Updates To The ‘Gram: February 2021
Hello Firecracker friends & readers!
You know the drill: another day, another Instagram update. Yeeeeesh.
But in all seriousness, some things have been going down over on the ‘gram and it has come to our attention that we need a good ol’ fashion ROUND UP to share all this info.
Here’s what’s new as of February 2021:
Reels is Trying to Discourage TikTok Re-Shares
IG is pushing Reels harder than we push the “Brew Coffee” button at 4pm on a Wednesday. Reels is trying desperately to compete with TikTok, which still dominates the video-sharing industry worldwide. In early February, Instagram announced the improvements they are making for Reels suggestions through the algorithm. The main takeaways:
Don’t reshare from TikTok (or if you do, remove the watermark!)
Film vertically
Don’t put too much text on your Reels
And while this is all well and good, as social media experts, we’re a little more concerned with the lack of analytics, platform bugs and hindered search-ability, but okay, Instagram. Do you.
(Learn more about our mixed feelings about Reels here.)
2. Instagram is (Hopefully) Launching Multi-Screen Live Chats
Alexa, play “Too Little Too Late” by JoJo.
Instagram’s Chief, Adam Mosseri, revealed that Instagram has been testing a multi-screen IG Live platform, which would allow four people on an IG Live at once. They have been testing this in India and reported that IG viewership went up by over 60%, to which we say… DUH. Social media experts have been begging for this for months because of the obvious benefits.
(Fun fact: They tested this in India specifically because of the TikTok ban in the country. Instagram used the new feature to keep users engaged and direct attention to their platform instead. The competition is getting hot, y’all.)
We’re excited to see how this rolls out to brand accounts here in the US and if it will follow the same structure as the current IG Lives. We’ll be sure to keep you Firecracker fans updated!
3. DM’s are Getting Regulated
Not all DM’s are a friendly slide through. Due to repeated harassment in private messages, Instagram is now taking steps to monitor and regulate harmful or abusive DM’s. Moving forward, Instagram will disable accounts that have been reported for sharing harassing messages and will also put more restrictions on users who have been disabled attempting to sign up again using another account.
Further, Instagram is hoping to roll out something that Twitter has featured since the dawn of time, which is restricting the ability to get DM’s from people you do not follow. This feature is available for Business and Creator accounts only and they are hoping to share with personal accounts soon.
We’d love to say that’s all for now, but this short month is still young.
Stay tuned for more Instagram updates on the Firecracker blog and follow us on Instagram for more!
Thanks for reading!
- The Firecracker Team
