11 Feb New Instagram Features & Updates
Instagram, much like other social network platforms is constantly evolving with some updates proving to be more popular than others. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that the ‘likes’ count has gone, but what about some of the updates you might not yet be aware of? These updates are often rolled out in waves, so if you don’t already have them, don’t worry! Just keep your app updated and you’ll see them soon.
Reply with GIFs
Communicating in GIFs has been a popular feature of Twitter and Facebook for a while, and you can now reply to your friends stories with GIFs in Instagram too! Simply type in your keyword, e.g. ‘Smile’ and pick a GIF to respond with. We’re excited about this new, easy way to respond to stories that is much more fun than the ‘quick responses’ emojis.
Age Checks for New Accounts
In a bid to stop under 13s from using the social media, Instagram now requests your date of birth when creating an account. Of course, nothing is stopping kids from lying and saying they are older, however this beats the old sign up process which didn’t ask for your DOB at all. We predict (and hope!) that 2020 will be full of security related updates like this due to the demand of making social media a safer place for young people.
Control Who Sees Your Profile
Another age-related update is that if you have a business account, you can now control minimum ages for people who can view your account. You can change this to be specific towards countries too. For example, if your business is alcohol-related, you may want to hide your content for under 18s in the UK, but change this to under 21s in the USA. A clever update – but we’re not convinced many businesses will actually benefit from this much.
Video Cropping for Stories
A rumoured update is the ability to crop videos down for your stories. Currently, you can upload a video or record a video straight within the app, however there is no way to trim a video down. This may soon change! This will allow more flexibility for creating smarter, more professional looking stories. We’re definitely up for any additional editing options for stories! Until then, we recommend using the app Filmm for cropping videos down and adding filters.
General and Primary Inbox
The inbox has a new feature too, which breaks your inbox down into two sections, ‘General’ and ‘Primary’. The main difference being that you automatically get notifications for messages which come into your ‘Primary’ inbox, however you only receive notifications for your ‘General’ inbox if you specifically set this up in settings.
Lots More Filters
Instagram stories has become increasingly similar to Snapchat in terms of filters. You’ve probably seen people using the ‘Which dog are you’ or ‘In 2020 I will’ type filters, which pair your face with a random image or word. Instagram are allowing creators to upload their own filters which can be shared across the platform; a brand new marketing technique.
‘Least Interacted With’ and ‘Most Shown in Feed’
Within your ‘following’ tab, you will notice you now have two categories. These include ‘least interacted with’ and ‘Most shown in feed’. Instagram’s algorithm has been unpopular ever since they removed chronological order, however with this tool you can keep an eye on which profiles are being shown most on your feed and which profiles you might be missing out on. Unfortunately, the ‘Least interacted with’ feature is likely to lose people a few followers, but hopefully it’ll help you to keep a following who are all genuinely interested in your content.
It is also rumoured that we may see an option soon to add our own categories; meaning you can separate your food tips from your cute dogs. Do you think you’d find this feature helpful? Let us know!
What to Expect
We believe that more updates are to come for all video content, including stories and IGTV, to help push these features to become even bigger.
We’d be really interested to find out what you think of these updates. Which are you most excited about and which other features do you wish Instagram would finally add?