Instagram: Adds New Comment Reply Option and Tests Star Sign-Related Stickers

The Instagram platform is adding a new way to interact with post replies, while at the same time experimenting with an interactive star-sign-based sticker, in order to facilitate more engagement.

The platform after experimenting with the feature over the last few months, has now officially added the capacity to share comments from any public post or Reel to your IG story.

In the example above, it shows that when you swipe left on a comment, you’ll see a new option to share it in your story. The comment will then be featured in a new sticker type, which you can place anywhere within the story frame.

The new feature, its similar to TikTok’s video comment replies option, which it added back in 2020, while YouTube also has Shorts comment replies, which it expanded to all public comments (in addition to comments on your own clips) back in June.

In addition, the idea of this new feature is that this will provide more prompts for your short clips, by providing the capacity to highlight interesting comments within new videos.

The aim of it is clearly driving engagement on other apps, so it makes sense for IG to also jump on board, and align with usage trends. On another front, Instagram is also looking to get into horoscopes, with a new test of an astrology sticker in the app.

Further, you can see the new sticker in this example screenshot, posted by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, which, when added to your story or Reel, would include a symbol and star sign title to highlight your birth alignment in-stream.

Using the sticker will then also invite additional engagement opportunities, via a star-sign matching feature, which will enable users to check their relative compatibility with you via the sticker you use.

It is somewhat surprising to see how prominent IG looks to be testing it within the sticker tray. But then again, research also suggests that star signs have been seeing a resurgence among younger audiences of late. Thus, it may be a valuable and inventive way to spark more engagement, by prompting users to check how their shared stars align, via these listings.

From a marketing perspective, the comment reply option could be a good way to highlight positive mentions and give your engaged fans the spotlight, while it’ll also provide more opportunities to showcase mentions of your products on other posts, which could help you glean more promotional value.

The star signs feature is probably not as valuable, but if that aligns with your audience, you could use it to showcase the star sign of the month and share brand or product-related insights based on that sign’s key traits.

And yes, the comment sticker definitely has more direct potential and it is worth considering both either way. Also, the new comment reply option is already available to all users, while the star sign sticker is still in testing, with no official release date yet. 

Source: Social Media Today

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