Launched this week as ‘Guides’ on Instagram, the new feature was rolled as a spot where users could find recommendations, tips, and other useful content from their favorite creators, publishers, and organizations on Instagram.
So…
What exactly are Instagram “Guides”?
Guides are just like what I would say a step by step process of an activity or recommendations. When viewing a guide, users would notice a collection of posts and videos (often from different people) that influencers or organizations have curated with a heading explained with a few lines of text.
Instagram has been consistently working on eliminating
bullying and harassment from its platform.
It is for this reason, it rolled out features like ‘Restrict’, ‘Auto-Hide Comments’, ‘Report’ etc., to facilitate and ease the bullying situations that users once faced regularly.
While Restrict feature stopped people from commenting on a person’s post and messaging them, the strict ‘Report’ policies banned a user’s account only after a few reports within a window of time.
That said…
Instagram now took it to another level rolling out new
features to help users manage unwanted interactions and tackle bullying on the
platform.
The last three to four posts have been about the recent
changes that Instagram brought about on its platform as a result of the recent
Covid-19 outbreak.
And guess what?
Just two days ago, Instagram rolled out a yet another ‘Support Small Business Sticker’ for Instagram stories that YOU can now use to show your support for the businesses you love.
The sticker got super-viral pretty soon and became the headline of every single news site.
“A celebration of shopping on Instagram. Discover your new favorite brands- and tap to shop every post!”- That is how the Instagram’s official page ‘Shop‘ describes itself on the platform.
Launched in March 2019, which is just a year ago, Instagram created a page named ‘igfashionshopping’ to promote shopping on the platform.
The username though soon changed to “Shop“, the page became a hub for users on the platform to find new products from different brands, and shop as well.
Instagram is doggedly persisting to cater new means that could help small businesses and companies to get through this tough time.
COVID-19 has not only
stopped the movement of common people and brought everything to rest, but it
also crashed some of the biggest economies in the world.
The economy crisis leads to
more poverty and hunger which ultimately puts a huge load on NGOs working for a
cause to increase their performance exponentially.
More the pressure on these NGOs, more they need your financial support so as to facilitate everything in such a short span.
It is for this reason Instagram now rolled out their ‘Donation’ feature; however, this time in Instagram Live.
Post-updating your Instagram app, users would now be able to use the option to raise funds for respective NGOs.
Instagram mentioned-
“Many people are facing challenges at this time, and we want to do our part to support nonprofits and communities who need it the most. Now, you can easily create a fundraiser on Live with 100% of the money raised going directly to the nonprofit of your choice.”
Back in 2015, parent company Facebook rolled out an account memorialization feature that made it possible for user’s family and close friends to memorialize account if they die.
However…
The feature was excessively abused in the name of prank and many
of the Facebook users memorialized their friend’s accounts just for fun.
Facebook soon paid attention to this and made it a compulsion for
users to submit a death-proof for an account to be memorialized.
The same feature is now all set to roll out on Instagram too in
the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak that took away thousands of lives.
Post this feature rolls out, YOU will notice a ‘Remembering’ banner under the username of the person who lost their lives during this phase and is no longer in this world.
Liza Crenshaw, a spokesperson for Instagram told BuzzFeed News– “We’ve been working on these updates for some time, though this is one — among others — that we’ve accelerated in light of COVID-19 to help support our community during a difficult time,”
The feature was first spotted by Jane Manchung Wong, a reverse engineer from Hong Kong, who finds unreleased features and security vulnerabilities inside popular web applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
Unless you are one of those who don’t follow even a single
celebrity or influencer on the platform, you would have noticed such challenges
popping up now and then.
Be it the #mdvfitnesschallenge…
The #bottlecapchallenge…
Or the current popular #standupchallenge!
Everyone on Instagram is following the lead and continuing this cycle.
That being said, there has been an exponential increase in the number of people taking up these challenges especially following the recent outbreak of COVID-19 which confined people within four walls of their room.
As a result, people are looking for new approaches to do things they used to do earlier in normal life.
Ultimately…
Giving birth to such new challenges.
Instagram is a mastermind.
It fathoms what its users want according to a particular situation or
pattern.
It is for this reason it executes its efforts in the directions that bring more engagement on their platform.
That said…
Not so surprisingly, Instagram rolled out a NEW sticker named “CHALLENGE” in their story section that is particularly meant for challenging people on Instagram.
As this coronavirus thing got worse recently, there have been a number of efforts by the governments and many authorities to boost up people’s motivation and curb the negativity that aired all around.
Moreover…
When it comes to backing up perseverance, no one deserves it more than the health officials and policemen who are working continuously 24/7 putting their lives at stake just to save YOUR LIFE.
Countries came forward with their unique ways to show their appreciation for the people on the front lines.
Some people clapped as a gesture of their appreciation, while others were noticed burning candles staying at home to spread the light of positivity.
That being said, Instagram too fathomed the necessity of bringing something new that helped people show their support for people in the front line.
It is, for this reason, it recently rolled out a ‘Thank You’ Sticker for Instagram users to show their gratitude for what’s helping YOU to get through this time.
Have you ever thought of starting your own Instagram page?
I mean…
There are thousands of pages and influencers garnering on Instagram with millions of people following them around the globe.
However…
Those numbers in million could sometime manipulate you to put off your dreams, goals, and passion for some other time.
But let’s face it!
Everyone once started with zero!
Moreover…
“People should not compare their chapter one with someone’s chapter twenty”
A great tip, right?
That’s what our guest TODAY “Sarah Dorough“ mentioned during a chat we had with her.
Sarah Dorough is a young 18-year-old fitness influencer on Instagram who is a real example of inspiration on how one can grow their page organically without buying any fake followers.
