Instagram just announced some new features coming to Stories, including a suite of interactive stickers. The music one is perhaps the most interesting, as it's an extension of the pre-existing Add Yours feature. The Add Yours Music sticker lets users share their favorite songs, along with a prompt for followers to get in on the fun by sharing their own related tracks. Of course, the song has to already be in Instagram’s music library to work.
To that end, Instagram has partnered with Dua Lipa to promote her new album, Radical Optimism. Many of the songs from the album are available for use in this way, and the artist herself has been posting Stories with Add Your Music stickers.
Another nifty sticker added today is called Reveal. Opting for this sticker blurs the visuals of a story post and the only way followers can see the content is to DM the person who shared it. Direct messages have become a key factor behind Instagram’s continued growth, with site head Adam Mosseri stating that teens actually spend more time in DMs than anywhere else on the platform.
He also says that “virtually all” engagement growth over the past few years has come from DMs and Stories, according to reporting by Business Insider. So, yeah, this will most definitely be used as a hack by savvy creators looking to boost their engagement. The thirst traps will be thirstier and trappier than ever before.
Instagram has also unveiled a sticker called Frames. This tool throws a Polaroid-esque overlay over a photo, turning it into an instant print image. To reveal the contents, followers will have to channel Andre 3000 and shake their phones like a Polaroid picture, though there’s also a button. Creators can add captions which are also revealed upon shaking. This feature was originally revealed at this year’s Coachella festival.
Finally, there’s a feature called Cutouts. This tool turns any part of a video or photo in your camera roll into a sticker, which can then be applied to a story or reel. Once a cutout is created, it gets saved into an easily-accessible sticker tray for future uses. This also works with photos posted to Instagram, though the pictures have to be shared by public accounts.
This has been a big month of changes for Instagram. In addition to the aforementioned new sticker systems, the social media app recently overhauled its algorithm to boost original content and deemphasize aggregator accounts. The company also changed the way Reels works to give smaller accounts a chance to expand their reach, though it remains unclear how this works. Instagram has also recently made Meta’s AI chatbot available in DMs, if you want some confident, yet absolutely wrong, answers to questions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagrams-add-yours-sticker-now-lets-you-share-songs-180730795.html?src=rss
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