There are plenty of social media updates to keep track of, but it seems like Instagram is one of the busiest when it comes to making updates. Because it’s become such a vital tool for businesses with a digital presence, the latest news from Instagram regarding its advertising options for businesses might be just what you need to know.

Over the past month, Instagram has begun introducing ads in Reels and the Explore page in addition to new creative tools for brands.

As the platform continues to push its Reels product, Reels ads have been updated to include free, high-quality songs from the Meta song collection that can be added to carousel ads on Reels. Businesses have the option to manually select a song or let the selection occur automatically, with artificial intelligence (AI) that the platform says will pick the best music for an ad based on its content.

Instagram has also recently rolled out ads on the Explore page, and it’s said to be testing ads on profile feeds for non-teen, public profiles. As a part of the test, creators who allow ads to be displayed on their profile feeds will earn extra income. Currently, the test is being conducted with users in the United States only.

With its new AI-powered multi-advertiser ads, businesses on Instagram have the opportunity to be discovered by users who have previously engaged with other ads. When a user watches or clicks on an ad, Instagram will deliver more ads to that user with other businesses that may be of interest, per the platform’s machine learning.

And finally, Instagram recently debuted alternative reality (AR) ads in open beta, both in feeds and Stories. Brands have the ability to encourage user interaction with special effects through an AR experience powered by Spark AR.

Top: An AR ad on Instagram

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