Instagram now offers users a new means for making images and videos even more fun. The social media giant is launching Stickers that show basic names for locations, as well as information on time and date, weather updates, and even emoji. On top of that, the company also brings limited time seasonal graphic elements such as Christmas trees and Hanukkah menorahs, plus a paint brush for holiday candy canes.
Instagram also took the opportunity to debut Story saving for downloading one’s last 24 hours worth of updates in the audience viewer. For good measure, the photo sharing platform is also introducing text boxes for Stories, as opposed to doing it one photo at a time, and a one touch hands free video recording functionality, which should prove handy especially for users who like to shoot themselves playing musical instruments with both hands. Users can swipe to this option from the Stories camera selector.
All of the new features mentioned above are already being deployed in both Android and iOS mobile operating systems. Now some will see this as an obvious effort by Instagram to catch up to Snapchat, who already started introducing the same features some time ago. But all is fair in love and mobile apps, and one can argue that Instagram is just doing its best to even the competition.
With regards to the possibility of offering sponsored stickers as a means for earning some money, Instagram has kept mum on that particular subject. It did say that it is currently busy developing and expanding its existing range of creative tools, in order to give its users even more diverse and fun options.
So how does one get started in using Instagram Stickers? The feature can be accessed by tapping the Smiley icon, which is located at the top portion of the Stories camera screen after one has capture an image or shot video footage. Doing this should generate a tray that displays choices for available stickers to use. Location stickers can be searched through Instagram’s Places database, and when used, can be tapped by users in order to take them to a feed of permanent images that feature the location. Users can also make use of Stickers for time (presented as an analog clock, a traditional alarm clock, or a modern digital clock), weather (displaying the temperature or the day’s forecast), and seasonal stickers (like the Christmas tree sticker).