New Features to Tell New Stories

Many social media platforms come out with new features every once in a while to up their game, make their platform the most versatile, and to gain the edge against the competition. Let’s look at one that has come out recently.

IG Reels for example. It’s basically a mirror image of what Tiktok is all about. However, you could say that Instagram was quite smart to add it as a feauture of their own platform. It isn’t classified information that there was talk of banning access to the app Tiktok in the U.S. That gave Instagram a great opportunity to add their new feature and draw Tiktok users over to their platform. And that’s just what they did. Although Tiktok has not yet been officially banned, Instagram released the Reels feature giving all users another way to create stories.

Now, When I think about what Instagram is really used for, I think it’s about sharing moments from your life. Tiktok on the other hand is more for creating fun, short videos that appeal to our short attention spans. So, how does that concept of short videos work on Instagram’s platform? Well, Instagram themselves has described it as a new way to express yourself, discover more of what you like on the app, and help you with your ambition to become a noticed creator. I personally see the new feature working out as a way for Instagram users to be a little more creative and possibly even more authentic with what they share from their lives. Users can go past sharing the “perfect” still photos that we often see on everyone’s feed and branch out to create content that shows them letting loose and living real life that doesn’t always have to be perfect, but instead can be fun.