Keep up to date with the latest updates and features released on Instagram
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‘Trial Reels’ now available to more creators
Late last week, IG chief Adam Mosseri confirmed that Trial Reels are now available to all creators with at least 1,000 followers and an account set to “Public.”
Trial Reels are not displayed to your followers, either in the main Feed or via the Reels tab. The idea is that this will give you an unbiased assessment of content quality (without your friends and family skewing the data). While it can also help you reach a broader audience by exposing your content to more people who you aren’t connected to in the app.
Instagram has said:
Before sharing, tap the toggle to turn on ‘Trial’. After sharing your trial reel, you can find it by visiting your profile where it will appear alongside any drafts you have. Only you will be able to see that your reel is a trial. It will not be shown to other people on your profile unless you later decide to share it with everyone, and your followers won’t see the trial reel in their feed or Reels tab.
Read moreGoogle indexing Instagram posts
Starting today, Instagram will allow public content from professional (business and creator) accounts of users over 18 to be indexed by Google and other search engines.
This feature makes posts, videos, carousels, and Reels searchable beyond Instagram, which should significantly enhance content discoverability. Users can opt out through Instagram’s privacy settings.
Captions, Alt text, and hashtags on Instagram will now impact SEO and require marketers to integrate keyword strategies and consider search intent in their content creation.
See how this affects youAdditional comment features for Instagram creators
Instagram have announced an additional layer of comment filtering, available to all creators with over 100,000 followers.
The new filter would allow these creators to filter comments on their posts by:
- Top comments: sorting comments based on the level of engagement it’s received from other users
- Newest first: showing the comments in order of most recent
- Follower count: sorting comments based on the number of followers the commenter has
The new filter will allow for creators and influencers to engage with their audience more efficiently by being able to see comments in a different way. Could this be the start of return engagement from these big name accounts?
More on thisInstagram experiments with new feature: Lockable posts
Instagram is experimenting with ‘lockable posts’ as a way to increase engagement. Lockable posts are posts that prompt users to ‘enter a secret code’ in order to view the content. Businesses could use this feature to increase engagement and reward ‘superfans’ by providing an exclusive code. It could also be used to offer discounts to previous customers. There’s a range of ways that brand or creator profiles could use this. At this time, Instagram has not announced if or when this feature will be rolled out.
Learn more about 'lockable posts' hereInstagram introduces ‘Re-posts’
Instagram has introduced a new feature allowing users to “re-post” content, which will appear in their followers’ feeds like a regular post. Previously, users could only share content to ‘Stories’, but now, tapping the repost icon under a post or reel lets users add their own text, amplifying content to a wider audience.
It was initially tested in 2022. While it didn’t progress at the time, Instagram now seems confident that reposts will integrate well into its AI-driven feed.
This update could result in an algorithm shift. Despite the algorithm prioritising relevant updates from followed profiles, reposts will add more content to users’ feeds, so it will be interesting to see how Instagram’s algorithm adapts to this.
We spoke to Alex Ighalo, founder of Fayrli, who told us:
Expert opinion
Alex Ighalo, Founder of Fayrli
Instagram ads evolve with site links
In recent months, we’ve seen Meta introduce ‘site links’ to their ads, available at the build stage for an advertiser to include within an ad. The added feature allows a brand to showcase multiple areas of the site, relevant to the ad, for the user to explore.
Originally, this feature was only rolled out to Facebook ads, however it’s now been announced it will also be available on Instagram.
Adding site links can increase click-through-rate as well as navigate users to other areas of a website, encouraging more customer engagement.
For an added level of tracking amongst ads, advertisers would benefit from adding custom UTM parameters to each site link for detailed analytic overview of performance in Google Analytics.
Read MoreInstagram experiments with AI generated comments
Some Meta users have noticed a new feature in the comment section on Instagram, with a ‘pencil and a star’ for new AI-generated comment suggestions. This new feature is one of many trials that Meta is experimenting with across their platforms. The update has been met with concerns over the increased de-personalisation of social media, but with platforms like LinkedIn and Gmail already having these features, it was only a matter of time before Meta jumped on the idea.
We spoke to Rachael Balmforth, Senior Social and Influencer Manager at AO, about her opinion on Instagram’s latest experimentation with AI comments:
Expert opinion
Rachael Balmforth, Senior Social & Influencer Manager at AO
Instagram is testing a new feature called ‘Blend’
Instagram is moving ahead with its testing of ‘Blend’, a new feature that allows you to view a feed of AI-recommended reels for both yourself and a friend. It will be built into the messaging section on Instagram. The tests have been ongoing for over a year and now have dedicated graphics and an onboarding explainer. Therefore, it looks like this feature could be getting rolled out soon. ‘Blend’ aims to align itself to your collective interests and will ultimately show you the reels that you and your friend would have viewed individually in one place. It is an interesting move from Instagram but supports Instagram’s focus on messaging engagement in 2025.
Read more about this update hereInstagram DM updates
Following an announcement by Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri detailing the focus and goals for the year ahead on the platform, Instagram has released its first feature roll-out of the year. Updated features in DM’s have a focus on better communication and connectivity, through language, music and visuals.
New features include:
- Message translation
- Music stickers
- Scheduled messages
- Pinned chat content
- Group chat QR codes
While nothing groundbreaking compared to some of Instagram’s other updates, it aligns with a broader focus to drive community sharing and increase engagement overall in the app.
See Meta’s update below to read about these features in more detail.
Read Meta's update hereInstagram reveals a new grid layout
Instagram has changed its grid layout. Instead of square images (1:1), Instagram will now display taller photos (3:4) within your grid. However, when viewing images in your feed, they’ll still be displayed in the original 1:1 format.
The new dimensions are:
Carousel posts:
- Image size – 1080 x 1350 px (4:5)
- Grid view – 1012 x 1350 px (3:4)
Reels:
- Image size – 1080 x 1920 px (9:16)
- Grid view – 1080 x 1440 px (3:4)
Stories:
- Image size – 1080 x 1920 px (9:16)
- Safe area – 1080 x 1610 px
It’s quite uncommon nowadays for individuals and brands to think about the aesthetic and layout of their grid over their individual posts, however, The new update has caused some problems with existing feeds, causing images and layouts to become distorted.
You can work around this problem and add black or white borders to your current photos by following these steps:
- Click the three dots in the top-right corner of the post
- Select Adjust Preview
- Choose Fit and pick a black or white background to fill the space
- Hit Done
However, this is a manual fix and each post will need to be done one by one, so might not be the most efficient fix if you’re managing a large feed.
Learn more about the Instagram grid
