Instagram is expanding its Stories content creation options with the launch of new stickers for videos and photos. Users of the image-focused social platform will be able to spice up their posts with icons showing their current location, the time, weather conditions and more. There’s even a range of holiday-themed illustrations.
The latest update appears to mirror Snapchat’s geofilters feature and is designed primarily to make content more fun and engaging for younger age groups. However, there could eventually be sponsored stickers in the offing, as Instagram said that more creative tools will be arriving in the coming months.
Users will be able to access the new stickers by navigating to the Stories camera screen and tapping on the Smiley icon after they shoot a video or take a photo. This will bring up a database of available contextual stickers that relate to location, time, weather and seasons as well as holiday exclusives, such as those for Christmas and New Year.
“Adding a location sticker works the same as adding location to the posts you share to [the] feed – simply choose or search for your location,” Instagram said in an official blog post on Tuesday. “People watching your story will be able to tap the sticker to learn more about the location, but your story won’t show up on the location page itself.”
The arrival of these stickers is just the tip of the iceberg for the latest Stories update, as Instagram is also rolling out some other small but worthwhile changes. Users will now be able to add more written words to their images in Stories by tapping on the text tool, which offers the ability to use multiple chunks of text and makes use of new formatting options.
Stories is a time-limited feature that brings together a batch of videos and photos for a 24-hour period before disappearing, and Instagram is now making it easier for users to record content via a new “hands-free” mode, and save it afterwards. The mobile app will now store Stories as a single video as opposed to numerous clips. The new update is rolling out to all devices now.
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