Instagram is ever changing as we all know, and it’s ok to freak out a little bit when they roll out new changes! But a lot of times new features can be helpful for growth and can keep you creative. We are breaking down all the newest Instagram features below!
New poll stickers
I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that the poll sticker got a much needed face lift! Not only does it look cleaner, it also allows you to add up to 4 options for your audience to vote on. So no more having to use the “Quiz” sticker to gather your answers!
Convert to reel feature
If you’re documenting a day in your life or you’re having a particularly fun day on stories, you can now easily compile all of your slides into a Reel. You’ll need to save them to a highlight first, but after that, it’s as easy as clicking a button to add all of the slides into one video. Then, you’ll be able to edit clip duration, add content from your camera roll, delete clips and add audio. And, Instagram can automatically sync your clips to audio to save you some time.
“Live Moderator” Feature
For those who love doing lives, I’m sure this feature will come in handy. You can now appoint a “Live Moderator!” The moderator is someone who can report comments, turn off commenting for a specific viewer, and even remove viewers from the live. Hosts will now only have to focus on hosting, instead of trying to host and moderate at the same time, which let’s be honest, never worked out as well as we wanted it to. And we all know trolls love to leave mean comments during lives, so having someone to quietly nip the problem in the bud without the need for the host to pause what they’re doing will, in turn, lead to smoother lives with less distractions.
Scheduled lives
Build the hype around your lives by giving your audience a heads up and scheduling them in advance. This new tool allows you to schedule a live up to 90 days in advance and even test out your setup in “practice mode.” You can also share reminders and countdowns directly to your Instagram Stories, feed, and profile. The new feature also includes a badge that lives below the user’s bio on their profile. When other user’s click the badge they’ll be able to set up a reminder so they don’t miss it!
In feed captions
We love when companies find ways to be more inclusive, and Instagram is slowly incorporating new features designed to help those who are deaf or hard of hearing. It started with the auto generated story captions, but luckily they didn’t stop there. Now we’ll have auto-generated feed video captions! They are currently available in 17 languages.
Story likes
This feature is a small update, but we like it a lot. Sometimes you want to acknowledge or show someone that you liked their story without sending a DM or reaction. And this is exactly what this is good for! So don’t be afraid to hit the little heart at the bottom of the story slide to let a friend know you enjoyed what they shared. These likes show up at the bottom of a user’s story, where they can see who watched it, and won’t crowd their DM boxes.
New home feeds
And last but not least, perhaps the newest feature that caused the most waves, is the ability to customize your home feed. User’s can now toggle between “Home,” “Following,” and “Favorites” on their home feed. The default home view will show posts as it normally would with content you might want to see from your more interacted with accounts at the top. The following tab will show posts in chronological order of when they were posted. The favorites tab will also show posts in chronological order, but only from those accounts that have been favorited by the user. Favorited accounts will also show up higher in your default home feed, so you won’t miss a post from your favorite creators. The return of the chronological feed is something that users have been requesting since it went away, so this is a very exciting change!
So do you love or hate the new features?!
