— October 18, 2017

Instagram’s success continues! Even with 500 million daily active users, the developers behind the photo-sharing platform don’t get tired of rolling out new features on a regular basis. Here are the best new Instagram features of 2017 so far!

LIVE STORIES

Instagram started into 2017 by rolling out Live Stories worldwide in January. On Instagram Stories, users can now go live and interact with their followers in real time.

Since the audience can write comments, this new feature serves as a great way for influencers to interact with their audience more deeply and directly.

Live Video on Instagram Stories

The live videos disappear when the video is finished, so there’s no need for over-preparing before going live.

The tool helps brands to present themselves on a deeper level and add a bit more personalization to their brand image and brand events can be perfectly streamed live with this feature to give the followers exclusive insides behind the scenes.

MULTI-PHOTO POSTS

A highly underrated feature is the multi-photo post or slideshow Instagram introduced in February. This feature allows you to include up to ten photos or videos in one post. By swiping left, the followers can go through the slideshow.

The tool offers manifold benefits: The feature can be used for before and after pictures, to show how a product is used, as a step-by-step guide for recipes or makeup tutorials, or to highlight details of a product and show it in all its facets. You no longer have to choose only one picture or video and won’t flood your followers with numerous posts of one event.

PAID PARTNERSHIP TOOL

A long-awaited feature was finally released this year! Instagram announced its ‘Paid Partnership’ tool in June, but the feature was just recently made available globally.

According to Instagram, the tool was created to make commercial relationships on Instagram more transparent.

Partnerships between community creators and businesses are an important part of the Instagram experience, and a healthy community should be open and consistent about paid partnerships.

Influencers who cooperate with brands can simply tag the company and the ‘Paid partnership with XY’ badge will appear as a sub-heading. The feature works for regular Instagram posts as well as in Instagram Stories.

Both creators and brands benefit from the tool: The influencers disclose the paid nature of the postings openly to their followers, increasing their trustfulness. And brands automatically get access to the posts insights and statistics.

POLLS

The latest addition to Instagram features was introduced just this week: Instagram Polls!

With the help of stickers, users can ask questions in Instagram stories and either provide a yes or no answer or even customize the sticker to give their followers options to choose from. After voting, the current result will be displayed.

Your own poll results can be accessed by swiping up. You’ll get insights on who voted and which option was chosen most.

For influencers and brands, this new feature is a great way to learn more about the taste and preferences of their followers and to encourage users to interact with a channel.

With the latest of 2017’s new Instagram features, the photo-sharing platform now offers one more tool which allows brands to receive consumer feedback and connects brands and users.

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Published originally on InfluencerDB | Influencer Marketing For Professionals

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