As Instagram celebrated its 10th birthday, they have added some new, celebratory features and updates, starting from visual additions to expansion of eCommerce tools. The major celebratory feature is the Stories Map that offers a private look at where the user have Instagram stories from in the past three years.
The feature serves as a reminder that Instagram is tracking the movements of the user, even in the disappearing stories.
Publicly posted stories have a location sticker that is searchable within the app and offers additional perspective on what else users are posting in that location and its not a big stretch in terms of functionality. It feels a little invasive and serves as a reminder of the data tracking capacity of Facebook apart from offering the retrospective buzz that Instagram would hope to inspire.
Instagram is also adding several variable icons for the app by aligning with iOS-14-inspired trend of customized home screens and has seen many users posting screenshots of the new layouts of their iPhone.
Users can now choose from a list of app icons to perfectly suit their custom theme. The new icons were seen at the testing by Chris Messina last month and can be accessed by-
- Updating Instagram to the latest version
- Heading to the profile and tapping the ‘Settings’ icon.
- Drag the screen down in the main menu to unveil the hidden app icons listing.
Apart from all this, Instagram has added in-stream shopping at IGTV which shows a new shopping bag icon added to IGTV videos when creator applies shopping tags. This can also add another motivator for brands and influencers to use IGTV and Instagram has also noted that a shopping tab for Reels would arrive soon.
eCommerce is the major element of Instagram’s growth strategy and with addition of Shops which adds more streamlined ways to purchase products in-stream will be critical for maximizing the revenue potential of the platform. It must be noted that Instagram added shopping tags in Stories in the year 2018.
Shopping in Reels can be interesting as one of the underrated elements of potential in the projected rise of TikTok is in-stream shopping and has became an important element for the Chinese version of the app which is known as ‘Douyin’.
In 2019, Douyin collected a revenue of around $122 million mainly through eCommerce and not by direct advertising. Its 2x more than what TikTok brought and if TikTok needs to reach the full monetization potential, it would have to tap into shopping and facilitate purchases from short video clips.