Instagram is rolling out new features for Stories, Reels and Notes. Here’s what we know about each, when they’ll be available and how to best take advantage of them.
The first new feature, called Cutouts, lets you create custom stickers for your stories and reels using your photos. Think Snapchat stickers, but for Instagram. You can also use the new Frames feature in your stories, which lets you stick any of your photos into a Polaroid-looking digital frame. Instagram will fill in the timestamp based on the photo’s metadata, and you can add a caption, too. You can use both of these features now.
Last week, Meta also announced some upgrades coming to Notes. These aren’t out yet, but we can expect to see changes to how you can use and display Notes. Instagram is adding Notes Prompts, which will let you opt into and respond to “Add Yours”-like prompts. You’ll also eventually start to see Notes displayed on your profile, too. Notes Prompts will start globally rolling out in a few weeks, a Meta spokesperson confirmed to CNET via email.
If you open Instagram Stories right now to test out these features, you may see a new layout under the widgets sticky-note-like button, like I did.
Now that you know what’s new, here’s how to use all these new features to level up your Instagram posts.
This is where you can find the Frames feature, either as an icon (left) or as a smaller widget (middle). I also included my final result, with my custom caption and automatically generated timestamp.
Instagram says that people who view your story will need to shake to reveal the photo in the Polaroid, but when I tested it on my story, my friends said they were able to see the picture without doing anything.
For more on social media, check out what to know about Meta’s AI warning labels.
