Instagram unveils interactive Story enhancements amidst original content push

Instagram has unveiled several fresh features for Stories, enhancing interactive sharing of music, photos, and videos. Among these is ‘Reveal,’ which blurs story content, requiring viewers to DM the sharer to unveil it. Instagram's chief, Adam Mosseri, highlights the growing significance of direct messages, with Stories and DMs driving much of Instagram's growth. The new emphasis on DMs for viewing content is seen as a tactic for creators to drive engagement.

Another feature, ‘Frames,’ adds a Polaroid-like overlay to images, with the image appearing when users shake their phone, reminiscent of the traditional Polaroid experience. Interestingly, this contradicts the advice not to shake Polaroids during development. ‘Frames’ debuted during Coachella in April.

Instagram is also introducing a music-themed template feature, ‘Add Yours Music,’ enabling users to share songs with prompts such as ‘favourite song on X album.’ This expands on the existing stories prompt template for photos.

In a move to promote original user content, Instagram has made reposted or aggregated content less visible in recommendations, favouring the original post instead. However, recommended content from non-followed accounts is now a greater focus, potentially unsettling creators concerned about reaching their audience.