New Instagram Updates and Features for Marketers in 2024

Instagram never stops to surprise us. While the world is trying to stay resilient through these tough economic times, it is exciting to see how Instagram rapidly develops new features and functionalities to tackle main business issues and help users support their favorite brands.

And now, more than ever, keeping up with what’s new on Instagram can be quite a challenge. There are new Instagram features almost every week.

FYI: You can automatically embed an Instagram widget with a social media aggregator, bringing your website to life with fresh content.

New Instagram Features July 2024 

This week, Instagram has enhanced the reel editing experience by allowing users to add up to 20 tracks to their reel videos:

This change is meant to support original creators in their pursuit of generating the best content they can.

After all, everyone wants to be able to add all kinds of text, stickers, and clips to their reel videos, and the option to add different audio tracks to all these elements just makes sense.

These unique audio mixes can then be saved and reused by the wider community. (edited) 

You can now add Notes to Posts and Reels

Adam Mosseri—Instagram’s chief—has announced that his team has launched a new feature for adding ‘Notes’ (the platform’s newest engagement booster) to posts and Reels:

After ‘Notes’ has become a huge success (especially with the younger audience), Meta has trying to increase the versatility of the feature across its apps.

To use this functionality, users only have to tap the paper plane icon and tap ‘Add note’. They will also have to choose the audience of their note.

 Meta is testing out product overlay ads in Reels

To capitalize on the popularity of Reels, Meta is launching a new advertising method: the option to add ads as overlays in your Reels.

That said, this option is currently in its testing phase and is only being rolled out to a select number of advertisers.

Here’s an example of how the feature might look like once it’s fully launched:

Meta further adds that it’s considering adding these ads either as banners on Reels or as video snippets in between Reels.

Read more: How To Create & Embed Shoppable Instagram Feed On Your Website [Shop My Feed Widget]

Instagram’s Broadcast Channels are now available for pages with 10,000 followers or more

One of the best way popular brands and influencers have to interact with their followers on Meta’s platforms is ‘Broadcast Channels’.

This handy feature allows creators to communicate with their followers via their own personalized channels on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram.

Following up on the success of ‘Broadcast Channels’, Meta is enhancing them with new features and opening them up to pages with over 10,000 followers. Here are some of the upgrades you can expect to see:

Ultimately, this new functionality will help brands, creators, and companies provide immediate updates regarding their latest initiatives, products, and service, and all of that will come free of charge.

After all, most modern consumers use social media on a regular basis, and chances are they will learn what they need there.

Meta is offering AI-version personas to influencers

Meta is finalizing its development of custom AI chatbots based on famous persons and influencers by launching the first stage of the “Meta AI Studio” platform, which allows creators to develop AI chatbots that will interact with their fans on their behalf.

Here’s an example of one such chatbot based on Don Allen Stevenson III:

Basically, these customized AI bots will answer fan questions in the style of the original creator. That said, users will be made aware that they are conversing with an AI version of their favorite creator.

The process to create this AI version will be fairly straightforward as Meta will lead creators through a series of prompts to learn more about the way different influencers interact with their community.

New Instagram Features June 2024 

Instagram is adding functionality to carousel posts

Instagram carousel posts are getting upgraded soon as reported by some creators.

As you can, you will soon be able to add text overlays on individual carousel images:

This new option will surely prove useful for many users. For instance, if you are posting a lot of tutorials on Instagram, you can add the explanation right on the images instead of in the caption below.

Additionally, users will be able to change the format of the images they add to their carousel set. They can either keep the full size or crop the image to a portrait or a square format:

Mosseri reveals that hashtags do not necessarily increase visibility on Instagram

During his most recent interview with famous influencers, Adam Mosseri revealed that hashtags do not necessarily increase the reach of content on Instagram.

When @mkbhd told Mosseri that he has a screenshot of Adam replying that hashtags do not increase visibility, Mosseri confirmed the report but further added that they are still necessary to help people interested in certain topics find your content:

Teens can now further protect themselves on Instagram

Mosseri just announced that Instagram is implementing a new feature that will help teens protect themselves on the platform.

The current tools help people limit everything (from comments and DMs to tags and mentions) to only long-time followers or accounts they follow. However, the new change also adds a new option: limit interactions only to accounts in their ‘Close Friends’ list.

This feature should prove especially helpful for teens who are experiencing only bullying and those who have moved to a new environment and want to initially limit their interactions. (edited) 

Instagram takes about an hour to clean up negative comments

On his personal Instagram account, Mosseri just revealed some details on how Instagram handles harassing and bullying comments from creators’ posts.

As it stands, Mosseri recommends that creators wait about an hour before they check their comments, since Instagram needs some time to filter out and suppress bad comments to the bottom of the post (or even entirely remove them):

Plus, Mosseri says users should use try the ‘Hidden Words’ and ‘Restrict’ features to further protect themselves against online harassment.

New Instagram Features May 2024 

Original Instagram content will be rewarded over reposted content

Instagram and Threads chief, Adam Mosseri has recently announced further changes that will incentivize the creation and distribution of original content on Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)

Namely, in an effort to reach original creators and drive the creation of such content, Instagram is undertaking the following actions:

• Reposted content in recommendations will be replaced with the original;
• Reposted content will be labeled with a visible link to the original post;
• Content aggregators that continuously share original and unedited (not enhanced) content will be removed from ‘Recommendations’

As you can see, aggregator accounts will have to change how they approach the creation and distribution of content.

Now, they will have to start making other people’s content their own by adding their own spin to the content, editing it sufficiently, or using collaborations with the original creator.

New Instagram Features April 2024 

Chatbot version of the Instagram influencers

As per a recent article by The New York Times, Meta will be expanding its AI functionality by allowing its most popular influencers to create AI bots of themselves, which will be answering the public’s queries.

Also known as “Creator A.I.”, this advanced chatbot is supposed to help influencers establish closer relationships with their followers even when they cannot respond themselves.

The goal of this initiative is to ultimately help creators with large followings to interact with everyone without the added strain of manually responding to their messages.

As for training the bot, Meta will be using the DMs, comments, and Reels and Stories audio of these influencers to get the voice and the style just right.

Meta AI is live

In an effort to challenge the big players in the AI space, Meta has invested heavily in AI generative tech to develop an advanced AI chatbot and added Meta AI to the search box in all its popular apps, including Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and Messenger.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the UI is very similar to current AI chatbots—there’s a question bar at the top where you pose all kinds of questions and get answers straight in the app:

Meta further explains the functionality of their Meta AI model, which they say works even better than ChatGPT, but allows you to ask anything while in stream.

Users can ask the AI to find a specific location, provide advice, give recipe suggestions, collaborate on new posts and similar.

Notify sticker in Instagram stories

Now you can add a Notify sticker on your Instagram stories, so your most loyal followers can sign up and get direct notifications everytime you publish new content.

When tapping the notify sticker, a few options will appear that the fans can choose from, such as Posts, Reels, Live, and Stories.

Here are all the details:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Instagram’s @Creators (@creators)

This way Instagram will make sure all your fans receive the latest updates on time.
Try it today.

Commenting on individual Instagram carousel images coming soon!

Some Instagram users have recently been granted the option to reply to specific photos or videos within an Instagram carousel post:

This new feature will prove very handy once Instagram increases the number of photos (or videos) users can add to carousels from to to 15.

After all, creators have been asking for a way to get feedback on individual photos for a while now.

To use this option, you only have to @mention the corresponding photo in your reply. For instance, if you write @2, you’ll see a thumbnail of the second photo in your reply.

New Instagram Features March 2024

Simpler hashtag experience on Instagram

Instagram is launching a better way for users to search on Instagram.

With this update, people will be able to tap on a hashtag and see the search results for that hashtag. Next, they will have the option to tap ‘Follow hashtag’ and get notifications about people posting with these hashtags.

It is great to discover people talking about a certain product or product category, which you can use further to make lists, assign team members, and reach out to these people.

Another use case is to find if people use particular r hashtags to talk about certain events or things happening in the world to engage with and establish contact with similar-minded people.

The use cases are unlimited, and it looks like Instagram is trying to get into online searches and become a different way people will search on the Internet.

New Instagram ads include promo codes to convert buyers

Instagram has just given brands worldwide another tool they can use in their marketing campaigns: “Ads with Promo Codes”:

These promo codes will be offered in post captions and if and when buyers proceed through the checkout phase, they will be automatically applied during purchase:

What this does for businesses is open a new sales channel via IG promotions and give them a way to track direct sales via IG.

Instagram has introduced message editing and pinned chats for DMs

Instagram has recognized that messaging is one of their core features to connect to other users by introducing several DM updates.

First of all, users can now edit their messages as much as they want for up to 15 minutes after sending them. Here’s how to edit a DM message on Instagram:

1. Long-hold on the DM message;
2. In the small popover, choose ‘Edit.’
3. An editing text area will appear where you will be able to change the text.
4. Once done, just tap Done.

Instagram announces a number of new messaging features including edit message, pin chat in inbox, save favorite stickers, and more.

Here is how to pin chat in your Instagram DM;

1. Swipe left over the chat you want to pin.
2. In the option, just tap ‘Pin‘.
3. And this chat will be pinned at the top, where you can see the pin icon.

This change makes a lot of sense once you consider Meta’s plan to merge all of its messaging platforms. After all, WhatsApp has recently gotten the same feature as well.

Lastly, you can now save your favorite Instagram stickers to keep them at the top of the sticker menu and switch on or off the read receipts for all DM chats or specific ones.

All of these changes aim to further facilitate the new private communication channels users prefer over posting to their public feeds.

New Instagram Features February 2024

Instagram seeks to enhance engagement with live-stream games

Instagram is trialing new features to enhance live-streams as noticed by some users.

For instance, the most recent change introduces gaming in live streams, including two interactive games: “This or That” and “Trivia”.

The goal behind this change is to boost engagement and conversation with your viewers, attract more users, and increase creator participation on the platform.

The new change is in line with Instagram’s strategy to reinvent its ‘Live Stream’ feature, which saw the introduction of the ‘Stars’ donation program that gives creators a new way to accept donations from their viewers.

How will Meta help you avoid political discourse in practice?

Since Meta announced it’s looking to restrict political discourse on Instagram and Threads, users have been wondering how will that happen in practice.

Well, you will be able to choose which profiles you want to follow and you will see the full content posted by them. That said, you can go into your preference settings and limit the political discourse to which you are exposed, after which both Instagram and Threads will stop recommending you to follow such profiles in Explore, Reels, and Suggested.

Note that, this would be an account-level restriction since Meta is looking to restrict the discoverability of accounts that post such content, instead of individual posts.

Meta introduces AI content labeling across Facebook, threads, and Instagram

Meta announced plans to label AI-generated images on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads to enhance transparency. They’re collaborating on common standards for identifying such content and will label it accordingly in the coming months.

This initiative also includes labeling Meta AI-generated images and exploring technologies to detect AI-generated content more effectively. For more information, you can read the full article here.

We think that brands can use the transparency provided by AI-generated content labels to build trust with their audience by ensuring authenticity in their communications. They can also create innovative marketing campaigns that clearly differentiate between human-generated content and AI-generated content, potentially using AI-generated images as a creative tool while being open about their origin. This approach can engage users in discussions about the role of AI in content creation, further enhancing brand engagement and digital presence.

New Instagram Features January 2024

Now you can turn off your Instagram DM read receipts

Instagram recently introduced the option to disable read receipts for direct messages, allowing users to hide “Read” and “Seen” indicators from the sender.

This feature, accessible in the “Privacy & Safety” settings of individual DMs, helps users manage reply expectations and reduce potential stress from immediate response demands.

The update, long-awaited by users, is particularly beneficial for those looking to avoid pressure from friends and family or to manage customer communications for brands.

Instagram Notes prompts

Adam Mosseri has just announced that his team is working on implementing a method for Instagram users to create Notes prompts.

Namely, users can ask their followers’ opinions through the Notes feature, which should make users more comfortable in expressing themselves.

Here’s how the feature works:

Introducing Instagram Nudges: A gentle reminder to take a break

In a commitment to fostering healthy habits among young users, Instagram is introducing a new feature called Nudges. This simple yet effective tool aims to encourage users, particularly teenagers, to take regular breaks from the app and prioritize their well-being.

When activated, Nudges will prompt users to take a break by displaying a blank screen for 10 minutes. This gentle reminder serves as a pause in their social media scrolling, allowing them to step away from the screen and engage in other activities or simply rest their eyes.

The timing of these nudges is crucial, targeting late-night usage when sleep is particularly important for young individuals. The appearance of a blank screen during these hours can serve as a wake-up call, urging users to disconnect and prepare for a restful night’s sleep.

Instagram Nudges is just one of the many initiatives the platform is taking to promote responsible social media usage among its younger users. With features like Daily Limit Reminders and Quiet Mode, Instagram is committed to empowering young people to manage their screen time and prioritize their overall well-being.

Bringing Super HDR support to Instagram on Samsung Galaxy S24 

Instagram has rolled out a new feature that’s exciting news for Samsung Galaxy S24 owners. Dubbed Super HDR support, this update is all about making your photos pop with enhanced quality.

It’s designed to automatically improve the photos you take within the Instagram app, giving them more detailed highlights, deeper shadows, and more vibrant colors.

The beauty of Super HDR lies in its ability to amplify the finer details in your pictures.

You’ll notice a stark difference in how light and color play in your photos. The bright areas become brighter, the darks get deeper, and every color seems to come alive, making your images look more dynamic and engaging. It’s like having a mini photo studio right on your phone.

Here is a visual difference between SDR and HDR photos in the Instagram feed:

Instagram Group profiles are going away.

Did you know you can create a group profile on Instagram? Well, now you do, but also, according to the Instagram help center,, this feature is going away on the 12th of January, 2024.

Instagram Notes that expire

Since Instagram Notes has been seeing increased engagement recently, the company keeps on updating the feature by testing out new ways its target group can use it.

The latest round of tests includes attaching notes to the profiles of other users, which would expire within 3 days.

To give consumers control over these options, Instagram only allows followers you follow back to leave you a personal note. Plus, you are able to remove the note at any time.

The reason behind Instagram iterating on its latest feature is to try and retain its young audience by giving them a simple engagement prompt among friends. Similar to what TikTok and Snapchat are doing.

Option to stop visitors from expanding your Instagram Profile photo

For some users, the option to prevent profile visitors from expanding their main profile image is a very welcome addition to the app.

After all, it’s another way to address the concerns of privacy-first users who want to keep impersonators, creepers, or other bad actors from learning too much about them.

The option (where available) can be found under the ‘Account privacy’ section of the main ‘Settings and privacy’ menu. Just turn off to setting ‘Allow profile picture expansion‘ – as shown below:

Instagram Updates December 2023

Instagram testing polls in comments

Instagram is introducing a new feature that allows users to add polls to the comment sections of Reels and feed posts, which Mosseri claims will add new ways to interact with friends and creators.

Polls, already popular in Stories and DMs, offer a simple way for audiences to communicate, often providing very valuable insights.

Creators will love this feature as it’s a strategic tool to foster organic interactions between them and their followers.

Here’s how polls in comments will look like:

Instagram Adds AI Stickers

Instagram has recently started leveraging the power of emerging AI generators to enhance the overall user interaction on its platform.

For instance, one of the latest updates has added an AI Stickers feature in DM chats, which lets you generate any kind of sticker you want via text prompts.

To access the AI stickers, click the sticker icon in your DMs or comments and type a prompt that describes your sticker.

As you can see, the feature is accessible via the sticker tab in individual DMs, after which you can type in your text prompt to generate several sticker alternatives.

Instagram Updates November 2023

Exciting News: Global Launch of Reels Download Feature!

Big news for Reels enthusiasts! You’re now empowered to download your favorite reels from public accounts directly to your camera roll. This feature, previously launched in the US, has now gone global. Each downloaded reel comes with a watermark, proudly displaying the original creator’s Instagram handle.

To download, simply hit the Share icon on any reel and select ‘Download.’ Keep in mind that content creators can disable downloads for their reels. If you find a reel that’s not downloadable, don’t worry – you can always hit the three dots to save it for later viewing within the app.

Related: How to save Instagram stories?

Lyrics in Instagram Reels

Instagram now allows adding song lyrics to Reels, similar to Stories, thus offering an enhanced music feature.

Users only have to tap the musical note icon, search for a song, and swipe left to add their lyrics.

Users can customize the font and emphasize any part of the song to enrich their Reels.

Although this update is a minor change to Reels, users are already adding lyrics manually, so Instagram chose to simplify the process.

Instagram Updates October 2023

Instagram Notes video

Instagram is currently testing a new feature that will allow users to post selfie videos in Notes.

Soon, you’ll be able to update your default profile photo in Notes with a short, looping video. 

Imagine the possibilities! 

This feature adds a dynamic layer to your profile, making it more engaging and interactive. In a world where visual content reigns supreme, this feature is a step forward in making your Instagram Notes more personalized and captivating. It’s not just about text anymore; now, you can express yourself more vividly and authentically.

How can brands benefit?

For brands, this opens up a new avenue for user-generated content. Imagine running a campaign where your audience updates their Notes with a video showing off your product. 

It’s a win-win: they get to be creative, and you get authentic, eye-catching content.

Friends to post in your carousel feed

Instagram is testing a new setting for users to invite friends to post photos in a carousel.

So, before publishing a carousel, users can turn on a setting allowing their followers to submit photos or videos in their feed.

Of course, there will be an option to approve to include the posts in the original carousel post.

This has the potential for collaboration and fun within the users’ feeds.

Also, it seems to be an attempt of Instagram to shift users’ attention from stories to the feed, where, at the moment, more and more people spend less time due to the engaging story format.

Create an Instagram feed only with meta-verified accounts

Instagram just announced they are testing a new filter for the main feed. It’s a Meta Verified feed, allowing users to see only posts from Meta Verified accounts in one feed.

This filter will appear as an addition to the Following and Favourites filter when you tap on the top-left Instagram logo in the app.

This means that these are real people who are verified by Meta by paying for the service to get the blue checkmark.

It is a good move to try to clean up users’ feeds from fake accounts, especially when the posts are on serious topics.

Additionally, it is a new way for relevant creators and businesses to get discovered by a broader audience.

Instagram Updates September 2023

Customizable AI Stickers for Instagram DMs or WhatsApp

In the ever-evolving world of Meta, Instagram has once again made a groundbreaking announcement that is set to redefine the way users interact and express themselves on the platform. The popular photo-sharing app has begun the rollout of its latest feature – customizable AI stickers for Direct Messages (DMs) and Stories. But that’s not all; there’s more in store for the Instagram community!

Gone are the days when users had to rely solely on pre-designed stickers to add flair to their messages and stories. With AI stickers’ introduction, Instagram offers a more personalized and interactive experience.

These stickers, powered by advanced artificial intelligence, allow users to customize them according to their preferences, making conversations more engaging and fun. Initially, this feature is being made available to select English language users, with plans for a broader rollout in the near future.

AI Image Editing Tools

Instagram’s commitment to enhancing user experience doesn’t stop at stickers. According to Adma Mosseri, Head of Instagram:

You can ask the Meta AI assistant to /imagine some wild images.

The platform has teased the upcoming launch of AI image editing tools, exclusively for users in the US.

While details remain under wraps, it’s evident that these tools will leverage the power of artificial intelligence to offer advanced photo editing capabilities. Users can look forward to transforming their photos with cutting-edge effects and edits, ensuring that their Instagram feed stands out.

Location in Instagram Notes

The latest Instagram update is the announcement of the testing of a feature to add a location when posting a Note. This was announced as a useful option to help creators express more about their whereabouts and possibly connect more with their followers and friends.

Here is. a sneak peek of this new Notes feature:

And it’s interesting that according to the poll, people are not very excited about this new feature.

Only 8.2K Instagram users voted Yes for this feature out of 14.8K polled users.

Let’s see.

Instagram Updates August 2023

Coming soon: Share comments from public feed posts in Instagram stories

Instagram is currently testing a new feature that allows public accounts to share comments from any public feed post or Reels to their Instagram stories. This means that creators can now highlight positive, supportive, or simply interesting comments from their followers, giving them a platform to be seen and heard.

This feature could have a number of benefits for creators, including:

• Increased engagement: When creators share positive comments from their followers, it shows their audience that they appreciate their support. This can lead to increased engagement, such as more likes, comments, and shares.
• Improved relationships with followers: Sharing comments from followers can help creators build stronger relationships with their audience. When followers see their comments being featured, they feel valued and appreciated, which can lead to them becoming more loyal fans.
• Increased reach: When creators share comments from their followers, it can help their content reach a wider audience. This is because the comments will be visible to the followers of the person who shared them and the followers of the original poster.
• Boosted morale: When creators receive positive feedback from their followers, it can boost their morale and motivation. This can lead to them creating more content and being more active on Instagram.

Overall, the ability to share comments from feed posts and Reels to stories is a new and innovative feature that has the potential to benefit creators in a number of ways.

We’re excited to see how creators use this feature and how it affects their engagement and reach.

Here are some additional things to keep in mind about this feature:

• The feature is currently only being tested with a small group of public accounts.
• It is not yet clear when the feature will be rolled out to all users.
• The feature will only work for comments that are made on public feed posts and Reels.

Hopefully, we will see this feature rolled out very soon. Stay tuned!

Instagram Updates July 2023

Share a broadcast message in an Instagram story 

We recently discovered this option, and it’s worth sharing. 

If you’ve started using the Instagram broadcast channels, you usually have access to information shared only in your community. In order to spread the word and share some of these messages beyond the channel, you can do it with a straightforward option. 

So go to the channel, and tap on the message you think is worth sharing with your audience. In the options, you will see the ‘Share to story’ option. Once you tap it, you will be directly redirected to the Stories editor, where you can just click to publish and share the message in your stories. 

The message will appear short with a link to Join the broadcast channel if somebody wants to read more. 

Cool right? 

New Instagram Features June 2023

New option to download Instagram Reels

Adam Mosseri, the Head of Instagram, has announced that they are launching an option for users to download Instagram reels on their phone’s camera rolls that are shared by public accounts. 

The option is rolled out in the US, and it’s coming worldwide very soon.

To download an Instagram Reel, just follow these steps:  

1. Tap on an Instagram Reel to preview it.
2. Tap on the right-hand sharing ‘arrow’ icon. 
3. In the popup with the list of your friends, at the bottom, you will see the Downalod option. 
4. Once you tap on it, the Instagram Reel will be saved on your camera roll.

We at EmbedSocial allow users to embed Instagram Reels on their website, so if you use the download option, you can easily upload these Reels and create widgets.

These widgets can be topical, meaning you might want to share some of the latest recipes of your favorite cooks on Instagram, maybe some fitness or make-up routines, and bring the Instagram Reels to your website as new content. 

It is important to note that the Reels shared by private accounts can’t be downloaded or made public. Accounts can limit the ability to have their Reels downloaded. 

Instagram launches Notes Music

Notes are becoming more fun. Now users will be able to put a 30 min music clip that will appear as their Note.

In the beginning of the year, Notes were introduced to users in some countries, and so far, people used them as a short textual hint of their current mood.

This means that users can use it to express their current mood and trigger other people to start direct messaging conversations.

In addition to the music notes, a Translation feature is also released, so when users dont understand the Note, they can tap on it and click ‘See translation’ and get english translation of the Note.

Notes Music is very well advertised in the broadcasting channels by Mark and Adam, and it looks like the whole Meta team believes in this feature as a game changer when starting conversations. According to Adam Mosseri, Notes are becoming very popular with the young audiance as a quick conversations starter.

New Instagram Features May 2023

Instagram is launching GIFs in Comments.

Finally, GIFs in Comments on Instagram.

Gifs are coming to Instagram and will now be available in the Comments section for Stories and Reels. Users will be able to search for a gif and post it in a comment for a better and more fun expression in the conversations.

The functionality is integrated with GIPHY – a service where people can create and publish their gifs.

To post a gif, just click on the comment box, and look for the GIF icon. Tap on it, and a popup with gifs library will appear.

Pick the one you like the most and post it.

Here is how this functionality looks like:

Share a song in Instagram Notes

Instagram is testing a new feature in Notes where people can share a song like a Note.

It is an interesting way of self-expression and a conversation opener that can boost conversations to move to DMs. 

It works similarly to adding a song in Reels, where a user can crop a snippet from the song that will appear as the note. On clicking, the friends will be able to listen to part of the song. 

Here is what a Note with a song will look like: 

To help you stay up-to-date with the latest Instagram updates and adjust your business to them, we put together a list of the latest updates you may not know about or know how to use.

Keep in mind that Instagram is constantly adding and removing features (now faster than ever). And I’m sure you want to keep your business account trending.

So, if you don’t have some of the features we listed, don’t worry – they are coming your way! Or better, subscribe to our newsletter, and we will bring all new Instagram updates right to your inbox:

New Instagram Updates in April 2023

Add Multiple Links to Instagram Bio

Instagram is allowing creators to add multiple links in their bio. This is a solution to have a much easier job for their followers to discover more about the content creators share. 

For example, these multiple links can help UGC creators and brands add links to their shops and other social media profiles.

With this update, you can add up to 5 links.

Here’s how to add multiple links to the Instagram bio

1. Go to your profile and tap ‘Edit profile.’
2. Tap Links and then tap ‘Add external links.’
3. Paste the URL and its title 
4. Tap Done.

To reorder the links, you can do a drag-and-drop. 

Please note only the first link will be seen on the profile, and then tap on ‘2 other links ‘ as seen below; the other links will be listed in the small popover.

We are not sure how useful this is than having one link in the bio link with all the external links and links on the photos plus. One thing is for sure it adds friction.

If you are looking for a solution to add more links and links to your Instagram photos, you should use a link-in-bio page creator. 

New Reels Trends and Editing Tools, Expansion of Gifts and New Reels Insights 

The new Instagram update includes a few improvements with Instagram Reels that will allow users to create and earn more from their Instagram videos easily.  

Here is what’s new in more detail: 

Reels Trends

This new feature provides a list of trending Reels, and the idea is to allow UGC creators to get inspiration and create Reels that reflect the latest trends.

To access this feature, go to Professional Dashboard and click on Reels Trends. 

Enhanced Editing Tools

New Reels editing tools that will enable video creators to easily add the video, apply text and other effects like music, etc. 

Improved Insights

Finally, creators will be able to see better information about the performance of their Reels. With this new Instagram update Reels 

To access this option, you will have the option ‘View Insights’ in your Reel, and when you click on it will take you to the Insights page with stats like total watch time and average watch time. 

Gifts Expansion

This bigger expansion will allow creators to activate the gift option in Canada, Australia, Mexico, France, New Zealand, and the UK in the coming weeks.

Additionally, a new option exists to see which fans shared the gift, so creators can personally engage and thank them. 

New Collaborative Collections on Instagram

We’re happy to share a new feature with you: Instagram Collaborative Collections. This addition makes it possible for you and your friends to create, share, and explore collections together, adding a new layer of interaction to your Instagram experience.

Collaborative Collections offer a simple way to share content with your friends. You can create a shared collection, add posts, and discuss them together, making it perfect for exchanging ideas, planning trips, or just sharing your favorite finds.

Here’s how to create a Collaborative Collection:

• Find a post you like and tap Save icon
• Create new collaborative collection and name the collection
• Toggle “on” for collaborative
• Select friends and tap Save.

Tutorial on how to create collaborative collection >

Remember that when you create a Collaborative Collection, only the friends you invite can view it. You can also add or remove friends at any time, and you’ll receive notifications for updates within the shared collection.

New Instagram Updates in March 2023

New Reels Trend Report March 2023

This is not actually a new feature, but it’s a very useful report that Instagram shares with creators. 

Here are some of the March trends, and you can see all Instagram Reels trends on our website: 

• The real me – this trend is great for people to show their true selves and randomly post goofy and genuine photos of themselves 
• Fried cheese pickle wrap – is another great and very tasty trend for people to try an interesting snack of fried cheese that wraps a pickle. It seems very delicious, so don’t watch it on an empty stomach. 

To find out more about the latest trends, see all Instagram Reels trends > 

PRO Tip: How to turn on or off the Instagram app updates

The new features often require you to update your Instagram app. If you always want your latest Instagram updates, please turn on the auto-update option on your phone; this is available for Android devices with Meta App Manager installed.

To turn auto-updates on or off on your Instagram app:

1. Open your Instagram profile page
2. Tap the menu icon on the top right and tap Settings.
3. Tap About, and tap App updates.
4. Tap next to Auto-update Instagram to turn auto-updates on or off.

Top Instagram Updates in February 2023

Meta Verified to Pay and Make Your Instagram or Facebook Account Verified

Update:

Update: Meta Verified is now available for US users. This is a step backward from what was announced just one month ago. And with this announcement, there are changes in what users will get – meaning US users won’t get increased reach by default when they get the blue checkmark. Here is the official news:

“We’re removing increased reach as a subscription feature for now as we gather more feedback and further evolve Meta Verified”

Finally, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta would be charging people who want to have verified or a blue check account can do that by paying $11 on the Web or $14.99 on iOS. This service is already rolled-out in New Zealand and Australia.

This is an announcement after a few months of attempts from Twitter to make the charge of the blue checkmarks as a new revenue stream, attempts that still need to be enforced due to various problems.

According to Mark, this service will significantly help people with their representation across the network.

For example, people can verify their accounts with a government-issued ID and protect their Meta identity from people impersonating or using their names for various reasons.

Read more about how to get Instagram verified badge >

Introducing Instagram Broadcast Channels

The Instagram Broadcast Channels are the latest update in the Instagram platform.

It’s a new feature that allows creators to build community within a new messaging space. An Instagram Channel acts as a direct line between the creator and the followers, where creators are able to distribute all their latest news directly to the most loyal followers.

It is available only to US creators at the moment, but it will roll out worldwide in the coming months.

Instagram is launching Gifts for all creators in the US

Gifts are an effortless way for creators to make a living on Instagram. It is an option that allows fans to send digital gifts that, in time, creators can monetize. 

This is how it works. 

• For eligible creators, a Gift option will appear in the bottom left corner of their Reels. 
• A fan can choose and purchase a gift (currently Stars) from the library and send it to the creator.
• In time the creators, once they accumulate a certain amount of gifts, will be able to exchange and withdraw them as real money. 

Here are the eligibility criteria for having the Gifts option:

• The creator needs to be based in US
• Have a professional Instagram account
• To actively create Reels on Instagram 
• Pass the Monetisation Policy
• Continue to comply with the Instagram Comunity Guidelines 

To see if you are elidable, check for more information in your own Professional dashboard in the Instagram app. 

Gifts will only be available for Reels now and for past, present, and future Instagram Reels. 

Top Instagram Updates in January 2023

Roll out of dynamic avatar profile photos on Instagram

Finally, there is a use of your Instagram 3D avatar.

Now users can add their Instagram avatars that will flip when somebody visits their profile on Instagram. With this, Instagram is introducing for the first time an animation in their platform.

You can add yours by a tap on the Edit profile option.

To see the announcement and how it works, see the post below:

New features such as Quiet mode, Hidden words in recommendations, and multi-select in Explore

This week, Instagram is launching new features that will help users have a better Instagram experience. Here is what’s new: 

Quiet Mode

This new option helps users to set up a period of time when they do not want to use the Instagram app and focus on other things. During this period, the app won’t send any notifications, and also the users trying to contact you will know that you are in Quent mode.

Once you return, you will get all the things you missed, such as mentions, messages, comments, etc. so you will know what was happening while you were away. 

Hidden words in Recommendations

This option already exists in Direct messenger, but with this update, users can define hidden words that will be applied to what Instagram will show you in the Recommendations section. This means that images or videos using some of the hidden words you specified will no longer appear in the recommendations. 

Multi-select in Explore

With a long press on any video or image in Explore, you can select Not interested so the Instagram algorithm will know to provide you with better explore content. And with the new multi-select, you can select multiple images or videos and quickly clean your Instagram Explore. 

Hope these new features will help you optimize and improve your Instagram usage.  

Instagram App Navigation Update

Instagram is announcing a change in the main navigation in its mobile app – which will try to make a simpler way for users to adopt the 2023 mission of the company, which will include bringing people together over the things they love.

The new change will be released in February and include the following: they will remove the Shop menu and now have the shortcut for creating content in the center and Reels to the right.

As the CEO, shared, people will still be able to use the shopping options in the Feed, Stories, Reels, and Ads.

Instagram feature development focus in 2023

Instagram is starting this year with an announcement of its primary focus for 2023. In the previous year, they leaned toward helping creators make a living with a focus on video and messaging features.

By hitting 2 billion users, Instagram will continue with the vision to bring people together over the things they love over their interests, and to do this, in 2023 Instagram will focus on the following 3 things:

• Inspire people to be creative
• Help people discover things they love
• Spark connections between people

We are excited to see what the platform launches next following these 3 new strategies. Stay tuned!

Top Instagram Updates in December 2022

Instagram Group Profiles

Instagram Group Profiles offer a new way to connect with friends and family. You can create your own Instagram Group Profile or join an existing one, where you can all share stories, posts, and pictures in a dedicated shared profile. Whenever content is posted in a Group Profile, it will only be seen by other group members instead of your followers. It will also appear in the Group Profile instead of your own Instagram profile. Here. is how this profile Looks like:

Those with this option can create a group profile by simply tapping the “+” sign in the Instagram app and choosing Instagram Group Profiles.

With Instagram Group Profiles, you can stay connected with your loved ones like never before!

Instagram Candid Stories

Are you looking for a new way to share what’s going on in your life with your friends? With Instagram Candid Stories, you can easily capture and share moments with the people closest to you. It’s like having a private story that is only visible to those who also share their own Candid.

You can use the Stories Camera, the multi-author story at the top of your feed, or you can capture a Candid from the daily notification reminder that starts after the initial Candid. And if you don’t want to be reminded, no problem! You can always turn off the notification in your Settings.

Instagram account status update

With this update, Instagram is expanding the Account Status, so professional users know if their content will be considered and eligible to reach non-followers as recommended content.

Here are all things users can do with Account status 

• Check if your content can be recommended: See if your content may be eligible to be recommended to non-followers in places like Explore, Reels, and Feed Recommendations.
•  Fix content problems – know if you have problematic content that is not following the Community guidelines and how to fix it.

With these updates, you can see why you might be experiencing a lower reach of your content when compared with the previous content that was recommended and gained more views and engagements. 

Within the account status, you can see if there might be a case when your account is not elidable, and you will be able to fix problems and get back to being recommended. 

Top Instagram Updates in November 2022

Add Music to Instagram Posts

We’re excited to announce that you can now add music to your Instagram Feed photo posts! With this new feature, you can express yourself with the power of sound and bring your content to life in a whole new way. Whether it’s background music for a picture collage or an upbeat song for a travel photo, adding music to Feed photos is a great way to make your posts stand out and tell your story. So grab some tunes and start sharing!

Here is how to add music to a post on Instagram:

1. Open your Instagram app and tap the plus icon at the top right corner
2. Take a photo or choose one from your phone’s library.
3. Tap Next, then tap Next again in the top right.
4. Tap Add music. You can select a song from the list or search for a song in our music library.
5. Use the sliding bar at the bottom to choose which part of the song you want to play with your photo.
6. Tap Done, then tap Share in the top right.

Mute option: Stop seeing stories and posts without people knowing. 

This is a feature that has been introduced previously, but it is one of the best to be highlighted. 

You probably have somebody in your feed or stories that you don’t want to unfollow but don’t want to see their content. 

In this case, you can use the option Mute, which will remove the person’s content from your feed, but you will still continue to follow them; in other words, they will not know that their posts are not in their feed. 

To Mute somebody, just follow the steps below: 

In stories: 

1. Long press on their story
2. In the popover, tap Mute
3. Choose to mute their stories or posts, or both

In profile:

1. Go to their profile, and tap on the Following button
2. Choose Mute
3. And choose to mute their stories or posts, or both

You can also un-do it, just tap on Following on their profile, and you can switch to unmute their stories or posts and see their content again. 

Achievements in Instagram Reels

This very cool option encourages creators to create more Reels and improve their content.

There are 3 achievements so far such as: 

• Creative streak – Keeping up their creation streak by creating more than one Reel per week 
• Trendspotter – Joining the conversation by using trendy audio or Reels effects. 
• Collaborator – Collaborating with another creator through Remix, Collabs tool, ‘Add Yours’ sticker 

When a new achievement is reached, the creator will be notified and will have a link to read more about what they earned and what to do next and unlock the next achievement. 

Gifts on Instagram

Gifts are coming on Instagram; this option will be available with Reels. The goal with gifts is to help creators earn money from their followers who love the content they share.

This option will be first available to a limited number of creators in the US, and the eligible creators will have the option to activate the receiving of stars in their Professional dashboard.

Fans can send a gift by purchasing Stars on Instagram. More to come in the coming period.

Top Instagram Updates in October 2022

New Instagram Profiles Design on Desktop

Instagram is rolling out a new desktop design for Instagram profiles.

The new design includes a unique position of the menu and some changes in how they show the reels in the Explore tab.

Here is an example of the Glossier Instagram profile:

Now the top menu appears as a vertical menu on the left side of the screen.

By doing this, there is a broader focus on the profile feed, whereas the menu options are more visible.

Instagram AR Ads

Instagram is rolling out the capability to add an augmented reality filter and create an ad. These ads will be able to run Instagram stories and Instagram feed and can invite users to do all sorts of activities, like join games or contests. 

This is big in the advertising industry, and the applications are endless. 

We can’t wait to see these ads and what brands and agencies will come up with. 

To create an AR ad on Instagram, advertisers need to use the Meta Sparck studio to create and get approval for their AR effect. 

Expanding Instagram Creators’ Marketplace

Instagram has announced that they are expanding the creator’s marketplace with more features and rolling it out to more users. 

Make projects discoverable

With the new updates, brands can now make their project discoverable so creators can find their projects. Brands will also be able to message multiple creators in bulk, which will appear in a prioritized partnership inbox in their messages. Also, brands can send offers with fixed rates, so creators can make decisions faster and collaborate more efficiently with brands. 

 On the other hand, creators can soon make their profiles available for new opportunities so brands can know they are interested. 

Creator portfolio 

As the name suggests, creators can set up their portfolio pages and previous showcase work they’ve created and their past partnerships. 

An easier way to use organic content in ads

Creators will get a unique code for their posts that they can share with a partner so they can create an ad with that code and promote the organic content/post as the brand’s ad.

Instagram is testing a new feature called Notes

It has been a very silent month regarding new Instagram features. But we have a teaser of something that is coming up.

In an AMA session, the CEO, Adam Mosseri, shared a new feature the team is currently testing in Canada, Mexico, Egypt, South Korea, and some other countries. 

It is called Notes, and as he explained in a very short video, the option will be available in Instagram Messenger, where people will be able to write and send Notes in their DMs. 

From the screenshot he shared, Notes appear in the messenger header, and it looks like you can access them, similar to taping a Story. See below:

It seems like an interesting feature that will make the users stay more on the app when it comes to sharing longer texts, proofreading, and double-checking before sending them a message.

Top Instagram Updates in September 2022

‘Not Interested’ option on Instagram

Instagram is a great platform for staying up-to-date on what’s happening with friends, family, and your favorite celebrities. However, there’s also a lot of content that you may not be interested in. If you find yourself constantly scrolling past posts that don’t interest you, there’s a new ‘Not Interested’ control that can help.

When you see a post in your feed that you’re not interested in, just tap the three dots in the upper right corner and select ‘Not Interested.’

Instagram will then try to show you less of this type of content in the future. The more you use the ‘Not Interested’ control, the better Instagram will be at tailoring your feed to your interests.

So if you’re tired of scrolling past content that doesn’t interest you, be sure to take advantage of the new ‘Not Interested’ control on Instagram. It can help make your feed a more enjoyable experience.

The future of Instagram in the Metaverse

Recently at a House of Instagram event, the team of Business Marketing shared exciting ideas on how Instagram will evolve as a bridge into the Metaverse. 

According to Instagram, there are now more than 1,2 million AR filters in the Meta platform, and 82% of the users have already used or interacted with a filter in the past year. Especially due to the big adoption of the Instagram Reels.

Reels grew 30% quarter over quarter in 2022.

– House of Instagram event

As you most probubly know, Meta is betting on this big idea of a new computing social platform, the Metaverse, but until now, we did not see any actuall use case.

Here are some ideas that can help you get a glimpse into what’s coming: 

• Live events – enabling people to have virtual experience live on events in different locations worldwide,
• Virtual presences – call or meet anybody anywhere in the Metaverse,
• Immerse experiences for brands – brands will be able to create games, present products in an immersive format, make fashion shows, etc., and bring their customer community to engage in a new environment. 

Please check the video from the event for a more in-depth understanding. 

Hidden Gem: Instagram Posts and Stories Archives

Instagram wants to ensure every user has access to their stories, so the platform has a very user-friendly Archive where people can access all their stories and posts. 

To access the Instagram stories archive, simply go to your profile page and tap on the three dots in the upper right-hand corner. From there, select “Archive.” This will take you to a page where all of your past stories are saved. You can view them by date or story type (image, video, or Boomerang), and even download them to your phone if you want to keep them permanently.

If you’re someone who likes to save their Instagram stories, or if you want to be able to look back on them later, the archive feature is a great way to do that. Just remember that once you archive a story, it will no longer be visible to other people unless you choose to share it again.

The hidden gem here is the ability to view also the Posts archive. To do this, you can tap on the top middle dropdown and choose Posts archive.

You can then see all the posts you’ve made in chronological order. You can also download these images, which is a neat feature if you want to keep a record of what you’ve posted on Instagram.

To download an image or video, simply tap on the three dots in the top right corner of the post and choose Download.

Top Instagram Updates in August 2022

‘Add yours’ sticker now available in Reels

‘Add yours’ sticker allows creators to post an interesting Reels video, and with this sticker, they will help their followers to continue the story with their own view on the topic within the Reel. It is very creative to invite different people to contribute with their videos.

It can be used to show Reels from an event, to create a trend by people joining with their own interpretation, or simply to see different points of view on a certain topic.

This sticker is a great way for people to connect and share their creativity with each other. It is also a great way to get people involved in your Reel and get them interested in your work.

On top of this, Instagram will reward the creators that will create a trend and will promote their names with a ‘started by’ label, so it’s a great way to get your name out there.

Add yours sticker is very easy to apply. Just tap the “Sticker” icon and select the sticker you want to add. Then, tap the “Add” button. That’s it! Your sticker will be added to your photo.

Launching NFTs to more Instagram users

Early this year, Instagram announced a capability for NFT creators to share digital collectibles on the platform and increase awareness of their art and project.

And now, they are expanding this feature to more and more Instagram users across 100 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and the Americas.

To post a digital Collectibles, users can now connect a digital wallet to Instagram, such as third-party wallets including Rainbow, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, and Dapper Wallet. Supported blockchains at this time include Ethereum, Polygon, and Flow.

There are no fees; sharing NFTs is free on Instagram.

9:16 vertical photos are coming on Instagram

On a recent Q&A with Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, he was asked if new cool photo features were planned to be released.

He confirmed that in the coming weeks, they would be testing tall photos – 9:16, making photos with a similar format as the trending vertical video formats.

Stay tuned.

Instagram Reels Bonus Play

Instagram announced a new bonus program called Reels Play that rewards creators who make engaging. Reels videos

It is a new way for creators to earn money based on the number of plays on their Reels. At the moment, this program is available for creators that are eligible based on this criteria:

• Live in the US
• Have less than 1 million followers
• Have an Instagram professional account
• Follow Instagram Partner’s Monetization policies 

How to get started? 

If you are elidable, you will see the invitation in your Professional Dashboard in your Instagram Profile. Accept it and follow the steps to set it up. 

Top Instagram Updates in July 2022

New Instagram Reels Templates and New Dual Features

Instagram is getting very serious about helping every user create Reels. 

They can finally do this very efficiently by providing pre-built Reels templates that everybody can use and create a Reel very fast. 

This is a great way to inspire people and help them create Reels, even if they have no idea how they work.

Reels Templates are very easy to use. Just click Use template and your own magic and create the Reel. 

We believe that with Templates, we can see more and more adoption of the Reels video format. 

Dual: In addition to the new Reels templates, users can now record their take on what’s happening. This means you can simultaneously use the phone’s front and back camera to record a video of both perspectives.

New Instagram Maps update

Instagram is making improvements to the Map functionality. The new update includes an option to search for local businesses by category.

With the new Instagram search map, you can find businesses near you and get more information about them. This can be useful when you’re looking for a specific type of business or want to explore what’s nearby.

To use the new Instagram search map, simply search for a city or a nearby location:

• Once you are on the Map zoom out and click Search this area
• The search results will bring local businesses categorized by their industry or type
• You can click on Hotels, Cafes, etc

We believe this is just the beginning for Instagram Maps, and we will see more features in the future.

Instagram Subscriptions New Features

Creators are at the core of the future innovation at Instagram.

They are the ones who are driving its growth, and the team behind Instagram is making a huge bet on the creators’ economy.

And the core of the win-win success is, of course, the tools that Instagram can provide in order to help them make more money.

One of these tools is Subscriptions, which was announced in mid-January and is already available to some beta users.

Subscriptions are a great way to enable creators get recurring revenue and have a sustainable stream of income.

Now, Instagram announced new updates and an extension of Subscriptions. Here is what’s new:

• Subscriber Chats – ability to invite subscribers to a group chat
• Subscriber Reels – option to post Instagram Reels for subscribers only
• Subscriber Posts – option to post Instagram Reels for subscribers only
• Subscriber Home – new tab in the profile for all content available only to subscribers.

This update means that creators can provide unique content only available to their Subscribers. This content can be in the form of Reels or Instagram posts that is only visible to subscribers.

There is also a special place in the Creator’s profile where all the Subscription related content will be accessible to the subscribers.

Top Instagram Updates in June 2022

Instagram launches new ways for people to confirm their age

There are three options:

1. You can upload your ID
2. Social vouching – Instagram will suggest you 6 people that are mutual followers, that are 18 or over themselves, and who are meeting a series of other criteria, and you can pick 3 people. Then, Instagram is going to ask them to verify your age on your behalf.
3. Face-based age prediction, for which Instagram is partnering with Yoti – You will be asked to send a short video selfie, and then Instagram will send that image over to their partner Yoti. They will use that selfie to predict your age. There is no facial recognition, so there is no way to tell what your identity is. This photo will be used just to predict your age. Yoti will send this photo back to Instagram and then delete it. That way, Instagram is protecting people’s privacy.

Updates to Instagram captions for Reels

Auto-generated captions on Reels

When you upload an Instagram Reel, auto-generated captions will automatically be turned on. With this feature, Instagram is making the process of captioning content more seamless for creators while making Instagram more accessible for members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, in addition to people who consume videos with sound off.

• How does it work?

When uploading an IG video auto captions will be turned on automatically. To turn off the audio captions, tap “Advanced Settings” in the upload flow and toggle “Captions” off by clicking the switch. This will automatically disable captions for all of your videos going forward. When viewing a video, you can tap on the overflow menu and select “Manage Captions” to access a switch to turn on and off captions.

AR Closed Captions

Instagram is launching new, stylized closed caption AR effects for Reels that let you easily elevate your video in fun and creative ways. Now you can turn dialogue into humorous, fun, and engaging closed captions that look like a text message chat (Bubble Captions), spew from your mouth (Mumble Captions), or that look straight out of a comic book (Comic Captions). All three new closed caption effects are accessible from the effects gallery.

• How does it work?

Open the Instagram camera and either before recording or after uploading from the gallery, tap the effects icon. Search for Bubble Captions, Mumble Captions, or Comic Captions. Tap the effect you want to use and record with the effect or apply the effect to your uploaded gallery content.

Want to do more with your Instagram reels? Learn how to embed Instagram Reels widget on your website.

3 New audio features in Instagram Reels

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Instagram’s @Creators (@creators)

1. Adjust volume and add voiceover – You can find them by clicking the song note icon on the preview screen after you’ve uploaded your reel.
2. Import audio – You can import audio from any reel that you have in your library and overlay it onto your video.
3. Text-to-Speech – Sometimes you don’t want to hear the sound of your own voice, so you can just type text in and a fun voice will read it right over your video.

Instagram is testing Creators Marketplace

Instagram just announced that they are testing its new creator marketplace.

This feature will allow creators to connect with brands for branded content partnerships, directly within the app.

The goal of the marketplace is to help creators indicate their interests and select brands they’re interested in partnering with.

On the other side, it will also help brands easily discover, connect, and collaborate with creators.

Plus, the marketplace will enable brands to securely pay the most strategic creators for their branded content partnerships.

This is a great opportunity for both creators and brands to connect and create amazing content!

Here is how it will work:

Creators can define your interests

Creators will have an option to define what are their interests and select up to 10 items that mostly qualify the profile of the creator.

By doing this, the platform will easily match what type of creators a particular brand is looking for.

Collaboration Projects

Brands will have the option to send projects to selected creators all within the Instagram app and in a simple message. The creator can view all the details including the payment rate and they can choose to accept or reject the project.

Get proposals in partnerships folder

After a brand expresses interest in working with a particular creator, they can reach out with the project and the creator will receive the it within a separate Partnerships tab in their Primary inbox in the Instagram app.

Payments

And of course, Instagram will process the payments for a project, meaning that creators will be able to receive their payment within the Instagram app.

Parental control on Instagram – 4 new updates

• Parental control is rolling out in 7 more countries worldwide: the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France, and Germany.
• Parents can initiate the supervision of their teen’s Instagram account, and both parent and teen must agree to switch on the feature.
• Parents can set periods during the week, i.e., times and days when their teen can’t use Instagram.
• Parents will be provided information when their teen reports something on Instagram. The data will include who and what they have specifically reported.

Take a break feature

It lets you know how much you have spent on Instagram and encourages you to do something else rather than spending time on Instagram.

Encourages creators to raise awareness about mental health and well-being

Launching Nudges

If you spend too much time on one topic, Instagram will let you know that you consumed too much time on that one topic and suggest you explore another topic.

Tis is very helpful for discovering more interesting things on Instagram and getting more from the platform.

New Features for Creators on Instagram

As creators are becoming significant users of Instagram, the platform has done tons of new features designed explicitly for Creators. 

Extending Reels videos

From 60 to 90 seconds now, users can create videos on REels that are 90 seconds long

Import your own audio in Reels 

This heavily requested feature allows users to record anything and use that as audio to their Reels videos.

Interactive stickers in Reels

Quiz, emoji sliders, and poll stickers are coming to Reels, making them more interactive as the Stories are. 

Grid pinning 

An ability to pin photos to the top of the grid in the profile. 

It is allowed to pin up to 3 photos or videos.  

To start pinning, just follow these steps:

1. go to the post you want to pin, 
2. Tap the 3 dots in the top-right corner
3. Choose ‘Pin to your profile’

Updates for Sensitive Content Control On Instagram

Last year Instagram launched the Sensitive Control Center, where users can define the level of sensitive content that will appear in discover from accounts they dont follow.

With the new update, and in addition to Explore, Instagram is giving more options to control sensitive accounts in Search, Accounts You Might Follow, Reels, Hashtag Pages, and In-Feed Recommendations. 

Now the Sensitive Content Control center has three options: “More,” “Standard,” and “Less.”

• “Standard” is the default state and will prevent people from seeing some sensitive content and accounts.
•  “More” enables people to see more sensitive content and accounts,  
• “Less” will see less of this content than the default state. 

For people under 18, the “More” option is unavailable.

To access these options, just tap Settings > Tap Account > Choose Sensitive Content Control > And choose one of the 3 options.

Support Amber Alerts on Instagram

Instagram is launching Amber Alerts in 25 countries around the world. If you are in an area where a child is missing, you will see an Amber Alert.

The Alert includes:

• A photo of the missing child
• Details about the missing child
• Contact details to report any information about the child

Instagram supports Amber Alerts as a partnership with the National center for missing and exploited children. 

Top Instagram Updates in May 2022

Quote request on Instagram

At the recent Conversations event, Meta announced that they are testing the ‘Quote request’ feature to allow businesses to add a ‘Get Quote’ button on their Instagram profile. 

Additionally, the ‘Get Quote’ sticker will be available in Instagram stories, which will allow Instagram users to quickly request a quote about a particular product or service that the brand is promoting on their Instagram account. 

The functionality will allow users to add custom questions that they can ask the customer prior to the conversion in their Instagram Direct messages. 

With this feature, Instagram is expanding its lead generation and customer acquisition tools.

New Instagram update rolled out

The new update of the Instagram posts format that we reported a few weeks ago is now fully rolled out, and the users are sending their initial impressions.

Just a reminder, Instagram did a major update of how all the posts, videos, or images appear in the main feed. All posts display in a vertical full-screen format with this new update. The change impacts the square format of the photos as now they show a blended background that corresponds with the image color.

Plus, Instagram updated the way the image carousels slide. Now users need to actuall swipe instead to tap and go to the next image – making it difficult for the users to adopt this new change.

Related to this, some of the users are already complaining that this change messed up the previous design of their feeds and are not big fans of this new update.

What about you?

All the posts that I took so much time to, y'know, carefully create for optimum aesthetic now look like this.. When will this hell end @instagram? Your test failed. I've spent 50% less time on the app. #instagramupdate @mosseri pic.twitter.com/EqAgKbVXCH

— 𝗞𝗔𝗬𝗘. (@kayedoeslogos) May 27, 2022

Refreshed Instagram branding and logo

If you have updated the Instagram mobile app recently, you might have noticed the lighter version of the Instagram app logo. 

It is not a glitch or a mistake. It is a new, refreshed update of the Instagram branding that includes

• lighter color palate
• new Instagram Sans font
• bold creator-focused imaginary 

Watch the video below to see all the changes. Or visit brand.instagram.com to see all the changes in the Instagram branding. 

Content accessibility features on Instagram

According to the World Health Organization, 2.2 billion people have ‘ disabling’ hearing loss, and 285 million+ people are with vision impairments.

And for the past years, Instagram has been making tons of app improvements on iOS and Android to make sure it meets the accessibility needs.

To encourage creators to make sure their content is also accessible, here is the Isntagram/s official Accessibility One-Pager with tips on how to use

• Auto-generated Captions on Instagram Video
• Captions Sticker on Stories & Reels
• Translations in Feed, Profile & Stories
• Alternative Text for Posts

NFTs on Instagram

Instagram just launched a new functionality for NFT creators and collectors to share their NFTs on Instagram.

This is a huge step in the development of the creator economy. Why? Well, it is directly stimulating the creators to make money out of their work. 

Now there are different Instagram monetization options, but a very interesting niche is the NFT community and the collectors or creators of these unique digital tokens.

To become part of the NFT community, Instagram announced a simple way for people to share NFTs they bought – in Stories, messages, or Feed.

Instagram is a centralized platform but is aimed to learn from the community and better understand the new web 3.0 decentralized web. 

New immerse experience in the Home Feed

Instagram/s CEO announced that they are testing a new immerse experience in the main Home feed in the Instagram app.

This means that video will become a bigger part of the feed, and takes up bigger space. Both photos and videos will take more of your screen – will have a taller format

The goal of these feed changes is to learn how people prefer to interact on mobile and if this 9:16 format is proven to be better for a mobile-first experience. Well, if we compare it with TikTok we can see that they are already full-screen by default, and maybe this change comes as an influence of the competition. 

Here are some of the initial comments about these changes: 

it’s really important for us creators to understand how many people this effects. when I edit a video and photo, i need to know where to draw your eye to, where to put certain text graphics. for not everyone to have the same experience is really frustrating

@jeremyjacobowitz

I don’t love it. It feels a bit crowded and too hard to comment / meaningfully engage.

@blairimani

Top Instagram Updates in April 2022

Expanding Product Tagging in Instagram Feed to Everyone

On April 18th, 2022 Instagram announced that the product tagging feature is now available for anyone in the U.S.

This feature was previously accessible only to creators and brands and now everyone can use it for tagging products in their feed.

With this update users in the U.S will be able to tag a brand and then specify a product on their published feed posts. People that tap on the product tag will see detailed information about the product. They can also purchase the product directly from the app or through the brand’s product detail page.

How to add Product tags:

1. Start by creating a post on the Feed
2. Tap ‘Tag people’
3. Search for the brand and tag it first. Two options should show up at the bottom – ‘People’ & ‘Products’.
4. Tap ‘Products’
5. Tap your photo to start tagging products. Use descriptions to find the product and then specify any styles or colors. When you are done tap to add a tag.
6. Share the post on your feed

For now, product tagging is only available for posts to the feed but Instagram is working on enabling this feature for stories in the near future.

Instagram updates editing tools for reels

In case you didn’t notice, Instagram recently updated the editing tools on one of their most popular features – Instagram reels. This update should help you trim and re-arrange your video clips within the Reels composer easier than before.

Now you can reorder, delete and trim each of your clips in just a few taps.

How it works:

1. Go to your Instagram app and open Reels camera
2. Record a video or upload an existing one from your gallery
3. Proceed to ‘preview video clips‘ and tap edit clips on the bottom left corner
4. You can tap the reorder button to enter reorder mode and use drag and drop to delete or reorder your clips.
5. If you want you can add more clips by tapping on the ‘add clips button‘
6. After you are finished with editing post your Reel!

New Hashtag Experience

Recently, Instagram launched new hashtag options for Instagram users to support, fundraise and spread the word about an important social cause.

Here is what’s new:

Working with relevant organizations, Instagram defines which of these hashtags are relevant and represent an actual cause.

Furthermore, each of the hashtags gets a destination, like a dedicated hashtag page where the users will be able to create a fundraiser or share to spread across their network.

This means that now you will be able to search for hashtags like #blacklivesmatter, #womensrights, or #climateaction and get to their own dedicated pages.

Currently, this is relevant for causes in the US only, starting with 35 hand-picked hashtags.

New messaging features

As announced this year, Instagram will focus more and more on messaging as a crucial feature of making the network more engaging for its users. 

The latest Instagram updates include a few new hidden gems to improve messaging. Here they are: 

Active now – On the top of your inbox, you will see a showcase of the active friends at the moment, so you can choose who to chat with now. 

@Silent – using this option, you can send the DM, but it will not send a push notification to the person you are writing to. This is useful if you write late at night and don’t want to disturb them. 

Quick Sent – if you are scrolling the feed and find content you want to DM to your friends, now you can long tap on the Arrow icon, and it will popup icons from your friends that when you tap on their avatar it will quickly send the link to the post into their DM. 

New music sharing – with the integration with Apple, Amazon Music, and soon with Spotify, will allow users from these apps to share a 30-second clip of a song to their friends in an Instagram DM.

Top Instagram Updates in March 2022

Instagram introduces a new Enhanced tag feature for giving credit to creators.

Instagram announced a new feature named Enhanced tags that enables you to tag all the contributors and collaborators in your post.

This means that now you can give credit to all people “behind the scenes”. You can tag the makeup artists, photographers, designers in your post and make it easier for them to be recognized as creators and find new opportunities.

“For many Black and underrepresented creators, crediting is an entryway to building a sustainable career as a creator, while combating cultural appropriation and ensuring the world knows who is driving culture.”

Instagram announcment.

How to start using the enhanced tags feature?

Open the Instagram app and tap the (+) in the top right corner

• Create a new Post and tap Next
• Make any edits and tap Next
• After adding a caption, tap Tag People
• Select Add Tag to search and select your contributors
• Tap Show Profile Category to display the creator category
• Tap Done

Once you’ve added (if any) additional tags and details, tap Share.

That’s it. The tags with the creators’ category on Instagram will appear on the post. When tapped on a tag, a bottom drawer will appear with direct links to follow the tagged users.

Top Instagram Updates in February 2022

Finally, Meta launched the long-awaited 3D avatars that have already rolled out to users in the US, Canada, and Mexico.

3d Avatars are a new visual representation of the users’ more dynamic identities than the static social media profiles.

The idea behind the avatars is to create them in the Instagram, Facebook, or Messenger apps. Still, it can take them across the Metaverse together with all your digital belongings, such as clothes, collectibles, bags, etc.

To get started, follow the detailed guide to create your 3d avatar.

Top Instagram Updates in January 2022

Scheduling Live in Instagram profile

The option to go Live on Instagram is available for some time. And with this new add-on, users are able to separate the Live from their posts or Stories and schedule it on their profile.

To make this feature more visible, Profiles will get a badge with the information of the schedule live. Plus their followers will be able to opt in to get a notification the moment the Live is available.

Subscriptions

This is big for creators and influencers, and it’s a new way for them to make more money on Instagram and with bigger predictability.

Subscriptions allow creators to monetize and become closer to their followers through exclusive experiences

Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram

Subscriptions are the best way to be sure that the revenue for the creators will be solely dependent on their content and not on the reach or other parameters.

This new feature is currently rolled out to selected users and hopefully will expand to more creators soon.

Subscriptions basically will allow three different types of content that people can subscribe to:

• Subscriber Lives – creatorss go live only to their subscribers
• Subscriber Stories – will be marked with a purple ring so subscribers will know that they are published solllely for them
• Subscriber Badges – subscribers will get a purple badge so the creators will differentiate them in DMs and comments.

In short, followers will pay a monthly subscription to exclusive content that their favorite creators publish – like unique Live videos or Instagram stories available only to the subscribers.

As the creators own the subscriber list, they should be able to export it to other platforms. Adam pointed out that they are working on allowing creators to bring their subscribers on other platforms or apps, so they are not dependent on Instagram.

Chronological order of the feed

Adma Mosseri, the Instagram CEO, started the year with a big announcement and shared information that they are testing a chronological order of the feed. He introduced three new options – Home, Favorites, and Following so every Instagram user can choose how they prefer to see the order of the posts in their home screen (two of which would give the option to see posts in chronological order):

• Home: will work as it is now and will give the same user experience as we all know it – posts ordering is based on the algoritham’s process. Basicly this alhoritham ranks the content based on how interested it thinks the user will spend most of their time;
• Favourites: will show the posts from the accounts that the users indicated that they are their favourite accounts
• Following: it will be a chronological list of the accounts the user follow. – which basily is the old way of ordering the posts in most of the social media apps .

We will keep updating this article with new Instagram features. So feel free to come back again or subscribe below to our newsletter to get first-hand information about the latest Instagram and other social media trends.

New Instagram updates December 2021

New tool to customize Link Sticker in Instagram Stories

Recently, Instagram introduced Link Stickers the ability to add links to Instagram stories and an option that is now available to all users – not just users with more than 10,000 followers with was the case before.

This option is very simple and it displays a sticker that when tapped opens an external link. Now, this feature is extended with new options that allow users to customize the link label text. The new option appears as a ‘Customize sticker text’ link, that if you click it you are able to enter your custom call-to-action text, such as Tip: To drive more clicks, try titling your sticker with a strong call to action, like, “sign up for 15% off!” or “shop the sale!”. Here is how to do this:

Instagram is experimenting Favourites and chronological order of posts

This year Instagram had significant challenges with the public pressure to be more transparent and provide more options for people to control their presence on the platform. And this month, they are actually taking more actions by announcing that the platform is experimenting with Favorites, a new way to allow users to control whose posts they want to see higher up.

On top of this option, Instagram also announced the possible option to show posts in chronological order.

This is now a general change in the Instagram algorithm but just giving more options to the users to control how they want to see the posts in their feeds.

New safety features: Take a break, Parental Controls

Instagram is finally launching more serious features that protect teens on the platform.

Here is what’s new: 

Take a break – an option that will remind the users who have been scrolling for some time to take a break, reset, and reflect on something else. 

Your activity – is a dedicated place to manage all activity on Instagram. The most important is the option to bulk delete all old content and control what is visible publicly on the users’ profiles.  

Parental controls: Launch the first tools for parents and guardians on Instagram. Some of the initial options will include settings for the parents to add time limits for using Instagram, the option to send notifications to parents when a teen reports somebody to continue the conversation about that situation, and similar. 

As said, these are more serious tools that Instagram is now providing that hopefully will help teens use the platform more safely. 

New Instagram updates November 2021

Delete a specific photo in a Carousel

This option is very useful if you uploaded multiple photos in a carousel and you just want to delete one or two – not the entire post.

To do this, Instagram provides a new option that is available for iOs users, and the steps are pretty simple: 

• Go to the carousel post you want to edit
• Click on the top-right dots icon and choose Edit
• Scroll through the photos to find which one you want to delete
• Tap the top-left delete icon 

See below: 

You have 30 days chance to restore the deleted photo by going to Settings > Account > Recently deleted.

Instagram Badges for Live Videos

This month Instagram rolled out Badges for Live to all eligible creators in the US. 

Badges are an option for creators to earn more money from their followers. They work very simply. 

During a live video, viewers can click an icon and buy badges to support the creators’ work. The badges are displayed as heart(s) next to the username of the person who purchased the badges. 

The viewers can purchase multiple badges in $0.99, $1.99, and $4.99 increment.

Creators can also view more details about the badges count in the Personal Dashboard after the Live ends.

How to turn on Badges?

If you are eligible for using badges, navigate to your Professional Dashboard in the Instagram app, and you will see a button, ‘Set up Badges.’ If you are not eligible, you can tap ‘Apply for monetization’ and wait for status updates in the same dashboard. 

After getting access to this option, you can turn it on the right before starting the Live, by tapping on the left-hand option Badges – see below:

Access to badges for eligible creators in the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico is currently invite-only. Head to Settings > Creator > Badges to check your invite status.

How many badges can supporters purchase?

They can buy as many badges as they like, for up to US$250 per live video. Learn More

When can I expect my first paycheck from badges in Live?

Once you’ve earned at least $100, you’ll get paid. Then depending on your bank, payments can take between 1-7 business days to arrive. Learn More

Is there a transaction fee when you buy a Badge?

Google and Apple deduct 30% of all in-app purchases in fees. Currently, Instagram receives no portion of the fees. Learn More

Add Yours Sticker to create public thread in Instagram stories

This month Instagram rolled out very exciting features, and one of them is the Add Yours Sticker.

Add Yours Sticker allows creators to post a story and add this sticker that will invite other friends to post on their Story by including them in the continuation of the initial Story. This way, other users can post images into their friends’ stories. 

Stickers are becoming a design recognition for how content is published and distributed through the platform, and now users can create a sticker that will give an option to their followers to post photos inside their own story.

To do this, and publish this sticker, just follow the steps for adding any other sticker in the story editor:

• Tap to add a new story
• Tap the sticker icon
• Choose Add Yours Sticker
• Type a theme or choose from the available questions/topics
• And post the Story

Once your followers see the Story, they can interact with this sticker, and with a tap on the Add yours sticker icon, a popup will open asking them to choose a photo and publish it in that Story. 

Very cool, right?!

The usages are endless, from asking other people to contribute with their creativity to a discussion to using it for marketing purposes and creating photo contests, giveaways etc. 

New Instagram updates October 2021

Finally! Share link on Instagram stories for everybody

The biggest announcement this month or this year is the launch of the Instagram Stories Link sticker and its availability to all users.

This is a true game-changer for small businesses as they will have the ability to directly link to their product pages and sell more this coming holiday season.

It is also an important and beneficial option for creators that make money from their website traffic which will definitely directly impact the number of their web visitors.

Instagram launched the “Collab” option in feed posts and reels

The newest option, “Collab,” rolled by Instagram, enables users to collaborate on feed posts and reels. Now, content creators can send collaboration invites to other Instagram users and create feed posts and reels mutually. The posts will appear in both of the creators’ Instagram greeds and will share the exact view count, like count and comment thread. 

The “Collab” option was announced by the VP of Instagram, Vishal Shah, back in July 2021, but the release date for the users around the globe wasn’t confirmed until Oct 19, 2021, when Shash posted on his Twitter account about the official release.

Instagram will enable users to upload photos and videos via desktop

Another announcement Instagram made in the month of October is the option for sharing videos and photos via desktop. 

So, for everyone that wasn’t familiar with posting photos on Instagram through the Inspector mode on the website, this new option will come in handy when sharing images via smartphones is not a possibility.

For now, the new feature allows sharing only photos and short videos, meaning that users can’t share stories or reels through their personal computers yet.

More tools for creators to increase their content partnerships

In the fast-approaching Christmas shopping euphoria, the tech giant is testing new features to help creators grow their content partnership. 

The first option is called “Partnerships,” and it is a feature within the messaging part of the app that is meant to help creators organize and oversee sponsored content opportunities.

“Partnerships” should ease the communication between the brands and creators that are open for collaboration.

The second option Instagram is working on is for creators that take part in its affiliate program. The feature should help creators make their own shops of products, which will provide more exposure for the brands.

New data analytic tool for better insight

The excellent news for all marketers and content creators that make a living off of Instagram is the new analytics update that should give more in-depth data about their followers. With the new update, users should receive more data about who is engaging with their content, whether people who engage are their followers and the total reach of the posts.

Anyone who has the slightest interest in social media and data knows how vital analytics are for creating relevant and engaging content that goes viral and tightens the relationship between creators and followers.

New Instagram updates September 2021

Instagram rolls out Map search 

Map search is the latest Instagram feature that allows users to find the location of different businesses within the Instagram app. With one click on the map icon, users can now see directions about nearby places like restaurants, bars, cafeterias, entertainment venues, and more. Additionally, once users click on a specific business they can find out more information like location, price of products and services, as well as public posts marked with the business’ location.

To find the new feature:

1. Click on the explore button
2. In the upper right corner click on the map icon

To explore new places within the new map app you can click on one of the listed categories like restaurants, cafes, hotels, etc. or you can search by typing in a name or a specific hashtag in the search bar.

Understanding verification on Instagram

What is an Instagram verification badge?

According to the company, the verification badge is just a simple way of showing the authenticity of a profile. 

It doesn’t mean that the company favors verified Instagram accounts more than the others, it is just a simple way of making sure that people behind those accounts are really the ones who they say they are.

How to get the blue checkmark on your profile?

The first thing you need to do to get verified by Instagram is to follow their Terms of Use and Community Guidelines. 

Also, the account must be public, have a picture, description bio at least one post, and represent a real person, business, or entity. 

One more crucial thing in order to get the blue checkmark is that you need to be a well-known, highly searched-for person, brand, or entity.

Instagram drops “swipe-up” links for stickers

Instagram replaced the swipe option with stickers. 

Now, all users who had the opportunity to use this option and bring the audience from their profiles to websites will be able to do the same with stickers.

In addition to this change, creators can now use different sticker styles, sizes, and can place the sticker link anywhere they want on their story. 

Furthermore, users can send reactions to stories with links stickers like they do on any other story, something that wasn’t possible with the swipe-up link. 

Instagram’s developing a new option – ‘Montage’ 

A new Instagram option that is still in the development phase should allow users to turn their stories into Instagram reels. 

The “montage” option is still tested internally, however, the main purpose is to help users create reels by combining elements from Instagram stories’ frames.  

New Instagram Updates August 2021

More Protection of Teen Accounts on Instagram

With the new Instagram update, users under 18 will have more superior protection for their identity and possible misuse of their Instagram accounts. The platform is providing the following safety features for

• Everyone under 16 will get a private account when they join Instagram for the first time, by default
• Adults will not e able to contact teens who don’t want to hear from them
• Limitations in the ways advertisers can reach young people on Instagram and Facebook

In a summary, Instagram as a social media is trying to protect teens from getting messages from adults with ‘suspicious activity and ban them from making unwanted contact with young people.

Instagram introduces “Limits”- a new feature to hide abusive messages 

Instagram rolled out a new feature that aims to protect its users from abusive comments and DMs. And it’s a real game-changer.

The new feature called Limits allows users to limit or hide comments and messages coming from users who are not on their followers’ list or who have become a follower in the recent past.

The purpose of the new Instagram feature is to protect public figures from offensive comments and messages.

The option follows after the increased amount of offensive comments aimed at UK football players in anticipation of the Euro 2020 final.

The company clarifies that Instagram creators and public figures often receive comments with offensive content from profiles that are not their followers’ list or from users who have only just followed them.

However, the option is available globally for all Instagram users using the app anyhow (desktop, smartphones, iPhones – everything).

To activate the option:

1. Got to settings

2. Click privacy

3. Click Limits and choose what group you would like to limit and for how long. 

4. Click turn on

Instagram also displays a strong message warning to its users not to post comments that may contain potentially offensive content.

Another option aimed at protecting users is the option of hidden words in direct messages.

With this option, the company allows users to filter offensive words, phrases, and emojis that are later redirected to another “hidden” folder. 

To find this option:

1. Go to settings

2. Click privacy

3. Click hidden words

4. Choose what you want to filter.

In addition, users are also given a chance to add words they think about as offensive, besides the list of words Instagram considers offensive. 

A new “audio” tab for discovering reels that feature your song

A new audio tab has appeared in an Instagram app.

Clicking on the audio option gives users the ability to search for reels by song.

As soon as users try to swipe and search for a song, Instagram, like other music apps, will serve them a list of songs bearing the name they are looking for.

Once users click on one of the songs, Instagram gives a 30-second sequence and reels containing that track.

Furthermore, users can save the songs if they want to use them later or click on the “use audio” option to create a reel right away.

Instagram tests ads in its Shop tab

The last year and the COVID-19 were awful. So, it’s time for some great news for eCommerce and small businesses! 

Instagram is testing a new feature that will allow companies to display ads in the shopping tab. 

The ads can be displayed as a single image or as a carousel, and of course, they will be shoppable. 

By clicking on the ads, users will be redirected to the product page, where they can be informed in more detail about the product they clicked on.

Recently, Instagram announced ads in reals that look the same as any real with the difference that there is a sponsored tab on these short clips.

A fantastic addition to the checkout feature, right?!

New Instagram Updates July 2021

Text translation in stories

Instagram has just announced an exciting new way to make their app even more accessible. 

The new Instagram update refers to the translation of the text in the Instagram stories.

Now, every time you watch a story with an overlayed text in a language that is different from the one that is set in your app, Instagram will send you a “See translation” notification. Once users tap on the option, they will be presented with a translation pannel. 

The new Instagram feature supports 90 languages for now, but only with the possibility of translating written text.

This new update can be useful for brands operating in global markets. Now, Instagram users all around the globe can translate and understand the written text in the Instagram stories of their favorite brands. 

Instagram has a similar option for news feeds, user profiles, and comments.

Instagram expands the tracking data in analytics

More exciting news for users with Instagram business profiles. 

Instagram announced that they are expanding the data tracking period within Instagram insights from 30 to 60 days.

This means that users will be able to analyze the last two months of data without the need for third-party apps that provide the option for expanding the tracking period.  

As the Instagram VP of product put:

– “There’s a new calendar tool in Insights. 

 It lets you choose a custom date range for your account metrics – and we’re doubling the timeframe to 60 days for now (it’ll be 90 later this summer).

We’ll keep making updates based on feedback and share more when we can.”

A new way to discover Black-owned businesses on Instagram

At the end of June, the social network announced a new feature that allows black-owned businesses to be more easily discovered.

Namely, businesses located in the US will now be able to attach a label to their Instagram profile that says: “Black-owned”.

Here is how to enable the option:

1. Click on Edit Profile
2. Click Business Diversity Info
3. Select Get Started
4. Click Show Black-owned business label

New collaborative feature for Reels

Instagram is testing a new option called “Collab” which will allow people to collaborate on Feed Posts and Reels.

Users can now invite each other as a collaborator on the post or reel.

If the invitation is accepted both accounts will appear in the post or reel header, and the new content will be shared with each of the users’ followers. 

Furthermore, post or reel will live on both profile grids and have a shared view count, the same number of likes, and comments.

New Instagram Updates June 2021

Security Checkup to keep Instagram accounts safe

The network is serious about launching different ways to protect your Instagram account and this month introduced a new feature called Security Checkup that has a primer role in protecting users from malicious activities on the platform.

Security Checkup is created as a guide for people whose accounts may have been hacked. It has simple steps that will instruct users to protect their accounts,

It includes checking login activity, reviewing profile info, confirming the accounts that share login information, and updating account recovery contact information such as phone number or email.

How does the Instagram algorithm work? [Officially explained]

This month, in a cool video Adam again gave direct information to creators and businesses to help them understand how Instagram actually ranks their content.

He breaks it down the ranking factors for Stories, Feed, Reels, and IGTV and also outlined some important information about shadowbanning.

In reality, it is a set of algorithms that the platform uses to predict what people are most interested in and will want to engage with.

Instagram algorithm details >>

Changes are coming to video on Instagram

Instagram is announcing new changes on how they will respond to the stiff competition.

Based on the new Instagram updates shared by Adam Mosseri, their researches show that most of the people coming back to Instagram are looking for ENTERTAINMENT.

And as a response to these use cases, Instagram is leaning towards recommending video content that you most probably want to engage more. These changes are already being rolled out and people will start seeing recommendations based on topics in the coming few weeks.

This sounds like the way TikTok and YouTube curate the user feeds, but let’s wait and see, how Instagram will actually respond to the immerse, fun and engaging video content needs of the end users.

For businesses and creators, this means more opportunities to reach new people beyond the network of the followers they already have, which means more space to monetize on Instagram.

New Instagram Features May 2021

Find your winning content with new Reels and Live insights

In the spirit of giving, Instagram is rolling out some updates to the Insights product. 

These new features will help creators better understand and evaluate their performance on Instagram – whether it be as a creator or business!

For Reels, you can track content effectiveness by looking at: Likes, Comments, Saves, Shares, Plays, and Accounts reached.

For Lives, you’ll be able to check Accounts Reached, Shares, Comments, and Peak Concurrent.

These insights will be part of the Account Insights, so you can get more sense of how are Reels and Lives shaping your overall account performance.

Knowing the importance of understanding content performance, in Account Insights, there is new, more detailed information about Reach. This insight is built into breakdowns to give you profound information about which types of accounts you’re reaching and which ones are driving you to the top of the Reach.

Now, your content’s performance is in your hands. The power of analytics and transparency that new Reels and Live reach insights can give you much more to grow or maintain a successful content promotion.

“Turn-off” like counts option: Still under test

At the end of 2019, Instagram announced that they’re testing the “turn-off” like counts option. But they put the project on hold due to the pandemic.

The deal with this feature is letting users decide which experience is better for them. They can choose not to see the like counts on anyone else’s post or turn them off for their own posts. Or they can keep the original version and see like counts all over the posts. But the ability to choose is a good user experience itself.

It seems like they’re re-opening the project again, as Adam Mosseri said in his tweet earlier. They are still exploring the experience for Instagram and for Facebook too. So, once it passes the test you can switch to the option you’re fine with.

Instagram addresses racial bias with equity update

No one wants negativity on their homepage. So the company made it clear that they’re taking new measurements to eliminate racial bias on the platform. 

They have an internally launched machine learning method that will capture and prevent algorithmic bias to reduce unintended harms on specific communities. They keep working on adding more transparency and restrictions towards BIPOC creators so they will be “shadowbanned” on the app. 

This refers to all forms of content: feed posts, stories, and IGTV videos.

This update’s priority skyrocketed earlier this month when posts by activist movements in Colombia, East Jerusalem, and posts related to the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women were affected.

New Instagram Features April 2021

Stories Caption sticker: Convert words into text

Instagram has just announced a new feature that will transform the way your stories and reels are viewed; caption stickers

The feature turns verbal speech into writen.

This is perfect for those who prefer to turn off their sound while watching video content as well as people with hearing difficulties.

This awesome update only works in English-speaking countries right now but Instagram plans on making this available soon in other languages and different countries too!

Turn of audio and video on Instagram Live

 As Adam Mosseri tweeted: 

“Have you ever wanted to turn off your video or audio when you’re Live?? now you can. Hopefully, this gives you more flexibility and lessens any pressure to look or sound a certain way during a Live.” 

As Adam Mosseri explained in his announcement of this new feature on Instagram Live, many people are uncomfortable broadcasting themselves with visuals or sound on.

That’s why the latest Instagram update allows users to mute their microphones and turn off the video during Instagram Live, turning the live stream into something similar to audio chat rooms. 

Similarly, like other video chat apps, when users decide to shut down their camera, there’ll be no more live video but rather only a profile picture.

Users can find the options on their phone screens during their live broadcast on Instagram.

For now, the host won’t be able to mute or turn off cameras for the other participants in the live chat.

The new options are available for both Android and iOs users around the globe.

Remix option to reels

 In early April, Instagram released a new feature for their popular reels- remix – that’s fantastic for influencers.

The new function allows users to include other people’s content within theirs and thus make a unique mix using the footage from both accounts. 

The remix option is enabled by default on public accounts; though if users prefer anonymity, this option can be turned off. 

When someone remixes with someone else’s reels, the original creator receives a notification.

 Here is how you can use this option:

1. Click on the reels you want to remix
2. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner or the bottom right corner if you watch the video from the app’s dedicated Reel’s tap.
3. Tap remix this reel button. If you do not see this option, the user might have turned off the option.
4. The reels will open on the left side of the screen, and yours will be on the right side. Click the reels button at the bottom of your screen and start filming.

It’s awesome for boosting the engagement rate, don’t you think?

Instagram Insider – Digital magazine

Instagram has now launched its own digital magazine! This new publication is called Instagram Insider and it includes all the latest trends that you can find on this platform. 

For now, Instagram Insider is available in PDF form and includes all the top creators that readers can be inspired by.

At the end of the magazine, Instagram also includes answers to frequently asked questions about the platform, such as profile verification and hashtag-related questions.

New Instagram Features March 2021

Hang out live with up to 3 people with Live Rooms

What a beginning of the month!

As promised, Instagram introduced Live Rooms, a highly-requested update that embraces and encourages live communication via Instagram. 

The idea behind Live Rooms is to generate more creative opportunities such as hosting tutorials or Q&As with your followers, start a talk show, engage with other artists, or just hang out with more friends at once.

Previously, you could go live with only one person in a stream. With the latest feature, you can hang out with 3 people.

This is how you can start a Live Room:

1. Open your Instagram account;
2. Swipe left and tap the Live camera option;
3. Add a title and tap the Rooms icon to add your guests. 
4. Search for guests to add or let in the people who have requested to go live with you.

This is more than a feature for chatting. It also helps brands earn money. During a live chat, viewers can buy a badge to show their support.

We can expect more advanced tools for Live Rooms like moderator controls and audio features in the upcoming months.

We can’t wait to see what more creativity comes from this highly-requested update.

New Instagram Features February 2021

Instagram and Facebook roll out the Cross-App Messaging

As promised in September last year, Instagram and Facebook just rolled out the cross-app messaging.

Starting today, users from one app can find you and message you on another app. 

This feature goes above just messaging and searching. It allows you to have a video chat and reshare posts across platforms.

Yet, you can select who can send you a message. Navigate to the Message Delivery Settings on Facebook to manage the messages options.

This cross-functionality applies to your Active Status, too. When enabled, it will show on both platforms that you are online. Awesome, right?

Live Rooms to chat with up to 4 friends at the same time

Adam Mosseri, the Head of Instagram, announced launching Live Rooms, a place where you can gather your friends and chat together at the same time.

With the latest update, you can add up to three persons in your Live Room and experiment with filters to make the conversation even more fun.

In pandemic times when we can’t meet every person we want to chat with, this feature will definitely come in handy.

Recently Deleted feature to restore your deleted content

As requested from users, Instagram added a Recently Deleted feature to help them get their deleted photos and videos back.

This will also serve as a protection from hackers that sometimes delete content when they access an account. 

This is how the Recently Deleted feature works:

1. Stories you delete (and are not in your archive) will stay in this folder for up to 24 hours. 
2. Everything else like photos, videos, reels, IGTV videos will be automatically deleted after 30 days.

During these 30 days, to access your deleted content, follow these steps:

1. Go to ‘Settings’
2. Navigate to ‘Account’
3. Click the ‘Recently Deleted’ folder
4. Restore or permanently delete posts

If you want to delete or restore content from Recently Deleted permanently, Instagram will ask you to verify that you are the right account holder before proceeding. 

New Instagram Features January 2021

Professional Dashboard for performance tracking

Instagram kicked off 2021 to a great start announcing one of the most valuable features we have seen so far – a Professional Dashboard, available to all Business and Creator Accounts on Instagram.

This is one of Instagram’s ongoing efforts to give creators and businesses the tools they need, encourage them to turn their passions into a living, and support small businesses.

This is what this Professional Dashboard can do for you:

1. Help you discover insights and trends based on the performance of your Instagram account.
2. It gives you access to new tools to help you run and build your business more efficiently, check monetization status and eligibility.
3. Provides you with educational resources like tips, tricks, guidance, inspiration to help you make the most of Instagram.

We expect more resources to be added to this Professional Dashboard over time, so it will be easier for professionals to discover and access the tools best-suited for them.

This feature marks a strong beginning of the new year. We are excited to see what they will come up with next.

Top Instagram Updates in 2020

Lockdown has been an unsettling and confusing time for consumers. Many social platforms have had to adapt their functionalities to help their users.

But, Instagram has gone one step further. Despite providing COVID-19 advice from health organizations, they developed various new features to help small businesses, given the current lockdown restrictions.

To wrap up the year, our team has summarized the major updates on Instagram that happened in 2020.

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New Instagram Features December 2020

Shopping is coming to Instagram Reels

Instagram just made shopping available in every format on their app — the Feed, Stories, IGTV, and Live. 

After being tested for several months, starting today, shopping becomes available on Reels, too. 

Businesses and creators can tag their products when they create Reels. So, when users view an Instagram Reel with this content, they can tap a ‘View Products‘ button to buy, save, or just learn more about the featured products.

To make things more transparent, creators can add a ‘Branded Content‘ tag to their Reels to show that they are paid to promote the products. 

In times when video-based shopping is seeing increased adoption, this update will make shopping on Instagram even more attractive for online shoppers.

We are really excited to see what the next shopping-related updates to the Instagram app would be. ?

Remix your friends’ photos on Instagram for funnier conversations

Instagram rolled out another feature that will bring even more fun while chatting with your friends.

With the latest update, you can play around with your friends’ photos, make a mix of them and send them back in the conversation.

This is how it works:

1. View a photo message from a friend
2. Tap the camera icon at the bottom and capture a reply
3. Move and resize the photo, perform a twist with stickers, text, and drawings (the opportunities are endless)

Keep in mind that you can also control replays. For example, you can choose ‘One View‘ for messages that you want your friends to see only once.

Or to tap ‘Allow Replay‘ so your friends can have more time to view your messages. Photos and videos sent with this option will loop automatically, so your friends can tap and hold to pause them.

Currently, this update is available for Instagram version 24 for iOS and version 24 for Android, so make sure to check it out and have some fun while doing it.

New Instagram Features November 2020

Instagram Keyword Search

Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri announced keyword search in a very subtle announcement on his social media profiles.

For example, if you previously wanted to search for “bread recipes,” you’d only be able to search for posts that have the hashtag #breadrecepies and accounts, including on “bread recipes” in their name or bio.

With the keyword search, you can search keywords or keyphrases and get results of the actual posts that have the bread recipe, even if they don’t contain the hashtag.

At first, it seems no big deal, but on second thought, this feature might be a game-changer in how people will use Instagram and, therefore, how creators, brands, and marketers respond to this new usage.

In more detail, there is a clear intent in the keyword. A person is looking for something, and now Instagram will show the posts that most likely match their search intent. Is all this sound familiar?

Yes, it feels like Googling ?

As marketers, it will immediately trigger a response in understanding how Instagram will rank the top posts. We might even try to do some SEO magic to our Instagram posts to discover what ranks first: most likes, are verified profiles, most optimized content – or all the above.

So, Is Instagram becomes a new search engine? Can it replace some of the search intent, especially on mobile? Is this beginning of Instagram SEO?

Let’s wait and see, but it’s fascinating to see how Instagram will evolve.

Instagram Guides is expanding to all users

Instagram has expanded the Guide functionality and is allowing all users to create article-like posts.

So, in short…
Guides are expanding to posts, products, and more users.

As of November 17th, 2020, Instagram announced that they allow the Guide functionality to all users that initially were available to specific creators only.

Now everybody will be able to create and post a guide, litteraly by anything.

In short, guides are recommendation articles that can include different Instagram posts or captions, products or photos, and videos. It’s a creative space for people wanting to recommend a travel destination, cosmetics, or a fitness routine to their followers.

Learn more about Instagram Guides >

Watch Together to watch real-time videos with your friends

Instagram just gave users a more exciting messaging experience to stay connected to those that matter most to you. Watch Together feature is going to make hanging outs even more fun on your favorite social platform.

So, next time you update your Instagram app, you and your friends can tune into IGTV, Reels, TV shows, movies, or trending videos in real-time over a video chat. 

To start using Watch Together:

1. Go to an Instagram video chat
2. Tap the media button in the bottom right
3. Select the ‘TV & Movies‘ tab. 
4. Choose your favorite content
5. Enjoy watching!

Vanish Mode to make messages disappear

Another great messaging feature from Instagram we have needed for so long – the option to make your messages vanish after some time!

Instagram announced rolling out the Vanish Mode – a feature that

makes your seen messages disappear after you leave a chat thread.  

Please note that only people that follow each other on Instagram can use vanish Mode in direct chats. 

To make the Vanish Mode available, swipe up in an existing chat thread – and you’re automatically in vanish mode. To return to a regular chat – swipe up again.

After all, it’s an optional feature. It’s up to you to decide whether you enter vanish Mode with someone or note. In case someone takes a screenshot of your chat while you’re using vanish Mode, Instagram will notify you. 

Instagram adds Reels and Shop tab to your home screen

Instagram’s home screen navigation just got a fresh new look!

After the increased craving for short and entertaining videos and more people buying online and relying on creators for shopping recommendations, Instagram announced adding Reels and Shop tab to users’ home page. 

The goal of the Reels tab is to make it more straightforward to discover short, funny videos from creators, while the Shop tab provides you with an easier way to connect with your favorite brands and buy the products you love. ⁣

Instagram’s team hopes that this new design will give the app a much-needed refresh while focusing on its core value – simplicity.

New Instagram Features October 2020

The Music sticker expands globally

Ready to start adding soundtracks to your Instagram Stories? Rolling the music sticker worldwide made this so much easier! 

Besides adding text and filters, music stickers can have a massive influence to make your Instagram story more appealing and engaging. 

And they work pretty straightforward. Just create a Story, tap on the music sticker, and search for a song.

You have the freedom to edit which part of the song you want to play (up to 15 seconds). If lyrics are available for the selected song, you can show it in different fonts and designs. 

Next time, when someone watches your story, they can tap on the lyrics and continue listening to the song or learning something about the artist itself. Awesome, right?

New useful Reels features

Talking about adding some catchy soundtrack to your Instagram story, Instagram Reels added some useful options for all Reels creators.

Here are the main new options you should be aware of (and use them for your advantage, of course):

• Save Audio – save sounds and re-use them on your next video
• Share Audio Pages – share your Reels over Direct Message
• Audio Browser – find your next audio in the ‘For You’ and ‘Trending section’

New updates for Instagram Live

Despite new updates for Instagram Stories and Reels, the platform surprised us with three new Instagram Live updates:

• You can now go Live for up to 4 hours (until now, it was up to an hour-long)
• Live videos will be available in your archive for 30 days, so you can download them or re-use it for your next IGTV content
• ‘Live Now’ section is added within the IGTV app and on Explore so you can discover more Lives 

According to Instagram, this is another step toward helping creators follow their interests, reach audiences, engage with communities, and build businesses.

Instagram badges are live

And here is another good news for creators that use Instagram live!

After a couple of months of testing, Instagram badges are finally rolled out for creators in the USA. 

As a reminder, viewers can buy a badge during a live video and as a result – stand out in the comments section and unlock additional features such as being listed on the creators’ list of badge holders.

According to early adopters, despite helping brands stay connected with their fans, badges seem to be vital to make some money on Instagram.

Currently, Instagram badges are in ongoing expansion in the US, but soon they will be available in France, Italy, Spain, UK, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Australia, and Japan. 

We are looking forward to seeing how the creators globally will do with this cool Instagram feature.

Instagram Shopping is expanding on IGTV

It was about time, IGTV Shopping is here! After the shopping options for Explore, shopping tags on Stories, and Checkout, Instagram is expanding it’s Shopping features across IGTV.  

This way, when Instagram users are watching IGTV and see something they like, they can click on the product and will be directed to the retailer’s website to purchase it.

It is a win-win situation for both users who want a fast buying experience and brands and influencers that want to monetize from their IGTV channel. 

Of course, Instagram will also get a percentage of sales. However, since more people are turning to online shopping, this won’t seem to be a problem for anyone.

Despite IGTV, shopping features will be tested with Instagram Reels, too.

New Instagram Features September 2020

Facebook is merging Messenger and Instagram

We’ve just got the best of both worlds! 

Facebook announced bringing the best Messenger features to Instagram by combining the Messenger app and Instagram. This update will allow users to communicate across these two apps more smoothly. 

So now, no matter which app you use, you can have access to the best messaging experience. For example, people who use the Messenger app can get in touch with you on Instagram without downloading the Insta app (and in reverse). The best part is that you have full control of the app where you want to receive your messages and calls.

Do not worry, messages, and calls from your contacts that use Instagram will remain in your Insta app. 

With the new Messenger experience on Instagram, you will get the following new features:

• Communicate Across Apps possibility to send messages and join video calls with your friends no matter if you are using Instagram or Facebook Messenger
• Watch Together option to watch videos with friends and family during a video call on  IGTV, Reels, Facebook Watch, TV shows, movies, etc
• Vanish Mode for your seen messages to disappear after you have seen them or when you close the chat
• Selfie Boomerang Stickers from yourself and animated message effects
• Personalized chat with a variety of colors and a shortcut for your favorite emojis 
• Effortlessly forward your content with up to 5 friends or groups and respond directly to a message in your chat
• Advanced message controls so you have the control of who can message you directly, and who is not allowed to send you a message at all 
• Improved reporting and blocking updates to report inappropriate conversations 

For now, this update will be rolled out in just a few countries, but soon we can expect them to expand globally. 

New ‘Suggested Posts’ feature after ‘You’re All Caught Up.’

To help avoid users’ addictive behavior endlessly scrolling down the Insta app, a few years ago, Instagram introduced the  ‘You’re All Caught Up’ feature to let Instagram users know when they have reached the bottom of their feeds.

But now, Instagram includes suggested organic posts and ads at the end of users’ feeds in order to keep them scrolling for longer.

The reason? According to Instagram’s director of product, Robby Stein, after a user knows that they are all caught up, with this feature, they can decide how they want to continue to invest their time, and it makes it easier to go a little deeper for those who choose to do so. 

Suggested Post’s goal is not just to increase user engagement and time spent on the app but also to give publishers a new ground to show more ads.

The new feature is already available globally.

Fee for adding links to your captions

According to a patent application by Facebook, there is a possibility that Instagram will charge if you want to add links to your captions.

If this feature rolls out, once Instagram detects a link within a caption, they will show a pop-up asking for payment to activate the link. In the patent application, the price is set at $2, but it is still unknown what might be the actual price.

Currently, Instagram allows only over 10k followers and verified profiles to add links to their Stories. For brands that don’t want to pay for including links to their captions, they can add a clickable link in their Insta bio with a simple link in bio tools like FeedLink to do the job instead of them.

Automated captions to IGTV

Talking about captions, Instagram will add AI-powered automatic captions to IGTV videos when people are watching it with the sound off. 

These captions will only be visible for users who will be watching their videos on mute. Of course, in their account setting, users have full control of how and when they see the captions. 

For now, the feature will kick off in 16 languages, but this number will continue to grow in the upcoming months.

Yes, this is one of those updates that makes many social media managers and content creators very happy because they can spread their messages even if their IGTV videos are being muted.

This is the second time the parent app uses AI to bring text to video. Two years ago,  Instagram introduced automatic alternative text and custom alternative text to photos to help visually impaired users improve their Instagram experience.

Reels can be recorded for up to 30 seconds

While the future of TikTok remains uncertain, Instagram is giving users new useful updates from the feature they successfully borrowed from TikTok – Instagram Reels.

As far as you know, Reels began as 15-second videos, but now it’s recording time is doubled. So with the latest update, creators can record up to 30 seconds of video.

Other updates include setting the timer for 10 seconds and making it easier to edit and delete any clip.

TikTok videos also started up to 15 seconds long, but the company recently extended the limit to 60 seconds. Will Instagram follow the same practice?

New Instagram updates in August 2020

Instagram checkout is rolling out in the USA

After being tested among a small number of partners, Instagram finally announced that Instagram checkout is available to all eligible businesses and creator accounts in the USA that already have an Instagram shop.

Instagram checkout will make it easier for people to make a purchase in just a few taps, without leaving the app. And for businesses and creators, it comes as a more seamless and secure way to sell products directly on Instagram and reduce the cost while doing it.

For now, businesses can open up an Instagram Shop with checkout using Commerce Manager, or eCommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce. 

Once you have your Instagram Shop, you have a variety of options at your fingertips – creators can tag your products in their posts, you can notify people of your upcoming launch and promote your products and create real-time demand for your offer with Live Shopping (scroll down to read more about it).

If Instagram checkout seems like a fit for your marketing and sales strategy, explore the official guidelines on how to get started.

Live Shopping for people to shop in real-time

Instagram is making huge a difference when it comes to online shopping, and this time they went over and above with it’s latest Live Shopping feature. 

The process is really simple – business and creators add up to 30 products from their collection on live streaming. When going Live, they can pin the product they are talking about so viewers can get familiar with its characteristics. If they like it, users can tap on it to view the product details page and buy them.

Here are the official steps to add products to Live Shopping on Instagram.

Please note that currently, Instagram Live Shopping is available to all businesses and creators that use Instagram checkout in the US.

If interested to give it a shot to this promising option, we created an article where we dive into All The Details About Instagram’s Latest Feature – Live Shopping.

Easily open Instagram accounts with QR codes

Instagram is transforming the functionalities of Nametags, the internal QR-like codes that could be scanned only from an Instagram camera (until now).

With the latest update, you can now scan QR codes from any 3rd-party camera apps capable of reading QR codes.

The main goal here is for businesses to help users easily scan the code, open their Instagram account, and explore the products they offer, store info, or just follow the company’s account.

To include QR codes to your marketing strategy, follow these steps:

1. Open your Instagram account and go to the Settings menu in your profile
2. Tap on the QR Code option and modify the code look
3. Save the image and share it with your followers

Instagram Reels

Instagram pinned comments

As part of the changing community standards policies and addressing the bullying issues on the network, Instagram has rolled out a feature that allows users to pin comments on a certain post.

By doing this, brands or social media moderators will have more to say in what is important or what they think is trustworthy when interacting with users on Instagram.

This feature will definitely allow you to highlight the relevancy and visibility of what really brings value, thus eliminating the reach of the spam comments in posts.

To Pin a comment, first, make sure you are using the latest version of the Instagram app.

Then, tap on an Instagram post you want to manage and view the comments section.

Once you’ve found a certain comment you want to pin to the top, swipe to the left, and tap on the thumbtack (pin) icon.

Redesigned Instagram Shops to offer more personalized product recommendations

As the pandemic surges and buying online is no longer an option, but a necessity, Instagram just made it even easier for users to shop from brands and creators announcing its latest all-in-one Instagram Shop feature. 

This is an already familiar feature we have seen before. The difference is that Instagram Shops is a new destination in the Explore tab that not only helps users discover the latest trends but also helps them preview new product launches or get even more personalized recommendations based on their interests.

As announced, the Instagram app will soon have a new Shop tab in the navigation bar, so users can go to the Instagram Shop with just a tap.

New commerce eligibility requirements to help businesses and creators sell on Instagram

With the new Commerce Eligibility Requirements, more types of businesses (including creators) can now access Instagram Shopping.

This way, any eligible business or creator that has (at least) one eligible product can use shopping tags to drive users from Instagram to their websites to buy the product.

According to the updated policy, to provide a consistent and trusted shopping experience for Instagram users, businesses need to tag products on Instagram from the website they own and sell from.

These requirements are now into effect (starting July 9th) in all the countries where Instagram Shopping is supported.

Please note that your Instagram account must be in an available market in order to tag products. So, go ahead check your country Instagram Shopping Availability here to see if you can be reviewed and approved for Instagram Shopping.

If eligible, visit this setup guide to learn how to enable Instagram Shopping.

Supporting Instagram creators with Badges in Live videos

Until now, users could support their favorite Instagram creators in Live videos with comments, likes, and donations. With the latest Instagram functionality, fans can now participate in Live broadcastings with badges that they can interact with or even purchase during the live video.

As announced, badges will appear next to a person’s name throughout the live video offering fans advantages like: 

• Standing out in the comments section
• Placement on creator’s list of badge holders
• Access to a special heart
• Unlock additional features 

Badges are expected to expand across the US, Brazil, Australia, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Spain, and Mexico in the upcoming months.

And if you would like to be considered for early access to badges, this is the form you should fill out.

Rolling out IGTV ads

Instagram just rolled out IGTV ads to support creators’ investment in IGTV and help them make revenue and facilitate connecting users with their products or ideas.

Users will see the IGTV ads when they watch the IGTV videos from previews within their Instagram feeds.

These video ads will be mobile optimized and can last up to 15 seconds.

Turning business profiles into Instagram Shops

To lend a hand to all of the businesses that still struggle to sell their products online due to the Covid-19 crises, Instagram announced Shops on Instagram.

And this turned out to be a real game-changer for the ecommerce industry.

Similar to Instagram checkout and Product Tagging, this feature turns business profiles into online stores. 

So now, users can visit a shop from a business’ Instagram profile or through Feed and Stories. Once they land on the shop, they can browse and buy products directly from an Instagram profile.

To start using this feature, you need to be an eligible business that completes the following criteria:

• Sell primarily physical goods
• Located in a Supported market
• Comply with Merchant agreement and Commerce policies

If you fulfill all of the criteria above, proceed to enable the shopping option on your Instagram business account to start using the latest Shop feature.

Once your shop shows to be eligible and approved, you will receive an email when your shop is converted into an Instagram shop and ready to start customizing. 

We created a complete Facebook Shops guide with all the details about the Shop feature, so you can start using it today.

Guides – a new way to discover recommendations on Instagram

Instagram users struggle to find reliable information from their favorite Instagram accounts during the pandemic.

And relying on hashtags only is not an option anymore.

To tackle this, Instagram introduced Guides. 

This feature is developed to help users easily discover recommendations or tips and from your creators, public figures, organizations, and publishers on Instagram.

Primarily, the focus is set on creating Guides on wellness content.

So, for now, this feature is limited to wellness-focused creators and companies that Instagram selected to launch this feature such as @afspnational,  @heads_together,  @vitaalere,  @klicksafe,  @headspace_aus,  @deepikapadukone,  @sudahdong, and  @eenfance. 

To see how the Guides feature works, visit the Instagram profile of participating creators or organizations mentioned above. Next, tap the middle icon to view their Guides. 

As announced, this feature will soon be accessible within the Explore tab too.

Supporting small businesses stickers on Instagram

As we saw above, Instagram is not resting when it comes to supporting businesses facing immense challenges during the Covid-19 crisis. 

Recently, Instagram announced a new Support Small Business sticker on Instagram.

This way, Instagram users can easily show their support for businesses in Stories.

They can mention businesses directly in the Story sticker, give their followers a preview of the account they are supporting and motivate others to do the same.

This seems like a win-win situation.

The Support Small Business sticker helps businesses stay connected to the people they serve and at the same time, reach new customers.

So, once your business is mentioned in the sticker, you can repost the content to your Story and send a direct message to people who tagged you.

In parallel, you can also use this sticker to encourage other entrepreneurs in your community.

Share your live videos directly to IGTV

With the COVID outbreak, people are looking for ways to be entertained online. And IGTV seems like a suitable way for brands to communicate with their customers and share new content in a video format around trending topics.

Until now, you could upload live videos in Stories, and they would be broken up into 15-second chunks with a 24 hours life span.

But with Instagram’s new update, you can share your Live videos immediately after the Live broadcast is over. The video will be saved to IGTV permanently until you decide to remove it.

This way, you can ensure that the video content will appear to new viewers and your message will be spread further.

Furthermore, you will give people something to tap on and interact on their smartphones while being in COVID-19 quarantine.

If you are still considering how to use Instagram’s new update, we got you covered! 

We created a complete guide on how to use IGTV and make the most out of every Live you create and skyrocket your engagement rate.

Note: Next month (on the 29th of June, 2020), we can expect to see the long-awaited Instagram API update that was postponed several times.

This means that 3rd party apps that are using the current API will no longer be able to display photos from your Instagram account if they don’t switch to the new API after this date.

We created this article where you can find everything that you should know as a marketer about the upcoming API change and what should you in case your plugins stopped working due to this change.

New Instagram updates in April 2020

Gift cards, Food delivery, and Donation stickers to support local businesses

As physical stores being no longer an option, Instagram introduced new simple ways for businesses to continue their business operations online using Order food, Gift card, and Donation stickers.

The main goal of this feature is to help business and creator accounts include stickers in their Instagram stories that will direct customers to a website where they can order food delivery or buy a gift card.

To start using these stickers, you should connect with third-party companies that provide delivery or online gift card services.

The Donation sticker is a different story. Its purpose is to help nonprofit organizations boost their fundraising campaign awareness by asking loyal supporters to lend a helping hand.

As an added bonus, your Instagram followers and supporters can reshare these stickers in their own Stories and help you spread the word and drive more financial results.

To guide you on how to start applying this feature in your marketing strategy, we created a step-by-step article with all the details you need on how to use Instagram’s new update.

Businesses can add support CTAs to their profile

In addition to adding stickers to your Stories, you can also add Gift Cards, Order Food, and Donate options in the form of clickable buttons on your Instagram account.

These support CTAs will show next to your Contact and Message tabs on your Instagram profile. 

So, when a user clicks on some of them, they will be directed to the chosen platform where they can complete the purchase.

For a similar purpose, you can use your link in bio and create a redirect link to your most valued landing page where you want your Instagram followers to continue their interaction with your brand.

Access Instagram Direct messages from your desktop 

The long-awaited feature brands have been anxiously waiting for is finally here!

Instagram’s direct messages are now accessible through the desktop version of the site.

DMs (like the cool kids say them) were previously available to read and respond through the mobile Instagram app only and now you have them too on your desktop’s Instagram homepage.

This feature comes as a relief for brands and account managers. 

They can type, copy, and paste copy faster and easier on their computers, thus improving their customer service on Instagram.

New Instagram updates in March 2020

A tool to access and download your Instagram account data

To help you be in control of your data on Instagram and show transparency in the type of content the app serves, Instagram announced a Download your data tool available within the Instagram app. 

This tool will showcase your activity on the platform like post likes and comments that you have left, profile updates, what categories of content you have been into, etc. 

It will also provide you with insights on the content you see in your Explore tab and why you are seeing it.

You can view your Instagram account data and even download a copy of it at any time. It takes up to 48 hours to receive a download link.

To access or review your account data on Instagram, follow these steps.

Please note that you can also use the Archive settings to download Instagram stories.

Generate revenue with IGTV

IGTV monetization is finally here!

As expected, Instagram’s video platform (IGTV) is becoming a larger consideration for online businesses in 2020, mostly because of the monetization options that are a great driver of creators to move or combine their Youtube with IGTV presence.

With this update, Instagram is allowing IGTV video creators to show advertisements along with their videos, hoping that in return, they will be motivated to bring more high-quality content back.

Similar to Facebook Watch, the goal is to encourage video creators to spend more time on the platform and direct their user base there.

Share videos directly to IGTV

March is all about embracing the usage of IGTV options.

Your live streams don’t need to remain in your Instagram stories anymore and disappear after 24 hours.

Instagram is testing the option that will allow users the moment the broadcast is over, to share their live streaming videos directly to IGTV. 

Additionally, you can organize videos into IGTV series and then promote previews to gain followers’ attraction back.

New Instagram updates in February 2020

Video trimming tool for Stories

It has been a while since we have seen an Instagram Stories feature. 

Instagram was probably busy testing a video trimming tool for Stories, a functionality that will allow editing and trimming videos for Stories within the app.

As announced, this tool will be very similar to other video editing tools that you may encounter if you use Android or iOS on your smartphone.

For many brands to create and edit their video Stories with other apps, and then upload it on the Instagram platform, this feature will make their job easier and faster, especially for small businesses who are creating Stories on the go.

We look forward to seeing this feature in action!

New Instagram updates in January 2020

Branded content: The future of advertising

Branded content is making it’s way to the forefront of Instagram, helping creators turn their passion into a living (more than ever).

To meet this opportunity, Facebook launched Brand Collabs Manager that is developed to help creators connect with brands that are looking to promote their products and services using the relations that creators/influencers have with their followers.

This feature, basically allows brands to collaborate with creators on trending campaigns in order to increase their reach and engagement, thus inlocking a new earning potential for creators.

So, if you are a creator and want to get access to the monetization tools from Facebook tools provided in the Brand Collabs Manager, you must apply to get discovered for paid partnerships.

Here are the steps on how to do that:

1. Visit the Brand Collabs Manager page and click on the apply button or scroll the page at the bottom
2. In the Eligibility section, you will see your pages and for each page, an indicator if it’s eligible and if not 

According to the eligibility criteria, your Page will need to meet the following: 

1.  Min 1000 Followers
2. Engaging Content
   • Engagement: In the last 60 days, you needed 15,000 post engagements or
   • Minutes Viewed: In the last 60 days, you needed 180,000 minutes viewed between all of your videos or
   • 1-Minute Views for 3-Minute Videos: In the last 60 days, you needed 30,000 1-minute views on videos that are at least 3 minutes long
3. Meet Partner Monetization Policies – Continue publishing content that your Page has the right to share, and continue to share that content in an authentic way. It’s important to stay familiar with the Partner Monetization Policies so you maintain eligibility
4. Facebook accounts must request access to the branded content tool

IGTV is becoming a more serious competition to Youtube

Instagram’s video platform (IGTV) is expected to become a larger consideration in 2020, mostly because of the above monetization options that possibly will be a great driver of creators to move or combine their Youtube with IGTV presence.

So, making all the needed features for YouTube creators to move to the IGTV platform is definitely the expected feature rollout for the upcoming year.

The ad product that might attract more creators to the platform is expected to be very similar to the branded content format.

FYI: You can automatically embed an Instagram widget with a social media aggregator, bringing your website to life with fresh content.