Instagram, in its efforts to improve engagement of private conversations, has launched a new Reveal feature that requires DMing to remove blurs.
Social media platforms are constantly evolving to meet the rapidly changing user landscape. From seamless user navigation to promoting interactions, the competition among top social media giants is cutting-edge. As part of its continued efforts to improve inter-user engagement, Instagram has introduced a new Reveal feature that, surprisingly, blurs images, videos, and other content posted on stories.
This new introduction makes sharing music, images, and videos more interactive and interesting. The Reveal feature blurs the content and requires DMing a person to allow revealing it to them. According to Instagram, this feature will help promote conversational engagement between users across the globe.
Content creators have been finding innovative ways to promote DM interaction, which in turn, helps them gain more sustainable followers. Instagram head, Adam Mosseri explained that Direct Messages are gaining importance as DMs and stories account for the platform’s majority growth contribution.
On Instagram, we have many followers, but interact with just above 10% of them on a regular basis. Interesting stories, and posts do compel users to share their views through DMs, and the reaction feature sends a notification to the poster how they felt about the content. These engagement methods have contributed significantly to the platform’s overall engagement improvement strategy. The Reveal feature will act as an engagement hack to boost conversations around their stories.
Instagram will also be adding another feature called Frames, which will give a Polaroid overlay to images that start with grey boundaries. They can convert normal images as well, but the most effective use case is for such images. The Frames feature was introduced first during Coachella, and received tremendous engagement. Due to this successful test run, the platform may soon make a commercial launch of the feature.
The Reveal feature may reduce the significance of Close Friends and Story Exceptions, as users will get the power to hide their content from unwanted viewers without creating a custom list. “We recommend tucking the developing photo into a pocket or bag to hide it from bright light,” Adam Mosseri explained about the feature. Instagram is also planning to add music to their stories through prompts such as “favorite song on X album” or “if you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life.” With the latest introductions and upcoming features, Instagram will reshape the engagement patterns for its global audience of 2 billion people.
