Instagram recently announced a few updates to the app! These are the perfect updates for drag racers who are wanting more ways to use the platform to promote their race teams, sponsors, and their personal brands. Some of these updates will not be available to everyone until later on this Summer, but for now, you can go ahead and use #5, which I already have on my profile!

1. MAKE $ ON IGTV: Starting this summer, Creator accounts can now have IGTV ads! According to Instagram, IGTV ads will first appear when people click to watch the IGTV videos from previews in their feed. The video ads will be built for mobile and up to 15 seconds long. IGTV has become a powerful place for creators to connect more deeply with their fans, pilot new projects and share their lives and talents. With IGTV ads, you have a new way to earn money from the content you work so hard to produce. Instagram will test it out with certain creators, then expand it slowly overtime, so stay on the lookout for this new feature!

For racers: This new feature will be great for you promote your sponsors by putting a 15 second commercial of theirs into your IGTV videos! It can be a benefit you include in your racing proposals when pitching to a new sponsor.

2. SELL ON LIVE VIDEOS: Live shopping will let creators and businesses tag products in their live videos! Soon, sellers, brands and creators will be able to tag products from their Facebook Shop or catalog before going live and those products will be shown at the bottom of the video so people can easily tap to learn more and purchase.

For racers: Pick a sponsor’s product to create a live video about, have the product with you and show all of the features and benefits of it, and have a link in the video for viewers to purchase directly on Instagram! Your sponsor should be able to see if the sale came from you to boost your relationship with them.

3. BADGES IN LIVES: Instagram stated that there is a whopping 70% increase in live video views from February to March!!! So to give fans another way to show their love, IG is introducing badges that viewers can purchase during a live video. Badges will appear next to a person’s name throughout the live video. Fans who have purchased badges in Live will stand out in the comments and unlock additional features, including placement on a creator’s list of badge holders and access to a special heart.

For racers: Do more live videos because that’s what the people are watching! Badges are great for your fans to show how much they support you.

4. SHOP FROM CREATORS: To start tagging products from a brand in your posts and stories, first you need to be on the brand’s list of approved accounts. You must have a creator or business account. Although Shopping from Creators is only available for businesses that are in the Instagram Checkout beta test, now is the perfect time to see what the benefits are and how this could help out your race team.

For racers: If you have a creator or business account, start tagging your sponsor’s products to increase sales and exposure. Reach out to companies and see if you could become a brand ambassador or an IG influencer for them, and agree to post once a week or so on your page in exchange for a small amount of funding.

5. SHARE IG LIVES TO IGTV: Last but not least, you can now share your favorite Instagram live videos to IGTV, instead of having to download them and repost (or lose them forever if you didn’t download it, yikes!). Once you end the live video, you can decide to share to IGTV, download it, or delete the video, you cannot post it to your IG stories anymore. If you click IGTV, you can then pick a cover image, add a title and description, and decide if you want to share it to your feed as well. I suggest making room onto your schedule for 1-2 live videos a month (consistency is key, remember???) and make a series to collect all of these live videos on your IGTV.  Also, remember to download the video to your camera roll so you can cut and edit the video later if you had a certain section that would be great as new content later on!

For racers: Again, go live more often! You could do a weekly Q&A live or a Monday race recap, and see if a sponsor would like to help promote it for you on Instagram.

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