The Wax Blog

Instagram has nearly 1 billion active users around the world. Like other social media platforms, Instagram is full of features to entertain and engage users. The modern social media channel reveals Instagram updates frequently, and keeping up with social media changes is a challenge. So lets us find some of the most important Instagram features that benefit both users and marketers. Since its launch, Instagram has added many features that benefit both brands and personal users with paid ads as well as organic posts. Let’s dive deep into Instagram’s classic features and new updates.
  1. Instagram Dark Mode
Users can now enable dark mode for Instagram. Instagram users with certain operating systems such as iOS 13 and Android 10 are now experiencing the darker version of Instagram on their mobile devices. If you have these versions, you can now enable and disable through display themes.
  1. Restrict
Instagram has launched a new feature called Restrict that will allow users to block interactions from users. Restrict feature is different from blocking someone because the profile which has been blocked will know that they are blocked. If a user sends a hateful comment to your account, no one will be able to see it but them. The account user will be able to reveal the comment if they are interested, otherwise restrict comment will be in its place.

Technology is growing and advancing at a rapid rate. Things that we never thought would exist are now part of our daily lives. From the invention of the home computer, the smart phone, and now the rise of AI machines, technology is evolving exponentially. One of the areas of tech that is growing the fastest is mobile technology. Over 80% of Americans own a smartphone as of February 2019 and the world of technology has improved with the growth in the number of users. Companies large and small are catering to the mobile platform with new developments. The customer experience is being vastly improved to be quick, easy, and painless. This is adding to the already existing convenience mobile technology offers. As the platform of choice shifts towards mobile in a big way, new trends will emerge. Over the next two years, the mobile industry will roll out many new improvements. Here are a few that we expect to see by 2020.

More Proactive Apps

Artificial intelligence might sound like a far-fetched idea, but the technology is already in use throughout mobile apps. AI is helping customers get what they want within a matter of seconds, all thanks to intelligent machines. From the minute most apps are opened, an AI is working to make the customer experience as smooth as possible. A good example of AI in action is when you are sent a message on an app like LinkedIn. Once the message comes through, the user is offered a number of ways to click and read the message. When the user goes to type a reply, an AI suggests things to write based on the context of the first message. These suggested sentences are designed so the user could conceivably click an auto generated response without needing to type anything. These generated responses are normally well written and related to the initial message; this is entirely possible due to AI. This proactive feature only adds to the amount of assistance we receive from apps everyday. More productive AI assisted apps will run faster, smoother, and offer more features than ever before. Your phone is getting to know you better and will use that to make your experience better.

Mobile First Indexing

mobile first indexing For a while now Google has been working on mobile first indexing to make websites more mobile friendly. Since much of the market has shifted away from home desktops and towards mobile phones, Google is taking steps to ensure mobile friendly websites rank higher in its eyes. Google will monitor websites and determine how they rank based on Google’s criteria, which is now prioritizing mobile friendly websites. This means features like easy to use buttons, quick loading, proper formatting for ease of use on mobile, and other aspects will result in websites ranking higher. In order to boost your website’s ranking on mobile, you will need to have a quality mobile site that is different than your desktop site.  

Personalized Mobile Experiences

Customers are human. They are complex and changeable and yearn to feel valued and understood. As marketers, we tend to focus exclusively on demographic characteristics to lump them into groups to target. But the wants, needs, interests and values of a customer cannot be determined...

A clear understanding of your target audience is essential to marketing success. It should shape everything from your brand’s tone and messaging to your content style and distribution. And knowing your audience isn’t as simple as having a typical customer in mind. True depth of...

Narratives compel us. They’re familiar. They’re memorable (22 times more memorable than facts, according to one psychologist). So it’s no wonder that in an era of constant digital sharing and connection, companies who master brand storytelling are achieving – and maintaining – a global following....

Creating infographics have been one of the most widely used content marketing strategies for the past few years.  Infographics are great for grabbing people’s attention, explaining important concepts, and sharing statistics. Unfortunately, as more people began to realize the power of infographics, everyone starting creating them for their websites and their quality started to go downhill. In a world where everyone is trying to increase brand awareness and generate more sales using infographics, it’s more important than ever that you take the time to create high-quality visuals for your readers. If you’re hoping to increase your web traffic by as much as 12% by adding infographics to your website, check out this quick and simple guide to creating powerful visual content and creating strong infographic marketing on your site. To that end we've compiled some of the best tips we've heard along the way to build strong infographic marketing strategies for your site.

Social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, are attractive to marketers for obvious reasons. However, the popularity of mobile messaging apps surpassed that of social media apps back in 2015, and the gap only continues to widen. It’s no surprise then, that these apps offer serious message marketing potential. More than half of U.S. residents will use a messaging app by 2022, with the most popular Facebook Messenger app alone projected to reach 138.1 million users. Not only this, but when it comes to business, 56% of users would rather message a business than call and over 50% are more likely to shop with a business they can message.

Ever since the birth of the internet, consumer feedback on businesses have increased in quantity and importance. Online reviews expose the experiences—both positive and negative—of real customers to everyone. This means the perception of every single customer matters. Responding to negative reviews can affect their perception.   Some people take this new reality lightly and ignore online review sites like Yelp and Google My Business. However, this could be hurting their businesses more than these companies realize. Why? Because 86% of consumers reveal they read online reviews for local businesses, according to Bright Local

To be a functioning professional in the digital e-commerce environment it’s important to be as present and multi-functional as possible. Mobile apps offer the perfect opportunity for business owners to connect with their target audiences. APIs or Application Programming Interfaces are what allows one piece of software to share information with another. Although invisible to the user almost everyone has interacted with and most likely benefited from an API. APIs give businesses the ability to embed maps, process payments and run different apps in conjunction with each other. Using APIs with some or all of the following applications can help better integrate your business, improve customer interactions and streamline your business operations.