The Latest Instagram Updates

The Latest Instagram Updates: Updated each Month

A month-by-month report of the latest changes to Instagram as they happen. Relevant for marketers and brands who use Instagram to reach consumers.

In this blog post we document updates to Instagram, especially those that may affect marketers and brands that use Instagram as part of their marketing strategy.


Instagram Updates May 2021

More changes to hiding Likes

This one is constantly evolving! A couple of years ago Instagram started hiding like counts – somewhat controversially. Instagram just announced that they will be giving the choice to hide Like counts to the user, meaning we can now CHOOSE whether or not we want people to see how many Likes our posts are getting. Interesting turn-around…

The change seems to be part of a larger effort by Instagram to give users more control over the app, including filtering and comments control.

Instagram hides likes announcement 2
Image Credits: Instagram

Automatic Captions Sticker Feature

Finally Instagram’s long awaited auto-captions feature is rolling out. The feature is accessible in the stickers section in Stories and Reels. Basically you include the sticker on your content and Instagram will auto-transcribe any speech.

This is a huge feature for advertisers using Influencers for their marketing, since manually uploading subtitles generated from third party software was always such a pain!

Currently the feature is only available in English speaking countries, though further language support will emerge in the future.

Instagram captions sticker
Image Credits: Instagram

Instagram releases ‘personal pronouns’ feature.

Instagram users can now specify their identity pronouns on their profile. The limit is four gender pronouns at any one time. For those less common pronouns, Instagram has setup a dedicated page for people to request custom pronouns here.

Instagram Pronouns feature
Image Credits: Instagram

Reels Insights

Finally, Instagram announced Insights for Reels. There are still some limitations with the Reels feature, such as not been able to boost Reels posts as paid advertisements, but providing analytics is a start and will be useful to brands and influencers wanting to track the performance of their posts.

Anecdotally, the engagement rates of reels are rumoured to be much higher than In Feed or Story posts, supposedly since Instagram wants more people to use Reels. If the rumours are true, best get Reeling which the going is good!

Insights for reels
Image Credits: Instagram

Instagram Updates April 2021

Instagram Announces Instagram Lite app

In a collaboration between Facebook employees in Tel Aviv Israel, and Instagram engineering, design, and research staff in New York, Facebook have announced a new app they are calling ‘Instagram Lite’.

The stripped-down version of the core Instagram app seeks to address the issue of limited bandwidth or slow data connections in rural and remote communities. The app is being released in 170 countries throughout March 2021.

The app reportedly only requires 2MB to download, compared to 30MB for the full version. We think the app looks remarkably similar to the main Instagram app, though minus some of the pretty UI animations and AR filters. The Lite version even remarkably includes some features not available in the full version, such as ‘dark mode’ which Facebook claims is important for people who live in close quarters with others in poorer communities.

The new Instagram Lite app
Image Credits: Instagram

Further updates to the ‘Hide Likes’ change

A couple of years ago Instagram controversially began hiding the exact number of Likes on a post, instead replacing it with ‘Liked by…and others’. The change was met with criticism from many, particularly influencers who felt threatened by Instagram’s attempts to remove evidence of their popularity.

Instagram hides likes announcement
Instagram announces Hiding Likes

Well it seems that Instagram may have further changes to the way Likes are displayed in the works, though details are being kept a secret. A tweet from Instagram sent on March 3rd suggested they were testing a further change. This is definitely an interesting update to watch!

Instagram tweet about the hide likes feature
Instagram tweet about the hide likes feature

Live Rooms

The most notable update in March to date is the introduction of ‘Live Rooms’, whereby users can now steam Live on Instagram with three other people. Instagram has had the Live feature for a long while now, but up till now it was only possible for one or two people to go live at the same time. Essentially the screen can now split into four panels, with a different person streaming live in each panel.

Instagram Live Rooms
Instagram “Live Rooms” feature Image Credits: Instagram

One of the main benefits to brands of streaming live is the ability to provide event coverage, but it’s also extremely effective for product demonstrations. A popular way to use Instagram Live is to recruit an influencer to run the live event, thus ensuring a substantial crowd show up to watch.

The introduction of Instagram Live where four people can join introduces some extremely interesting possibilities. Think Q&A sessions, talk shows, jam sessions, or virtual fireside chats. Or rap battles?

Live rooms will begin rolling out globally throughout March.


Instagram Updates February 2021

New Resources for Supporting Eating Disorders

Sometimes it feels like everyone on Instagram is beautiful, and for some people it can mess with their self-confidence. This month Instagram announced their support for people affected by eating disorders and negative body image.

It works like this: when someone searches using a term or hashtag associated with body image or self-harm, Instagram will intervene and display a link that leads to resources for eating disorders, including a ‘Talk to a friend’ link, ‘Talk with a helpline volunteer’ link, and the contact details of organisations who can help such as the National Eating Disorder Association, or the Butterfly Foundation.

Instagram New Resources for Supporting Eating Disorders
Instagram’s New Resources for Supporting Eating Disorders Image Credits: Instagram

New Features for Virtual Celebrations

One of the casualties of Covid was public celebrations – people could no longer congregate en-masse for party and celebration. The folks at Instagram noticed an inevitable trend towards shifting celebrations online, and decided to introduce new features to enhance the trend.

It seems some of the features are yet to be announced, though we did see evidence of the new initiative during the Chinese New Year celebrations. In Stories, and new sticker pack themed on the year of the Ox appeared. When the stickers are used, the content gets grouped into a shared story with others using the same stickers, that appears at the top of the Stories tray.

Instagram Virtual Celebrations Feature
Instagram’s New Features for Virtual Celebrations Image Credits: Instagram

We’re looking forward to seeing more updates on this interesting feature as they emerge!

Abusive Messages Crackdown

Instagram has strict rules on hate speech, and instigated a tightening of these rules in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests. It is reported they ‘took action’ on 6.5 million hate speech posts in July and September alone in 2020. These ‘take action’ penalties were mostly temporary bans on posting or DM messaging for set periods of time.

This month Instagram announced a further tightening on punitive actions towards hate speech offenders, suggesting they will be more likely to disable offenders’ accounts permanently. Particular reference was made to DM messaging – more difficult to control through automatic detection. It seems likely Instagram has installed new technologies to detect and block hate speech through DM messages. Last year Instagram came out with new features to stop people from posting hate speech, including AI that would warn people that their post might be considered hate speech before it was posted, and the multiple comments management feature that made it easier to delete multiple comments at once.

Instagram announces new features to connect people with Covid vaccine resources

The initiative works by providing authoritative information about the Covid vaccine roll-out, including where to get vaccinated, removing posts that spread false information about the vaccine, making data available to inform and educate, and providing ad credits to agencies responsible for disseminating vaccine health related information.

Instagram Introduces ‘Recently Deleted’ Feature

There are two related features in this update. The first is a feature that allows users to review and restore content previously deleted – like the recycle bin in Windows. The second is a security check to deter hackers from maliciously deleting content from compromised accounts.

Deleted in-feed content remains in the recently deleted folder after 30 days, after which it is automatically permanently deleted. Stories are automatically deleted from the recently deleted folder after 24 hours.

Dr Brent Coker
Brent Coker

I love brewing beer, and I'm a sucker for Korean BBQ. My favourite colour is green. That's pretty much it.