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This is the second installment of the “5 Powerful New Instagram Features You Need To Know In 2018” read the first one here.
As you know, Instagram is the go-to app for Gen Z and Millennials alike. Because of this, Instagram is constantly updating their features to bring about new experiences and content for creators, celebrities, and regular power users. In doing so, they are creating a product that embraces all types of content communication from storytelling with Instagram Stories to long-form content on IGTV to regular posting on the Grid to instant communication with their messaging features. Users are so enthralled with Instagram the team has recently implemented a feature to let users know how much time they’re spending on the app and when to take a break. Here are five more reasons why users are so obsessed with the gram.
New Camera Effects
Taking a page from Snapchat (similar to their copying the Stories format), Instagram created face filters for Instagram Stories to spice up selfies. Users can turn themselves into bunnies, dogs, rock sunglasses, shoot hearts out their eyes — the sky’s the limit for fun with face filters. Because of this, the Instagram team acknowledged that partnerships with famous creators would create more awareness about the feature itself and integrate a “wow” factor to the app. Influencers and media channels like Ariana Grande, Buzzfeed, Liza Koshy, Baby Ariel and the NBA created camera content for Instagram — integrating their own personalities into the filter. All you need to do is to turn the camera to selfie mode and tap on the face filters button and voila instant Ariana! These partnerships illustrate an additional way for users to make their friends laugh, add glam to their selfies, and make them feel closer to their favorite accounts.
See When Your Friends Are Online
Sliding into DMs just got easier and more effective with the green dot! Now, you can see when your friends are active on Instagram across various places including the inbox, your friend list, and when you share a post from your feed. Friends online feature will show as: Active 25m ago, Active yesterday, Seen, Typing…For those who don’t want to be seen, you can easily hide your status and see when your friends are active online. This update gives you more reason to reach out to friends old and new!
Topic Channels in Explore
Explore has always given rise to discoverability and creativity by featuring accounts that might interest users. In fact, over 200 million people visit Explore each day. To make it more streamlined, Instagram has created topic channels, so that you can navigate your experience easier. Personalization is key with a “For You” channel, which has posts tailored to your interests and topics such as TV & Movies, Sports, Humor or Fashion, as well as, related hashtags that focus on these interests. By implementing topic channels, users have the option of finding an incredible amount of accounts and content. Now, you can never get bored on the gram with all the Explore posts and videos!
Mute
Tailoring your feed to your personal tastes and interests is easier than ever with the new mute feature. Sure, we all have that one friend that posts about their new baby daily, but we don’t want to hurt their feelings, so the mute button allows for hiding users content without unfollowing them. With mute, you can still see their content on their page, and they will not be notified that you muted them. Additionally, you can easily unmute them at any time. To do so, tap the … in the right-hand corner. You can then choose to mute posts, mute stories, or mute posts and stories. You can also mute by pressing and holding a story in your tray, or from a profile. At any time, you can unmute them and follow their content again.
Share Feed Posts Into Stories
Scrolling through your feed is now an interactive experience as you can share users posts into your own stories. When you see a post that makes you laugh, inspires you or an inside joke with your community, you can now share onto your own story. To do so, tap the paper airplane button below the post. At the top, you can see the option to create a story with this post. You can add story features like an additional GIF or writing a caption or an emoji; however, the username of the original poster will appear in the story post itself. This creates a great viral loop and more awareness for the original poster. You can only share public accounts and you have the option to turn off this feature for your followers.
Conclusion
As you can see from these two posts, Instagram is delivering an incredible user experience for their one billion users. To stay atop of the social media game, they are always thinking about new ways for discoverability, inspiration, and interactivity creating an experience that leaves users always coming back for more.
Which new features have helped you up your Instagram game in 2018? Tweet us back @NeoReach and let us know!
