Instagram announced Friday that it is adding several new features to Stories to give users more creative ways to share content and interact with each other. Most notably, the social network is introducing a new “Publish” feature. This allows you to post hidden stories for your followers to reveal by sending a DM. Instagram is also launching other features that let you share your favorite songs and highlight memories through Stories.
To access the new publishing feature, you must tap the sticker icon when creating a story and select the “Publish” option. From there, you'll be asked to enter hints about the ambiguous story. Once you post a Story, your friends will only be able to see your Story content if they DM you.
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While this feature may be a good way to start a conversation with friends, Reveal is especially useful for creators because it can increase engagement with their stories. Instagram says creators don't have to worry about handling thousands of DMs because they don't have to approve every DM to publish a story.
Instagram also launched new “Add Yours Music” stickers for Stories. This allows users to share songs that match their mood, while also encouraging their followers to share their songs as well. The feature builds on his Instagram's “Add yours” sticker, which allows users to reply to other users' stories with their own messages following prompts or specific topics.
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In addition, users will be able to access a new “frame” feature that converts photos into virtual Polaroids and can be viewed by shaking the phone (if you don't want to shake your phone, you can click “shake to view”) Button “). Stories have traditionally been used to share content about what you're currently doing, but this new feature is designed as a retrospective post.
Once you select an image to feature, we'll automatically add the date and timestamp the photo was taken to the frame sticker. You can also add captions to your virtual Polaroids.
Image credit: Instagram
Another new feature called “Cutouts” will allow users to turn portions of videos and photos in their camera roll into custom stickers that can be added to Stories and Reels. This feature is similar to Apple's Image Crop tool, which allows you to “pick up” objects from your photos and videos with just a press of your finger.
The introduction of this new feature comes after Instagram announced on Tuesday that it would be introducing several new changes to its ranking system to better emphasize content from small, original creators. As part of the changes, Instagram will replace reposts in recommendations with original content, add labels to reposted content, and remove content aggregators from recommendations. The announcement comes after months of criticism from creators who say the algorithm is hurting their reach.