How exciting – We just love it when there are new features rolled out on social media and the fact this is based on creating positive sentiment is worth celebrating.
As part of its anti-bullying efforts, Instagram today announced a series of new features aimed at helping users better manage negative comments as well as highlight positive ones. It’s also adding new controls to manage who can tag or mention you on Instagram, which can be another source of online bullying.
So firstly, pinning our favourite comments to the top of a post on IG:
This feature allows users to highlight positive sentiments and, hopefully, encourage more of the same.
Pinned comments will soon be rolled out as a test, which will make Instagram the first of the top social networks to offer the feature.
If YouTube is anything to go by, which has had pinned comments since 2016, this feature has the potential to add a whole other level of engagement to Instagram posts.
Users can pin a positive comment to the top of a post and bury the negativity.
“This feature gives people a way to set the tone for their account and engage with their community by pinning a select number of comments to the top of their comments thread.”
That’s how pinned comments fit in with Instagram’s anti-bully efforts, but it can be an effective marketing tactic as well.
ANOTHER EXCITING UPDATE: Choose Who Can Tag You
Also announced today is a feature that will allow Instagram users to choose who can tag and mention them.
“We’ve seen that tags and mentions can be used to target or bully others, so we’re rolling out new controls that allow you to manage who can tag or mention you on Instagram.”
I’m thrilled with this update as there is nothing more pesky than being tagged in spammy posts by brands I have nothing to do with. — Stacey Kehoe, Founder of Brandlective.
You’ll be able to select from “Everyone,” “Only People You Follow” or “No One,” for both tags and mentions. In addition, you’ll be able to toggle on or off an option that gives you the ability to manually approve tags.
