It held its ground when Snapchat came up and now TikTok is hugely popular: Instagram is still a popular social platform that gets 300 million new active users every month. It still is because it implements changes. It “stole” the popular Stories feature from Snapchat, but it also comes with its own innovations. These are 5 new Instagram tips
You can now buy things in one click
One of the biggest changes on Instagram is that it has now become easier for retailers to sell things. For you, it means that you can buy something with Instagram at the touch of a button, without having to go to the website of that company first. It seems that 70 percent of Instagrammers who are considering buying a product will actually look up the company’s account within Instagram, so it is easy to be able to immediately purchase the product of their choice there. New is also the possibility to set an alert, so that you receive a notification when a certain product you are waiting for appears on the market.
The likes are going to disappear
It is currently being rolled out, so it is possible that your account does not have this yet, but Instagram is removing the likes. At least you can still like things, but you no longer see how many likes a particular photo has. Not when it comes to other people’s content, anyway, because you can still see it from your own photos and videos. This is an essential adaptation to the social medium, which is mainly used by young people. They are even more sensitive to how many likes a photo has and then compare this with others, which leads to mental problems. Moreover, Instagram wants it to be about the creations, rather than the popularity. Not everyone finds it a very welcome change, because some social influencers want insight into their competition. On the other hand, many users will probably care a lot about printing, so if you are bothered by likes, we hope this helps to get even more fun out of Instagram.
Upload horizontal videos
The whole idea of ​​IGTV was that you could share vertical videos with it. After all, telephones are vertical and it was a logical idea. However, some areas or situations really lend themselves to horizontal videos, while the whole of Instagram is vertically oriented. That changed in 2019 when IGTV finally made it possible to upload broadly instead of highly filmed videos. In addition, you will now receive a preview of IGTV in the Instagram feed, which draws users to the separate section on the platform earlier. Now IGTV is really worth its name, because it makes your smartphone a mini television. This makes it even easier to see what your favorite celebrities or companies are sharing. And this is even more convenient: it is possible to activate alerts, so that you know when there are new episodes in a series that you follow.
Instagram comes with Reels
This idea is not entirely the case from Instagram, but it is good that the company has embraced it: Reels. TikTok introduced it, but Instagram makes good use of it. It means that you don’t necessarily have to record a video in one go. You film something by holding down a button, but as soon as you release it, it will pause for a while until you continue filming. This way you can make very funny “clips” in your video and it saves you a lot of editing work. You can also add music or choose a different speed at which your video plays. This option is still being rolled out, so it may take a while before you can use it.
There is a direct messaging app
Threads is a new app that originated from Instagram. It is the direct message app, with which you can send private messages to people. The idea is that you do not communicate so much via text, but rather via photos and videos. So you actually make a kind of private Stories. You can share this with one person or with a group. It is not surprising that Instagram comes with its own app: Facebook also has a separate app for Messenger, which allows you to send private messages to people or groups. You can also add status updates, where you can indicate that you are busy or what you are doing. In short, you can see Threads as an extended version of the direct messages within the normal Instagram app.
There is a reason that people spend an average of 23 to 32 minutes a day on Instagram: it’s simply a platform with a wealth of great content. Hopefully you can enjoy it even more with these tips.
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