Since its debut in 2010, Instagram has quickly grown to become one of the most prevalent social networking platforms available, mainly due to its brilliant design of a platform for posting your most aesthetically pleasing photos. What’s more impressive is its ability to develop new features and find fresh approaches to keep users glued to the app.
At Wild, we’re always keeping an eye out on the latest social media updates to see how we might need to adapt social strategies for clients. On our recent hunt for new Instagram app updates, we found ten features the platform has developed in 2023 so far.
- 1. Multiple links in the bio
Instagram has recently rolled out a new feature which enables accounts to add multiple links to user profiles. This challenges Linktree, Beacons and numerous other “link in bio” solution providers. Announced on April 18th, this feature will now allow users to add up to five links to their Instagram profile bios, which can direct their followers to other content.
- Dynamic profile pictures
Instagram introduced dynamic profile photos, which have since become a fun way to create a distinctive avatar for your profile picture. Instagram proposed this concept as a fun new method to personalise your profile and make it stand out from the crowd. In addition, personalised stickers can also be shared with friends in direct messages or added to story posts.
- Subscriptions
Instagram Subscriptions give online content producers and companies the option to charge a monthly fee for giving their followers access to premium content and benefits. Subscribed users receive a purple badge next to their names to make them stand out in comments and direct messages. This has developed into an effective tool for earning money on Instagram. For creators and professional accounts who meet the eligibility requirements, subscriptions are offered. Creators must comply to Instagram’s partner content monetisation policy and meet the community standards.
Here’s how you can become eligible for subscriptions on Instagram:
- Aged over 18 and a UK resident.
- Obtain a professional account with the minimum amount of followers being 10,000.
- Must agree to instagrams subscriptions term of use.
- Meet the partner monetisation policies.
If you meet these requirements, you should then be able to go into your professional dashboard and if eligible, an option will be set up for subscriptions on your account.
- Adding music to Instagram posts
Instagram recently made it possible to include music in posts in consumers’ feeds. This is a great way for a brand to enhance a message of a specific post, or to communicate its personality more clearly.
Some reasons a brand might include music on their social media posts include:
- Capitalising on trending audio.
- Immerse and engage an audience.
- Less time consuming than creating a video, but includes the same audio elements.
- Helps communicate a brands personality.
- Reels by topic
A recent addition to Instagram allows you to replace some of the content you don’t want to see in your feed with more of what you do want to view. When watching reels, you can choose topics you want to see more of. Once finding your target audience on Instagram and defining the term best used to describe your type of content, its a great way to gain virality and popularity on Instagram by posting reels regularly and by topic. Posting by topic can help users find relevent content in their algorithm.
Heres how you can add topics to your reels before posting:
- Firstly create your content to post to your account. Create a reel by clicking the + button and selecting reel or by sliding to the left and selecting reel. Or upload already produced content.
- Once your reel is ready to be uploaded, scroll to the bottom and you have the option to “add a topic” you can add up to 3 topics to your reel.
- When ready to go post your reel with the topics personalised by you.
- Quiet mode
A new feature introduced recently by Instagram is Quiet Mode which allows you to mute notifications for a time frame of your choice. A fantastic function for times when you don’t want any interruptions or simply want to put your phone away for a while.
- Control the content you see
Instagram has now made it easier to enjoy more of the content you want to view and less of the content you don’t. With the option to hide particular keywords, you can prevent that particular topic from appearing on your explore page to ensure you aren’t consuming it. This is an excellent tool that parents can utilise to make sure their children are safe online.
- Supervision tool
Instagram has revealed a feature for parents which allows users to create a time limit, schedule breaks, and manage what their kids view. It’s additionally, this feature alerts parents if specific settings have been updated.
- Broadcast channels
Broadcast channels are a public, one-to-many messaging tool for creators to invite all of their followers into and engage with their most interested fans. Creators can use broadcast channelling to communicate with audiences by posting photos, leaving voice notes, and allowing people to engage via polls and other methods to keep viewers informed.
- In-app content scheduling tools
The ability to schedule posts on Instagram has now been made more accessible for business accounts, which will be a huge advantage for smaller companies that primarily operate through Instagram. It is also an incredibly helpful tool for businesses that post frequently as it can take time to do manually. To use the new feature, users will need to access “advanced settings” when creating a new post, activating the “schedule this post” option, and selecting the time and date they want it to be published on. Scheduled posts can be seen in the “scheduled content” section accessible from the menu. The tool will also allow you to reschedule the content, if necessary.
It will be fascinating to see other features Instagram release in 2023!
For more information on how we can help brands raise their profile through social media platforms like Instagram, please visit: https://wild-pr.co.uk/services/social-media/
Written by: Simran Sokhal – Wild PR
Published date: 29th March 2023
Updated: 19th March 2023