Instagram is looking to boost engagement among users around Stories, with a new ‘Stories About You’ activity section spotted this week.
In the two years since Instagram launched Stories, the feature has become incredibly popular, and it’s only logical that Instagram is constantly looking for ways to enrich users’ experience of it. One way it’s doing so is by adding new features to keep people interested, giving them more creative ways to make their Stories. Another is to build features that boost engagement among users, around Stories.
The latest feature spotted by Jane Manchun Wong this week does the latter. According to Wong, Instagram is working on a ‘Stories About You’ section that has a pretty simple premise – it shows users when they are @mentioned or tagged by other Story creators. The separate section simply means that Instagram will be separating Story notifications from other notifications on the app.
Instagram is working in "Stories About You" Activity section pic.twitter.com/D7YhcScHWS
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) July 24, 2019
For most users, this won’t be a gamechanger. However, it could be quite useful for users who have many mentions – perhaps too many to handle with the old system. Brands may also find this new feature helpful in helping them categorise their activity streams in terms of different activities.
Facebook has made it clear that it wants Stories to be the top way for users to share on its platforms – it makes total sense to start treating it as separate but highly-engaging part of users’ experience on them. With 500 million DAUs (daily active users) on Instagram Stories alone, things are obviously getting crowded for some users.
The feature hasn’t been confirmed, but our guess is it will be within the next few months or so.
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