Instagram is by far my favorite social media app because it is always evolving and innovating its offerings. Read on to find out my favorite new Instagram features and what I love about them.
Best New Instagram Features
Stories
By far my favorite new Instagram feature is the addition of Stories. You can take photos and video within the Stories portion of the Instagram app and edit them to your heart’s content. Instagram has given us gifs, a variety of fonts, colors, and emojis to jazz things up. If that’s not enough, there are even location tags, which are searchable by the greater Instagram community as long as your account is public (score for added engagement!) and you can also repost other users’ stories and grid images to your story feed as well, provided that the users have enabled that functionality.
I love sharing video clips of my family and travels, giving you all a glimpse into my day-to-day life. Stories are such a great tool to be able to keep up with what my friends are doing in real time as well. Beyond that, Stories have endless possibilities for companies looking to promote their products and brand messaging. I’ve seen discounts, tutorials and jobs all featured within the app – it truly is a game changer.
Live
Instagram Live reminds me a lot of Periscope in that you “go live” and can interact in real time with your followers. The difference is that with Periscope, you can save your videos and Instagram Live broadcasts are only available for 24 hours. Live lets you talk to your followers about anything and everything and they can type questions comments and give “hearts” during your broadcast. It’s perfect for getting instant engagement and feedback. I love watching makeup tutorials for tips and motivational speeches for boosts of positivity.
IGTV
IGTV is Instagram’s latest big roll out. This feature will let users watch and create long-form video content right inside the Instagram app. I think this will be a massive competitor for YouTube since Instagram users can now use the regular Instagram functions as well as have access to a mini-YouTube-type tool all in one place. Time will tell how successful this is, but I personally love having everything in one place instead of hopping back and forth between apps.
Spotify
Instagram recently integrated with Spotify, and you can now share the songs you are listening to on Spotify with your Instagram followers via Stories. I love discovering and sharing new music, and this is so easy to use.
Mute Feature
If you don’t want to offend someone by unfollowing them, but you aren’t engaging with their content, Instagram now lets you simply mute them. This allows you more control over the content you are served up since the feed is no longer chronological. As a note, you can mute both your Stories feed and your photo/video feed.
What are your favorite new Instagram features? Comment below and let me know!
