2018 Instagram Updates

So this is something I wanted to test out and at the moment it is barebones. I wanted to have a one stop shop if it were with a month by month breakdown on Instagram new features, updates, news and announcements.

This month by month breakdown will also help serve the 1st Tuesday of each month’s #ChatGramLive broadcast where chat about the previous month’s new features and updates to Instagram.

If you see anything missing please add them to the comments! 2018 has been a busy year so far and it’s hard keeping up with everything.

December 2018 Instagram Updates

Alternative Text Descriptions

Profile Changes

Close Friends List

Voice Messaging in DMs

Side-Scroll Feed – Testing

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November 2018 Instagram Updates

Inauthentic Activity

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October 2018 Instagram Updates

Instagram Stories and SoundCloud

Instagram Stories is integrating with another music/audio service. This time with SoundCloud. A few months ago Instagram rolled a similar feature with Spotify, although this function has disappeared for me and many others for whatever reason. 😉 This is actually a great marketing opportunity, not just for adding fun music and stuff but for those that have a podcast and publish it to SoundCloud, you can do an Instagram Story and link your podcast to the story. Full Story on Search Engine Journal

Quick Replies Roll Out for DMS

 

Gifs in DMS

 

Instagram Stories: Continuous Recording & Upload Longer Videos

Broke this news over on my Instagram account on October 08, 2018 and later published it on here in a blog post. Instagram is either testing or slowly rolling continuous recording and upload longer videos to Stories. Instagram Stories are a length of 15 seconds. When I selected a video from my camera roll, Instagram automatically converted the 32 second video into 3 Stories. Then I discovered I could do continuous recording within Instagram Stories. I just held that recording button and it kept recording until I stopped. [icon name=”info” class=”” unprefixed_class=””] At the moment this seems to be only available for Android users. (11/05/2018)  

Instagram Nametags

 

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September 2018 Instagram Updates

Instagram Shopping

Update to Security Settings

Background Information on Instagram Accounts

Instagram Stories – New Superzooms

Poll Stickers for DM’s

Quick Reply Emjoi

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August 2018 Instagram Updates

Time Spent on Instagram App

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July 2018 Instagram Updates

Instagram Lite App for Android Devices

Instagram launches a Lite app for low-end Android devices – Next Web Article

Status Indicator

Instagram adds a status indicator dot so people know when you’re ignoring them – TechCrunch Article

Q&A Stickers for IG Stories

You’re All Caught Up

Group Video Calling

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June 2018 Instagram Updates

IGTV

Mute Accounts

@mention sharing for IG Stories

Shoppable tags extended to IG Stories

Music stickers in IG Stories

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May 2018 Instagram Updates

Quick Comment Emoji Reply

As of June 1, 2018 I haven’t seen anything on this feature, so it’s probably beta test feature but I will update this if and when there’s more information about this.

This is my personal and professional opinion on this feature. I am not fan of this quick comment emoji reply to post comments because it’s basically bot comment behavior. We’ve trained ourselves over the years to recognize a quick single emoji comment to be bots. Also over the last year Instagram has painfully gone after bot services to get them shutdown. So what does Instagram do, create a comment feature that going to make people look like bots.

Now I would totally be all for this if this was a feature within the Direct Messaging part of the Instagram app.

New CTA Button Options

Inbox Simplification

Share Newsfeed Posts to Your Stories

Existing Instagram Posts Can Be Turned Into Ads

Sliding Emoji Scale

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April 2018 Instagram Updates

Changes to the API

Hashtags To Your Profile

@ Mention in Your Profile

Focus Portrait Mode

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March 2018 Instagram Updates

Shoppable Posts

Bio links to other profile and hashtags

Algorithm Changes

GIFS Disabled

New Reply Privacy controls

Cinemagraph

Portrait Shutters for Stories

Voice and Video Calling

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February 2018 Instagram Updates

Text with backgrounds

Carousel Ads Brought to Stories

Stories Creative Flexibility

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January 2018 Instagram Updates

Ability to Follow Hashtags

Recommended Posts: In Testing

Alpha Testing – ios

Scheduled Publish Directly to Account

Instagram Stories now has GIF Stickers