Instagram has announced a new feature called ‘Instagram Channels,’ which acts as a group messaging function. This feature lets users stay up-to-date on specific topics, brands, and people. Instagram Channels is essentially a ‘broadcast chat’ that allows users to share text, images, and polls, all within Instagram Direct.
When you join a channel, it will be added to your IG Direct chat list. From there, you can read and react to messages posted in the chat, but you cannot post to the chat feed yourself. This feature is designed to lean into the trend of more private messaging within the app, where more Instagram users engage. This shift towards private messaging is a key area that Meta, the parent company of Instagram, wants to address.
Meta’s recent internal report has shown that engagement is declining while time spent on Facebook and Instagram is rising. Fewer people post personal updates, and more users are reverting to messaging instead of sharing public updates.
Instead of promoting decreased feed engagement, channels could be another approach to contribute to this trend by assisting businesses and creators in engaging with their audiences in more natural and organic ways.
Channels could be a simple way to align with this usage trend and build community in a new way. The ‘Instagram Channels’ feature is presently being rolled out to selected users on Instagram, and it will soon be expanded to Facebook and Messenger, according to Mark Zuckerberg‘s IG Story.
