Instagram has announced a series of updates and new features during its recent event in Mumbai, including the launch of the Instagram Creator Lab in India and the rollout of innovative features designed to enhance user engagement. Here’s a detailed breakdown of these exciting developments.

Instagram Creator Lab: A Hub for Indian Creators

Key Points:

Educational Resource: The Instagram Creator Lab is a new initiative aimed at supporting content creators in India. It builds upon the Born on Instagram program introduced in 2019.

Diverse Content: The lab will feature content from 14 prominent Indian creators who will share their insights and strategies.

Multilingual Access: Available in Hindi and English, with captions in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu, the Creator Lab is designed to be accessible to a broad audience of aspiring creators.

Features:

Creator Insights: Gain access to valuable tips and strategies from established Instagram creators.

Language Options: Content will be offered in multiple languages to cater to India’s diverse linguistic landscape.

New Instagram Features: Enhancing User Interaction

Comments in Stories

Functionality: Users can now comment directly on Stories, expanding interaction beyond posts and reels.

Visibility: Comments will be visible to other users and will disappear 24 hours after the Story is posted unless saved to Highlights.

Control: Users have the option to turn off comments on their Stories.

Cutouts in DMs

Extension: Building on the recent cutouts feature in Stories, users can now send cutouts of images as stickers in Direct Messages.

Personalization: This feature allows for more creative and personalized interactions in chats.

Birthday Notes

Celebration: A new feature that highlights users’ birthdays with a small hat icon appearing in the Instagram Notes section.

Privacy: Birthday Notes will follow the same privacy settings as regular Instagram Notes, allowing users to manage who sees their birthday celebration.

Availability and Rollout

Creator Lab Launch: The Creator Lab is live now, providing immediate access to educational resources for creators.

Feature Rollout: New features like Comments in Stories, Cutouts in DMs, and Birthday Notes will be gradually rolled out to users.

Conclusion

The launch of the Instagram Creator Lab and the introduction of new features signal Instagram’s commitment to enhancing user engagement and supporting the creative community. By offering valuable resources and innovative tools, Instagram aims to empower creators and enrich the overall user experience on its platform.