5 Instagram Features You Need to Know
After its launch in 2010, Instagram made and maintained a space for itself with its special filters and a few more unique features including its user experience optimized for mobile and a “safe environment” for its users.
With over 700 million monthly active users, the social media platform has continued to add so many features from look and feel to functionalities and even though some of these features look terribly similar to their close alternative… “you know who”
Back to why I started writing this post, let’s take a close look at some of the latest features on the app and how they come in handy for users and most especially businesses on Instagram.
Hashtags & Location
I know right, hashtags have existed like forever, but there are quite a few cool things you could do with hashtags on Instagram. With the new update to Instagram stories, you can now add and edit hashtag stickers on your Instagram story, how cool is that? With this feature, other users can find your story by searching for stories by hashtag and location in the explore feed.
Save or Bookmark
With this cool feature available in recent Instagram updates, you can now bookmark (or save) any image you like and want to see later. By simply clicking the bookmark icon on the bottom-right corner of an image of video and voila! You view this anytime you want to. With the latest version of Instagram, you can group your saved images into “collections” like Dance, Fashion even Food.
Story Poll
The Story Poll is one of the newest members of the family and for businesses on Instagram, this is one great feature and here’s why. The Story Poll allows you create a survey on your Instagram story and get feedback from your followers. If I owned a fashion store on Instagram, I could get my followers to give their feedback on new arrivals or choose the perfect look for my Friday happy hour.
Sell Directly on Instagram
Now, it’s amazing to know that you can now (or very soon) sell directly on Instagram without your customers leaving the app or visiting any website. Although this feature is only available to selected users only in the US, to use this feature you must first “enable shopping” in your business profile.
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
If you are as scared as me about waking up to find your Instagram account gone, this is one feature you don’t want to jump over. Although this feature is not particular to Instagram, Two-factor authentication (2FA) is one of the essential security protocols to use for any service. And Instagram now supports it, so turn it on.
There are probably over 20 more features I could on about, but I planned to make this a short read and try not to rant about how Instagram and Snapchat keep copying each other lol 😉. Maybe I’ll in my next post.
Do you know about other amazing features you’ll like to share? I can’t wait to read your comments below.
