Instagram has introduced a bunch of new interactive Story stickers. One of them is called ‘Reveal,’ and it is intelligently created to boost DM conversations, which Instagram has lately been focusing more on.
The Reveal sticker blurs the content of the Story which can
be viewed only if the viewer DMs the user. This is really going to help creator
accounts that can rely on the feature to boost their DM inflow.
Meta has added a new default control setting to Instagram
and Threads, that limits recommendations of political content from accounts
that one doesn’t follow. Meta defines “political content” as posts about governments,
elections, and social topics.
The setting was first introduced in February and started
rolling out to more users since last week, but without any notifications
informing people about the update.
The option is available within “content preferences” in account settings as “Limit political content from people you don’t follow.” Although activated by default, it can be disabled by a user who wishes to see more political content on Meta’s apps. Meta also clarifies that the setting does not change the visibility of political content from accounts that a user follows.
Meta is making an important change to Instagram and Threads’
policy – limiting recommendation of content related to politics and social
issues from accounts that a user does not follow, across the platforms. Meta plans
to bring this update to Facebook some time later, too.
The changes will be implemented only in places where recommendations
are displayed to users, like Explore, Reels, in-feed recommendations, and
suggested users. No changes will be made to the way content is displayed from accounts
that a user follows. This means that accounts that aren’t eligible to be
recommended could still post political content that their followers will be
able to view in feed and Stories.
While users will be seeing less of political content by default, they would still be allowed to opt into seeing more of such content if they wish to. The option will be available in account settings, specifying content that is “likely to mention governments, elections, or social topics that affect a group of people and/or society at large.”
Instagram has consistently worked on improving the in-app
experience for its teen users, ensuring a safe social space for them to engage
with others. Recently, Instagram has launched new content recommendation
controls that reduce teen users’ exposure to sensitive content, such as
involving the topic of self-harm.
Instagram has taken into consideration the potential
negative impact of a complex topic like self-harm on teens’ mental health. “We
will start to remove this type of content from teens’ experiences on Instagram
and Facebook, as well as other types of age-inappropriate content,” says the
social media company. Currently, there is already limited recommendations of
self-harm related content within Reels and Explore. Moving forward, these
restrictions will also be applied to Feed and Stories, even including content from
accounts that teen users follow.
Linked with this addition is another important safety restriction that would inform Instagram if a teen user searched for terms similar to suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders. This would enable Instagram to redirect the user to official help services when they search for such terms. Additionally, specific search results that are detected as potentially triggering will be entirely hidden from the users.
Instagram is reportedly working on a new Collections
feature. Collections allow users to save content of their interest that they
discover in the app, so they can access it any time later. Other than private
Collections, a collaborative Collections option was launched some time back
that has enabled users to save mutual interests in private chats. Adding on to
these variations, Instagram is now introducing public / profile Collections.
Evident from the name itself, public Collections will be displayed on users’ profiles that others can view. Additionally, users will be able to control who exactly can view their Collections. One downside of this is that it would make profiles appear cluttered, as plenty of profile display elements already exist on Instagram.
While the Notes feature on Instagram appears to be a less popular
medium of interaction in the app, it is actually not as underused among teen
users according to Meta’s insights. And so it makes sense why Instagram isn’t
taking a break from testing and rolling out all kinds of updates for Notes.
One of these latest updates has been uncovered by app
researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, who shared a sneak peek of a new addition called
‘Profile Notes.’ Although Instagram itself hasn’t revealed anything about
Profile Notes, it is easy to predict that these Notes would appear on users’
profiles.
Since last September, Instagram has been testing a new
engagement option of sharing feed posts and Reels with a ‘Close Friends’ list
or a select group of followers. The app is now officially rolling this functionality
out to all users.
Instagram is testing new updates that are meant to facilitate interaction among users in smaller groups. These include new ways to respond to Notes, an ‘Events’ feature, and a ‘Nearby feed’ for Stories.
Users will soon be able to reply to Notes with all
kinds of content: audio clips, photos, videos, GIFs, and stickers. Notes was
originally launched in December last year and has gained popularity mainly
among younger users. Instagram has since been adding a variety of engagement options
within the functionality, such as music, video clip loops, and more.
Meta’s ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram are now available to users in the EU users aged above 18 years. Meta has begun sending prompts on Facebook and Instagram to encourage users to sign up to the paid subscriptions.
The offerings have been developed in compliance with the latest EU ad policies, which Meta explains in the message within the prompts, and they are priced around $20 for a month. It costs €9.99 a month when a user makes a purchase on the web and €12.99 a month when they purchase through Google’s or Apple’s app stores.
Meta has announced that it is going to start offering new
subscriptions on Facebook and Instagram in November, which will allow users to
opt out of all ads on these platforms. Users who wish to continue accessing the
free versions of Instagram and Facebook will continue to see ads relevant to
them.
These subscriptions, or paid versions of the services, according
to Meta, have been developed in accordance with “evolving European regulations”
that demand social media platforms to provide a data tracking opt-out for their
users. Therefore, Meta’s offerings will only be available to users in the
EU, EEA and Switzerland.
The information of users who subscribe to the offering will not be used for ads, as opting out of ads means automatically avoiding related data tracking as well.
Instagram had been testing a new ‘collaborative posts’ functionality
for the past few months, and has now launched it in a live test. The option is
created to allow users to collaborate with each other and contribute to
carousel feed posts specifically.
To allow others to contribute to carousel posts, the user who is uploading the post will need to turn the option on before uploading the content. As a result, their followers will be allowed to add photos and/or videos to it. The owner of the post can then choose to approve the photos or videos in order for them to be added to the carousel.
Back in February, Instagram launched a new revenue generating
feature of ‘virtual gifts’ in Reels for creators in the US. The feature is now
being expanded to more regions around the world including Austria, Belgium, Colombia,
Denmark, Indonesia, and more.
The feature is accessible from a ‘Send Gift’ option displayed
as an overlay on Reels clips. Viewers will be able to send their favourite creators
virtual gifts by purchasing stars, that can be cashed out in various amounts, up
to $5.99. Creators that have agreed to Instagram’s Gifts Terms of Service will be
able to earn money from the gifts sent to them by viewers who appreciate and support
their content.
Meta is reportedly considering offering paid subscriptions
to Facebook and Instagram users in the EU, enabling them to avoid ads and
personal data usage.
According to New York Times, what has led Meta to this decision seems to be the evolving EU policies that demand restriction of collection of user data for ad targeting. Subscribers of Facebook and Instsgram would therefore, not see ads in the apps, hence allowing Meta to dodge the EU privacy regulations in a way.
After launching generative AI ad creation tools for Facebook
and Instagram, Meta is taking AI integration on Instagram forward with more
features that it is currently working on. These, according to app researcher Alessandro
Paluzzi, include a generative AI sticker creation tool, visual editing tools, an
AI-powered message summary tool, as well as an AI chatbot.
The generative AI sticker tool will be found within Instagram
Stories and posts and will enable users to create their own stickers using text
prompts. This sounds like a fun way to get creative by turning your thoughts
into stickers to add to your posts and Stories, instead of using pre-existing
stickers.
Next, generative AI tools for visual editing; ‘AI brush’ and
‘Restyle,’ will provide users with creative control over their content. More specifically,
during the creation process, you will be able to remove or replace elements of
your uploads using these tools. With the AI brush, you will be able to fill in
parts in your images, while the Restyle tool will let you change parts of your
images with the help of text prompts. For instance, you could replace the
background of your uploaded image with the kind of background you would like,
by describing details of it.
In an attempt to further build on engagement using its
avatar feature, Meta has launched a new functionality that allows users to
appear on video calls as their avatar characters, on Instagram and Messenger.
“Sometimes, we’re just not camera-ready,” says Meta
explaining how using your Meta avatar in place of your own video can be a great
way to interact on video calls without having to worry about your appearance. The
avatars on video calls will work by responding to and following users’ facial
moves.
Within 24 hours of its launch, Meta’s new social app Threads
collected 30 million users and only within a matter of less than two days, the
number rose to 70 million. The app has now reached a record-breaking 100
million marker, beating ChatGPT as the fastest growing app.
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri openly addressed the perceived competition
between Twitter and Threads highlighted by the public. He clarified that Meta’s
goal with Threads is not to replace Twitter.
After showing a brief appearance on the Play Store a few days back, Meta’s latest Twitter-like app Threads went officially live on web for a short period of time for everyone to view and explore it. Threads is set to be launched tomorrow on iOS and probably Android too.
The app’s early access was provided to a handful of
accounts, including those belonging to Mark Zuckerberg, Netflix, Instagram, Adam
Mosseri, as well as some renowned creators and brands. These Threads profiles,
however, were taken down after some time.
Meta has announced new parental controls for Instagram and
Messenger that will provide parents with more insights into how their children and
teenagers socially engage and spend time on the apps.
The parental control update on Messenger will let parents
know exactly the time duration a child is spending on Messenger. From the Meta
Family Center, parents will also be able to take a look at their child’s
Messenger contacts list, along with monitoring their privacy and safety
settings. Moreover, if a child reports someone on the app, parents will be
informed of it, as well as be able to see who can and can’t message their child.
As Reels continue to increasingly grow across Meta’s platforms,
the company is expanding ad options within the short form videos. First launched
last year, Meta’s ad options for Reels are now available to more creators and
brands. Additionally, new ad formats have been added to Reels as well.
The more people watch and engage with Reels, the more opportunity it offers advertisers to drive their promotions. Advertisers can now promote apps via Reels, apply free music to single image ads, and use Inventory Filters to manage ad placement.
Instagram’s Broadcast Channels option that was initially launched
to selected creators in the US is now being rolled out to all creators. As a
result, any Instagram user that owns a creator account will be able to use
Broadcast Channels to share updates with large groups of people via DMs.
What made Broadcast Channels different from regular chats on
Instagram was the fact that members of the group could only read the messages
sent by the creator, but not respond to them. Channels therefore served as a
one-way space where creators could share important news and updates with their
followers via text and images, as well as polls.
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