New Instagram ‘Add Yours’ Feature

New Instagram ‘Add Yours’ Feature: A great addition or the modern version of chainmail?

Instagram recently introduced a new stories feature encouraging people to add their own image in response to a prompt, for example ‘A photo of you as a child’ or ‘Outfit of the day’. The feature then allows you to view all of the entries for that sticker even if you don’t follow the accounts. When using this new feature, you can either upload an image you have saved in your camera roll or take a new photo. You can also create your own version of the ‘add yours’ sticker, and see all of your responses.

This is a great new feature for reaching new accounts and finding people on instagram with similar interests, but it has also come under some scrutiny. One of, if not the, most popular ‘add yours’ stickers so far has been “We’ll plant 1 tree for every pet picture”. Sounds great, right?

After almost 5 million additions to the sticker, people naturally (excuse the pun) began questioning who was going to have to plant that many trees. The company Plant a Tree Co eventually admitted that they had started the trend but deleted the post shortly after publishing it, but the sticker had already began to blow up – after all, who doesn’t love sharing pet photos, let alone when it’s helping to save the earth! The company commented that they “received no notifications at all. It was as if it didn’t exist. But when I clicked on the sticker through someone else’s post I had full customisation, such as turning on or off the notifications and showing or not showing a credit. But it was unresponsive.” The owner of Plant a Tree Co is a 23-year-old from Florida, and admitted that he won’t be planting 5 million trees, and instead has started a fundraiser.

A spokesperson for Instagram said that the story trend “shows the power of the Instagram community to raise awareness on important topics”.

Another ‘add yours’ sticker trend has been “Support 10 accounts”, encouraging users to respond by tagging 10 accounts for other users to follow. Although we’re sure this trend was started with good intentions, it has also grown, and we doubt many businesses are gaining valued followers from it!

This new stories feature is definitely one to keep an eye on, for both positive and negative reasons. There is no harm in testing it out, but maybe don’t expect your pet photo to save the world just yet.