Instagram has officially launched a new Stories sticker that allows you to ask your followers to join in on a group chat. It was first spotted in early May this year. To join the chat, your followers must submit a request. The chat sticker is a welcome feature to the Facebook-owned giant photo and video sharing platform after it recently introduced the Close Friends feature that let you post Stories that can only be viewed to a select group of your followers on Instagram.
The chat sticker follows other stickers like the Countdown, Location, Polls, Question Boxes, Mentions, Hashtags, Music and GIF to make Instagram more interactive and engage the over 500 million people who actively use Stories every day.
Instagram won this race.
Snapchat literally started building the same Chat Sticker after I scooped it from Instagram prototype two months ago https://t.co/oey9llEYHQ
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) July 2, 2019
How it works
If you place the chat sticker on your story, your followers can click on it to request access and then you choose who joins the chat that takes place in the direct messages inbox. You can then end the chat at any time.
Introducing the new chat sticker in Stories. Now, there's an easy way to start conversations with a group of friends right from your story. pic.twitter.com/A1An7d9TjJ
— Instagram (@instagram) July 2, 2019
Who’s the feature for
Regular Instagrammers can use the Chat Sticker for planning or talking about TV shows you both might be binging at the same time or for sharing Instagram memes with your close friends(my followers DMs get filled with random memes and I’m not sorry). I’m definitely going to use it for this exact purpose, lol.
This feature wasn’t likely made for Influencers but who knows, they may want to plan meetups with their fans or share exclusive content. Others may go the Premium route, where you pay to join the chat just like Premium snapchat.
Even though Instagram killed off Direct, the standalone app for direct messages, it’s pretty straightforward that with this new feature they take DMs and Stories seriously.
