One of the biggest social media apps in the world, Instagram is introducing a ‘Close Friends’ feature where users can share their stories and creations with an intimate group of friends instead of sharing them publicly.
Instagram has been rolling out several new features to attract more users and stay ahead of other competitors in the market.
Instagram’s Close Friends And What It Offers
Instagram, which is now owned by Meta, has been working on creating an exclusive community of friends for creators on the platform for quite some time.
The platform announced an iteration of this feature back in 2018, where the developers tried to add an option for creators to share stories within a chosen community of friends and followers.
However, a popular Twitter personality Alessandro Paluzzi, who happens to be a mobile developer and leaker, revealed in a post on May 4, 2023, that Instagram is further working on the feature to share posts that only the close friends of a creator can see.
CloseFriends is a feature on Instagram that allows users to choose a certain number of friends or followers from the vast number of people on their list.
This feature grants special access for these chosen groups of friends to view stories, posts, and other content that is exclusively meant for them to watch.
How Creators Can Benefit From This Feature
Close Friends feature can benefit creators in multiple ways, for instance, sometimes creators want to receive feedback on their content or an ongoing project from their most trusted circle of followers and friends.
Close Friends does a great job of providing a platform to receive feedback and make necessary changes before going public with their content.
The feature can enhance user engagement through interactions with a loyal follower base as it makes them feel special to be a part of the Close Friends group.
Creators and brands can engage with loyal fans and supporters who can also share their ideas and inspire creators to modify their content strategies.
Businesses running on Instagram can use Close Friends to interact with their brand ambassadors and share exclusive content meant for the users they are closely associated with.
It is an excellent way to share exclusive content, announce giveaways, and improve community engagement on an intimate level.
However, Instagram has been careful not to limit the number of people one can add to their Close Friends list.
However, if someone adds you to their Close Friends group and you do not want to be a part of it, you can simply bail out of the group by blocking that individual or asking the person to remove you from the group.
If someone has created a Close Friends group and added you to that group, you will be able to identify it through a green circle around the profile picture of that person, while others in the profile will not be able to see it.
However, the only downside to this is it can create a sense of alienation among the rest of the followers who may feel they are not important enough.