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3 Ways Instagram Notes Just Got More Interactive (and Useful)

Instagram

Instagram introduced Notes in 2022, a feature meant to function as a status update for short text messages, emoji, or songs that vanish after 24 hours. Since the launch of Notes, the only way you could react to an update was by responding with a direct message -- until now.

On Thursday, Instagram launched three new features: Notes Prompts, Notes @ Mentions, and Notes Likes. The new features give your followers more ways to interact with Notes without having to slide into your DMs. 

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The first feature, Notes Prompts, works similarly to prompts on an Instagram story: you can post a prompt that your followers can click on and respond to. For example, in the photos below, a user says, "Current mood?", and followers can respond to share their moods:

Instagram

I could see myself using this feature to ask my followers for recommendations. I was recently looking for a new hair stylist, so I posted a prompt on my story with a random photo in the background, asking followers to share their recommendations. Going forward, I could use Notes Prompts to ask questions without having to first find photos.

As the name implies, the Notes @ Mentions feature lets you tag friends on Notes, ensuring the person mentioned sees the tag as soon as possible:

Instagram

My favorite new feature, which may convert me into a Notes user, is Notes Likes. You can now double-tap a note or click on the heart icon next to the reply text box to like a note, as you would a story or grid post (see the image at the top of the article). 

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Most people I follow use the Notes feature to share songs, quick texts, or fun emoji. Replying with a direct message might be odd in those use cases, especially because there isn't often much to say about a song or an emoji. Now, I can interact with notes by simply liking them.

Instagram is rolling out the new features now to users globally.

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Instagram Enhances Notes Feature By Adding Support For Likes, Mentions, And Prompts

Today Instagram is rolling out a handful of enhancements to its Notes feature, including adding support for likes, mentions, and the ability to post prompts that others can respond to.

Building Notes into a more robust Instagram feature While it started as a lightweight "status update" feature, Notes has since been upgraded to include support for adding video or music. Now with today's updates, notes are becoming more like posts or stories with the ability to like others' notes and @ mention others directly in your note. Notes Prompts is another new upgrade, offering a fun, interactive way to spark more conversations with your friends over notes. Replies were already a supported feature of notes, but now you can more directly solicit those replies when creating your note. Responses to prompts will be displayed in a new UI displayed in the image above. Notes first launched nearly 18 months ago, with the following intro by Instagram: We're beginning to roll out Notes, a new way to share your thoughts and see what your friends are up to. Notes are short posts of up to 60 characters using just text and emojis. During testing, we learned that people liked having a lightweight, easy way to share what's on their mind and start conversations. From asking for recommendations to sharing what they're up to, Notes give people a casual and spontaneous way to express themselves and connect with each other. Following a steady stream of new features, Notes have become a more robust part of the Instagram experience that appears set for more growth in the future. 9to5Mac's Take With today's updates, Notes has the potential to become more core to the Instagram experience than it has been previously. If the feature continues to expand and see wider adoption among Instagram users, it will be interesting to see how it might make its way more prominently into the Home feed and continue transforming what was once a photo-sharing service into something altogether different. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Travel Planners Will Love Instagram's Updated Note Feature — Here's Why

Instagram has long been a place filled with travel inspiration, but now, the app is taking things a step further with an update to its Notes feature. 

As of Thursday, users can ask friends for travel recommendations and more via Notes Prompts, Meta, Instagram's parent company announced in a press release shared with Travel + Leisure.

"Today, we're excited to launch Notes Prompts, which makes it easy for the Instagram community to ask friends for recommendations and connect over them," Ashley Alexander, the head of product management at Instagram, said in a statement. "With summer travel season here, Notes prompts are the perfect way to source ideas from friends on hotels, restaurants, and activities when planning a trip." 

Courtesy of Meta

As Alexander noted (no pun intended, we swear), travelers can use the new feature to plan just about every kind of trip, including gathering summer travel recs to asking friends and followers for their "favorite honeymoon spots," or asking for "recommendations on what to do in certain destinations."

Instagrammers can also use it to crowdsource recommendations on the best luggage, headphones, and travel gear. 

Beyond posting questions using Notes Prompts, users can now utilize Notes Likes, which allow you to quickly react to your friends' notes with likes. (To like a note, just double tap the note or click the heart icon." You can also now use Notes @ Mentions to tag friends directly.)

Of course, you can also try using the new Notes Prompts to start Instagram debates with your friends on extremely hot topics like we did — including if it's ever ok to take your shoes off on a plane (I'm team socks, sorry), exactly how many pairs of underwear is acceptable to bring on vacation (a pair for every day plus an extra, you know, just in case), and if you should feel bad about reclining your seat on your next plane ride (team recline forever!).

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