Instagram is broadening the scope of its Close Friends feature to include feed posts and Reels, in addition to Stories and Notes.
This enhancement allows users to share content with a select group of people, offering a more intimate and potentially safer sharing environment. The Instagram team believes that the Close Friends feature fosters a relaxed space for genuine connections.
The expansion aims to provide users with additional avenues to express themselves authentically while controlling their audience.
To share a Reel or feed post with Close Friends, users simply select the Close Friends option under the Audience button before sharing.
These posts will be marked with a green star label, indicating their exclusive nature to the viewer. In recognition of this feature’s expansion, the app’s plus button might temporarily change to a green star icon.
Notably, a user’s Close Friends list remains consistent across all Instagram functionalities. Meanwhile, the platform is exploring other methods for sharing content with limited audiences, as indicated by Instagram head Adam Mosseri’s disclosure of ongoing experiments to allow Story sharing with specific follower groups.
This concept mirrors Facebook’s long-standing practice of allowing users to share posts with selected friend lists.
Meta, the parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, announced plans to drastically alter its approach to advertising in Europe.
In a strategic pivot, the company has announced that starting this month, users in the European Union, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland will have the opportunity to opt for a monthly subscription service that removes the ads that typically flood their feeds.
