Instagram Updates You Need to Know: Hashtags & stories Highlights

Instagram Updates You Need to Know. In this last part of the year, Instagram has released some great new features, have you already tested them? In this post, I’m going to tell you more about.

Instagram Updates You Need to Know

Stories Highlights and Archive

This is the biggest update of 2017. Now, you can create permanent stories that will stay on your Instagram profile until you delete them, instead of vanishing after 24 hours like regular stories.
They are grouped into highlights, appear directly under your bio and above your Instagram feed and play as a stand-alone story when someone taps on it.
But that’s not it! There’s also a new Stories Archive, which automatically saves your Instagram Stories in the cloud so you don’t have to save them to your phone and you can easily relive them whenever you want. You find it in the “Archive” button that looks like a little clock at the top right corner.

To create a new highlight, you just tap the thumbnail with the plus icon and you choose any stories from your archive, select a cover and give it a name.
You can have as many highlights as you’d like (but you can only add stories that have been posted since this new feature started rolling out). To edit or remove a highlight, just tap and hold that highlight on your profile.
They’re a creative way to express yourself or to show off products. You can create highlights based on a specific topic, such as makeup tips or gift ideas. In this way, it’s super easy for your audience to watch Stories content that interests them.

Follow hashtags

Instagram has introduced the ability to follow hashtags, giving users a new way to discover and stay on top of their favorite interests.
Like when you follow an account, you just need to search for a topic you’re interested in or tap on a hashtag from any post, you open the hashtag page and tap on the following button. You can discover more hashtags you might be interested in by scanning the Related bar below it.

In this way, you’ll see top posts from that hashtag in your feed and some of the latest stories in your stories bar. There is a lot of variety in the posts shown, but you can train the algorithm on what you do and don’t like. Engage with the post by leaving a heart or a comment, and Instagram will assume you want more. You can also tap the menu button above posts you don’t want to see again and choose the Don’t Show for This Hashtag option.
The idea of this new feature is to give users a new way to discover photos or videos outside of their immediate friendship group and people they follow.
If you have a public profile, anyone will be able to see which hashtags you follow. If you have a private profile, only your followers will see them.
If you don’t have these updates yet, make sure your app is updated

Regram Button (testing)

This feature is not yet available, Instagram is still testing it and hopefully will release it soon, because it will change the way we share pictures. Currently, if you want to republish an image you have to save it to your phone and then re-publish it on your account or use a third-party app. The regram button would allow you to do this much more quickly and easily. It will work in a very similar manner to Retweets on Twitter or the Share function on Facebook, which allows you to reshare content with your followers.

What do you think of these Instagram Updates? Which other feature would you like Instagram to release?

Let me know in the comments below!

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