After dropping its new ‘Notes’ feature in select regions last month, Instagram is now expanding Notes access, with users in Europe and Japan now also making it to the Notes users roster, able to add Notes within the Direct inbox in the app. Instagram already copied TikTok and BeReal, and now, it seems to be going for Twitter, too.
Take Note
Notes, to note (pun intended), are short posts up to 60 characters long that are displayed at the top of your IG inbox for 24 hours. Your connections can see and respond to your Notes in the app, providing an easy way to spark in-stream conversation and engagement.
As Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri in this clip, Notes have seen good take-up so far, particularly among younger users, as they try out new ways to engage with friends and share information across social channels. The option is another effort from Instagram to lean into the fact that more people are now interacting in messages than they’re posting to their main Feed.
Last September, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg explains:
“Most people use feeds to discover content and use messaging for deeper connections.”
Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri also mentioned that more interactions are now happening within private channels, and given that this is where user engagement is shifting, Instagram’s keen on incorporating more ways to feed into this trend to maximize engagement.
Notes provide another angle on this, while also moving along similar lines to the more immediate and private engagement popularized by BeReal, which looks to take Social Media back to its more ‘Social’ roots. Is that a big deal? Probably not, but it could be another way to spark engagement, along with gleaning more insight into specific topics and trends. Either that, or it could just be a fun little addition that Instagram decided to drop.
The Wrap
It’s not big news at all, since it’s simply an expansion, but what’s noteworthy here is that Notes seem to be doing well enough to actually warrant an expansion. In a broader context, tying back to what Chief Adam Mosseri that the stats don’t lie, it does look like people will continue gravitating towards short-form content; not just short video, but short content formats in general. If that’s anything to go by, then it could be that Instagram’s ‘Xerox’ strategy might even put it ahead of most, over time.
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