March Instagram updates you'll love

IMPORTANT: THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. WE GIVE IT A QUICK CHECK THROUGH BUT WE DON’T CORRECT EVERYTHING AS IT’S INTENDED TO HELP YOU FIND PARTS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO AGAIN - NOT AS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT. SO THERE MIGHT BE A FEW QUIRKY WORDS/PHRASES HERE!

:: 00:01

Wouldn't it be great if you were running an event or going live on Instagram or even closing up a lot and you could set a reminder for your followers? Well, you can, that's just one of a number of new features on the platform for March. I'm Janet Murray. I'm a content and online business strategies. And in this episode of the Courageous Content Podcast,

:: 00:22

I'll share some exciting updates on Instagram for March. And that's 2022. If you're listening in the future, As far as I'm concerned, one of the best updates for March, if you can now favorites accounts. And this is due to the fact that Instagram has now introduced a three feed. So you've got the home feed, and this is a feed that Instagram creates based on what it thinks you're interested in ranked using the algorithm.

:: 00:51

So it's a bit like TikTok's for you page. The second feed is your favorites feed. And this is populated with content from accounts that you've chosen such as your friends or your favorite creators. And to favor an account, you just need to go to the home screen, tap the Instagram logo on the top left and select favorites from the dropdown menu.

:: 01:12

And then you've got your following feeds, a chronological stream of posts from all of the accounts that you follow next. There's some exciting updates to stories. So first off you can now like stories without sending someone a DM. And I don't know how new this is, but I like it. A little flurry of hearts now appear in the bottom left of your screen.

:: 01:33

I've also noticed that polls in stories have changed, and this might have been earlier than March, but again, I love this one in the past. When you created a poll in stories, you had two options. And I remember that the writing, I think, had to be in white and I always found that really difficult because it didn't show up very well.

:: 01:52

So I used to add my own text and then you just have a yes or no option, or you'd have two alternative options. Now you can add up to four options and the designs a lot nicer. It's a lot easier on the eye. And your question actually shows up if you create it using the whole sticker, apparently according to preview app, you can now get an avatar of yourself,

:: 02:15

a sticker that you can add to your stories. I have tested this out on my own Instagram accounts, and unfortunately, I don't seem to have it yet, but maybe you might. And to see if you have had to your stories, just pull up the sticker section in the top rights and have a scroll through and see if you can see it.

:: 02:33

And you can now also turn your stories into real. But again, I don't seem to have this function on my account yet, but I believe it is coming. And of course you can now create reels on Facebook. I recently did a whole episode on Facebook reels, which I'll link to in the show notes of this episode. Finally, you can add reminders.

:: 02:54

So when you add a new post on your Instagram grid, when you to the part where you're previewing your post, just below your caption, you'll see that it invites you to add reminder. People can tap on your post and they can send themselves a reminder, which is great. If you want to tell people when you're going live or you're making a big announcement.

:: 03:17

Oh, and here's one final bonus one, apparently you can now reply to a comment on a post on your grid. And you can turn that into a real, which is a bit like the video reply on Tik TOK. I think haven't got it yet on my account, but they have an explore and say, if you have it on yours. So I hope you liked these updates as much as I do as ever a deal of hearing from you.

:: 03:41

So if anything I've shared on this episode has piqued your interest then to connect with me over on Instagram at Jan Murray, UK, if there's anything you can add, if you've noticed any new updates on your account, or if I'm wrong about anything, because sometimes I am, then please do get in touch. I do love hearing from you.