Instagram Rolls Out 'Stay Home' Sticker To Promote Social Distancing

• Instagram introduces a new ‘stay home’ sticker and story to encourage social distancing among the masses.
• The curated story appears on top of all of the friends’ posts.
• Other social media companies applying changes in reaction to the coronavirus crisis in their own unique ways.

The WHO advises the people to stay home to slow down the spread of the coronavirus. The virus still does not have any cure but there is a chance to slow down its spread by maintaining a distance of 1-2 meters apart among the people. So, to encourage social distancing, Instagram launched a new ‘stay home’ sticker in stories. We can’t say how effective these cause-related stickers are but Instagram keeps on releasing them that shows they are somewhat effective. In ordinary circumstances, Instagram stories are filled with snaps from festivals, parties, and social gatherings, etc. But the circumstances are not the same now, so people need to stay home to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. This sticker might make staying home more fun.

The new sticker appears to have a more strong emphasis from the platform as the stories with this sticker will appear on top of other friend’s posts. Instagram also created a new group story that will gather stories tagged with the new ‘stay home’ sticker. It appears that for now you will only be able to see posts from your friends in the group story.

Anything that can help spread awareness among the masses is important because people are not taking this issue seriously, said Paul, founder of Likemind Media and was among the first creators to use the new ‘stay home’ sticker.

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• Related: Instagram Aims to Reach New Heights, Tests Adding Location And Hashtags in Story Highlights

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The coronavirus death toll continues to rise up day-by-day, but some people are still not taking the situation seriously and continue to go out in public gatherings. You can still be carrying the virus even if you don’t show any symptoms, so it will be better to avoid going out and attending public gatherings. It’s good to see that Instagram is at least trying to highlight the key message and is encouraging social distancing.

Other social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter and Whatsapp are also applying reactive changes to the coronavirus pandemic in their own unique ways. Whatsapp launched a chatbot in partnership with the World Health Organization to fight COVID-19 misinformation. The new chatbot will provide the latest information about the coronavirus and will also dispel fake news about the coronavirus and its spread. To use the chatbot, just simply add ‘+41 79 893 1892’ to your phone texts and send ‘Hi’ in a Whatsapp message. Facebook on the other hand has added a COVID-19 information page at top of the user’s newsfeed.



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Instagram Working on a Feature to Allow Setting Privacy Differently On Each Story

Instagram and its parent company Facebook have been adding a lot of handy options in their respective apps to bring the user experience to a new level, and this time again news regarding the feature that will let users hide certain stories from certain people is making rounds.

Jane Manchun Wong, an app researcher, spotted the feature and shared the screenshots on her Twitter feed. She discovered the new feature on the backend of Instagram. The screenshot shared shows that under the Stories there is a search bar that will let users select the people from whom they want to hide the story.

Currently, Instagram allows users to block people from seeing stories but that applies to all stories and none of the stories will appear to people who are not permitted. However, the new feature will let users block specific stories from people you block but can show another story simultaneously.

It is not yet confirmed whether Instagram will roll out this feature later or not.

Instagram is also testing to allow blocking or restricting all the annoying accounts from the comment section directly at once. The purpose behind it is to help in battling against cyber-bullying on the comment section of the platform.

Also, last month Wong shared about feature allowing to remove followers directly from their profile. The feature was discovered at the backend of the Android app. The feature is right now available for iOS users but the company is planning to introduce it to Android users as well.

Another feature was recently spotted by Wong in February that will let users discover the posts that they might have missed while they were away from Instagram.



Read next: Instagram gearing to come up with a new feature - MIRROR

Instagram Aims to Reach New Heights, Tests Adding Location And Hashtags in Story Highlights

• Instagram plans to add Location and Hashtags to Your Story Highlights now.
• Instagram was first released in 2010, and since then, it has seen many modifications and improvements. Throughout its journey of gradual betterment, the importance of Instagram Hashtags remained consistent.
• It is common knowledge that hashtags are used to make your content discoverable. The perfect hashtag can put a post in front of the right audience, whether they previously followed you or not!

Instagram Stories are nothing new, as they have been used by many people, even though these stories disappear in 24 hours. To make them more fun and increase the visibility of the profile, Instagram later added a feature called, “Instagram Highlights.”

Instagram Highlights are groups of stories that can be created as folder sections on your Instagram profiles. Once a story is posted, it can be saved in a Highlight, like a folder, that will be displayed on your Instagram profile.

There is an option to archive the stories and in the future create highlights from the saved stories in the archive too.

Now the question arises that why these Instagram Highlights are so Important?

The thing is that the Instagram Stories have become a major portal for varied brands to connect, engage and gain tangible results from their digital marketing ventures. Instagram stories used for business can surge your competitive advantages to newer heights!

So using the Highlights can further enhance your purpose as they let you use this format to tell an ongoing story, make your stories reachable to new followers, promote your previous activities posted in the stories, showcase your services or products in a categorized manner, and provide a library format of all the useful content that you have already shared.

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• Also read: Instagram gearing to come up with a new feature - MIRROR

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Now think about Instagram letting you add location and hashtags to your Story Highlights – Just imagine the effect it will have on your overall content because the importance of Instagram Hashtags cannot be disregarded. These hashtags are one of the most effective ways to engage more audience on your Instagram posts. Statistically speaking, a post with at least one Instagram hashtag averages 12.6 percent more engagement than posts without a hashtag. So, there is no denying the worth of using proper hashtags for your posts in a strategic manner, so that you can get more followers, improve your posts’ engagement rates, and build a community around your business with proper marketing.

The use of relevant, targeted hashtags on your posts and stories is still one of the best ways to get discovered by new audiences on Instagram already, and a recent development, as spotted by Jane Manchun Wong, is making rounds that the Facebook-owned app is planning to allow Location and up to four Hashtags to your Story Highlights now will up your game to the next level!

Imagine, how amazing it will be!

This can make more engagement possible, with more followers, and more clientele for your business.

The date of launch for this valued feature has not been announced yet but keeping the record of Instagram's constant efforts towards advancement in mind, this feature will likely be added very soon.

Excited, aren’t you?



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