gives you the motivation to create your own amazing carousels and increase your engagement. Written by Suzie Letts