Instagram has continued to innovate new features in the last year to compete with other social media platforms and offer new options to marketers and users. Many of the new features improve the user experience, ease the posting process, and increase follower engagement.

Feed Post Updates
The Instagram feed is becoming more interactive to increase post engagement. To increase activity in the captions, you can now create polls and prompts that appear at the top. Using the polls and prompts creates a visible call to action that can increase interaction and help you put a finger on the pulse of your community. In an attempt to keep users within the app for all steps of the content creation process, Instagram has also added a rudimentary graphic design tool to add text overlays and stickers.

Carousel posts are getting a massive update to help tell better stories. Previously, carousels were limited to ten pictures, but now they can have up to twenty pictures. While using all twenty slots is not recommended, you can now tell longer stories with more pictures and feel more relaxed when choosing photos. Additionally, Instagram added a feature to add music overlays to carousel posts that will play even when swiping to the next picture.

The product posts are also being revamped so shoppers can now directly buy items from the feed. Business accounts can use the product tags to add more information directly to the feed post, like names, prices, and options to purchase directly from the feed. Large accounts can also add tags to direct people to their broadcast channel.

Reels and Live Videos
Instagram continues to expand its Reels and live video features and added some new features. Firstly, new editing options are now available when creating Reels natively in the app. You can now split clips, replace them, and adjust the speed, making it easier to make basic edits to videos. It’s also possible now to duplicate drafts and save them in drafts. Reels can now add up to twenty audio tracks to a Reel; while using all of those slots might not be necessary, it makes it easier to overlay audio or change the music partway through the video. One of the biggest changes is you can now edit your Reels even after posting them, so you can correct mistakes without having to repost the content. The last major change is that Reels can now have up to five collaborators like a feed post.

The most significant change for live videos is that users can now stream from a desktop, allowing for nicer settings. The other change is that you can now do live videos directly on broadcast channels, allowing for a more intimate community and interaction.

Stories
Similar to the rollout of the polls on the feed pasts, Instagram is introducing new features to increase interaction with stories. Namely, this means followers can now comment on stories, which operate similarly to captions in feed posts. There are also new fonts and stickers to use. One of the most existing ones is the “reveal sticker,” which hides the story content until the user interacts with the story, such as tapping the sticker.