[intro]When you’ve set up an Instagram profile to promote your EKM online shop and set up a Catalogue within Facebook Business Manager so you can tag your own products in your posts, the next step is to create Guides on your Instagram profile. [/intro]

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When you’ve set up an Instagram profile to promote your EKM online shop and set up a Catalogue within Facebook Business Manager so you can tag your own products in your posts, the next step is to create Guides on your Instagram profile. Guides are a fantastic way to display specific, scrollable content to Instagram users, and can be used to show potential customers how products in your range can be used, worn, styled and utilised - which allows you to demonstrate your industry knowledge and gives Instagram users a reason to return to your profile regularly. 

You don’t strictly need a business profile to create Guides on your Instagram profile (as you can create Guides with a personal profile too), but for the best possible impact when promoting your EKM online shop, it’s a good idea to set up both Instagram Shopping/Product Tagging and Instagram Guides to further support your content. 

There’s three different kinds of Guides you can create:

Places

Here you can recommend places you’ve visited from the list of places that exist on Instagram. If your business regularly attends fairs, craft markets and trade shows, or you have one or more physical shops, you could list them in a Places Guide.

Products

In these Guides, you can recommend posts that contain tagged products, either from your own EKM online shop (via your Catalogue within Facebook Business Manager) or from other sellers on Instagram who have also set up Product Tagging.

Posts

Finally, you can create Guides that are a collection of Posts. These can be Posts that you’ve created yourself or Posts by other accounts on Instagram. These are ideal for creating step-by-step instructions, how-tos, advice or even some themed inspirational style Guides. You can save up to 30 posts in a Posts Guide.

Creating a Guide

1. From your profile, tap the cross symbol in the top right-hand corner:

2. From the options that pop up, select Guide:

3. Select whether you’d like to add a Guide for a Place, Product or Post:

Creating a Place Guide

Before you begin, you need to have at least two Places in mind that you’d like to add to a Guide. 

4. Tap Places:

5. You can look up a place using the search bar at the top of the page, or alternatively if you have previously made a post tagging in the Place, tap Your Posts in the bottom right-hand corner:

Selecting a Place

6. Tap the Place from the list:

7. You can now select from the posts previously tagged by other users at that Place which ones you would like to include in your Guide:

8. When you’ve selected which posts, tap Next in the top right-hand corner:

9. Now it’s time for you to actually create the Guide. Tap the text to amend the title and add your own words in the description:

[tips]You can change the cover photo for your Guide by tapping Change Cover Photo at the stage where you need to add a title and description to your Guide:

The Guide cover image is a 3:4 portrait size, so you might want to create an image that it 720 px wide by 1080 pixels high with your own branding and experiment with this. Canva is a good place to create branded images for this purpose.

You do need to post this image as an independent post in it’s own right first (you can’t simply upload it to be part of your Guide if it’s not a pre-existing Instagram post first) so it would be a good idea to post your cover image with a description teasing that the new Guide is ‘coming soon’ so you can use the branded image as the Guide cover. [/tips]

10. Scroll to the bottom of the page and tap Add Place:

11. Repeat the process, selecting the second Place you’d like to add to your Guide:

12. Again, select which posts you would like to include in your Guide:

13. When you’ve selected your posts, tap Done in the top right-hand corner:

14. Now you need to edit the description for the second Place in your Guide:

15. At this point, you can tap Add Place in the bottom middle to add another Place to your Guide:

16. When you’ve added the last Place to your Guide, tap Next in the top right-hand corner:

17. You’ll now see a preview of your Guide. You can select whether or not to show it in your feed, before publishing it by tapping the Share button:

Selecting Your Posts

6. Tap Your Posts in the bottom right-hand corner:

7. Select from the list of your previous Posts what you’d like to include in your Guide:

8. As well as your own Post, you can also select from Posts created previously by other Users by tapping them:

9. When you’ve selected the Posts, tap Next in the top right-hand corner:

10. Now it’s time for you to actually create the Guide. Tap the text to amend the title and add your own words in the description:

11. When you’ve amended the text and description, scroll to the bottom of the page and tap Add Place:

12. Repeat the process, selecting the second Place you’d like to add to your Guide:

13. Again, select which posts you would like to include in your Guide:

14. When you’ve selected your posts, tap Done in the top right-hand corner:

15. Now you need to edit the title and description for the second Place in your Guide. At this point, you can either tap Add Place in the bottom middle to add another Place to your Guide, or tap Next to complete your Guide. When you’ve added the last Place to your Guide, tap Next in the top right-hand corner:

16. You’ll now see a preview of your Guide. You can select whether or not to show it in your feed, before publishing it by tapping the Share button:

Creating a Product Guide

Before you begin, if you plan on tagging Products that aren’t tagged in your own Catalogue on Facebook Business Manager, it’s a good idea to check through Instagram first to ensure that they have been listed in the Catalogue by the company you originally bought them from. It’s also a lot easier if you use a second device (such as your computer) to view the posts to help you look up the usernames of the sellers you originally purchased the Products from if the Products are not from your own Catalogue.

4. Tap Products:

5. You can either tap Wishlist in the bottom right-hand corner to select Products that you’ve previously saved to your Instagram Wishlist, or alternatively, use the search bar to look for the username of the business you purchased the Product from originally:

6. When you have located the seller, tap their username and you’ll then see a list of all of the products they have listed on their Instagram account:

7. Use the search bar to locate the product you’re looking for, and when you find it, tap it:

8. You’ll then see this - tap the Product to highlight it:

9. Now you need to tap Next in the top right-hand corner:

10. Now it’s time for you to actually create the Guide. Tap the text to amend the title and add your own words in the description:

11. When you’ve amended the text and description, scroll to the bottom of the page and tap Add Products:

12. Repeat the process, selecting the seller of the next product you’d like to add to your Guide:

13. Some Products may have more than one image so simply tap each of the images you’d like to include in your Guide:

14. Now you need to edit the title and description for the second Product in your Guide. At this point, you can either tap Add Products in the bottom middle to add another Product to your Guide, or tap Next to complete your Guide. When you’ve added the last Product to your Guide, tap Next in the top right-hand corner:

15. You’ll now see a preview of your Guide. You can select whether or not to show it in your feed, before publishing it by tapping the Share button:

Creating a Post Guide

You can save up to 30 posts in a Posts Guide, so there are a lot of opportunities here to create Guides of content truly unique to your brand.

4. Tap Posts:

5. By default, you’ll see a long list of all the posts from whatever you’ve saved on your Instagram account previously. You can either use these or instead, tap Your Posts in the bottom right-hand corner:

6. Tap each of the Posts you wish to include in your Guide, before tapping Next in the top right-hand corner:

7. Now it’s time for you to actually create the Guide. Tap the text to amend the title and add your own words in the description:

8. At this point, you can either tap Add Posts in the bottom middle to add another Post to your Guide, or tap Next to complete your Guide. When you’ve added the last Post to your Guide, tap Next in the top right-hand corner:

9. You’ll now see a preview of your Guide. You can select whether or not to show it in your feed, before publishing it by tapping the Share button:

[tips]You can amend the order of the posts within your Guide by tapping the three dots in the top right-hand corner of the original Guide post and then tapping Reorder Posts to change the order via dragging and dropping, or Remove From Guide to delete that particular post entirely. [/tips]

Viewing your Guides

1. Now if you tap to view your Instagram Profile, you’ll see an extra tab has been added to the middle. Tap it:

2. This will reveal the Guide for Places that you just created:

3. If you tap the Guide to view it, you’ll see that other users can bookmark the Places in your Guide to their own Profiles. You can also share the Guide to your Instagram Stories by clicking the Share symbol:

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[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Account Manager or Customer Support, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm on the weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions board. If you have a non-account specific question ask the EKM Team, join us in EKM Community.  [/contact]