As spotted by social media expert Matt Navarra, you can now reply to a Story via GIFs – simply run a search by keyword in the reply text box to look for the gif you want to use.
WIth a new way to reply stories, Brand and marketing could potentially explore running GIF reply/ reaction competitions to engage their audience.
Following that, Instagram has also rolled out two new category listings within the ‘Following’ tab, which will enable you to see which accounts get the most visibility in your feed, and which you rarely engage with.
With users now more attuned to how social media platforms work, and what they want to see, it makes sense for the platforms to seek more of their input into follower curation.
In terms of business use, it could help pinpoint fans who are no longer engaged, giving brands the opportunity to tweak their content approach.
Lastly, Instagram is also testing out a new video trimming feature for Instagram Stories, which would make it easier to edit and upload Stories clips within the app. As covered by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchu Wong, the trimming tool will be built into Stories, and functioning in the same way as similar video editing tools on other platforms.
This is definitely great news for content creators, who are able to streamline their work process within the app.
If you’re handling multiple social media accounts from a single workstation, this would be helpful as you wouldn’t have to take out your phone to upload videos. This would also allow users to upload videos with more polished and edited content, in line with the traditional brand approach.
Even though videos uploaded in-the-moment from your phone perform better on the platform, this new option provides additional consideration and capacity to add TikTok videos into regular editorial flows.
