There is no doubt that Instagram has changed people's lives. The app, which has become an essential part of daily life for many, continues to have a massive impact on individuals and businesses all over the world. It has taken content creation, community building, and business to a whole new level.
The addictive features and useful updates that its developers have introduced over time make the Instagram experience really enjoyable. However, from a user's perspective, there are a few features that would enhance the Instagram experience and make it even better than it is now.
From countless hours of scrolling through feeds, here are five user-based suggestions that would improve the Instagram experience:
1. Pinned Story Highlights
With every new Instagram Story addition to existing highlights, there is a reshuffle. Most brands will rather have their “About Us” and “Start Here” highlight sections right in front of their Highlights row.
However, with constant updates to other highlights, these two always get moved to the end of the highlight section.
Many times, there isn’t much to add to it compared to other highlights. With all of this going on at the top of many Instagram pages, a pinned highlights feature would be great for Instagram users who have this recurring issue. This way, one doesn’t have to worry about their favorite highlight moving all the way to the end.
2. Saving Photos to Your Gallery
This right here is certainly a no-brainer. How many times have you wished that you could just save your favorite photos on the gram straight to your gallery without having to take screenshots?
Of course, there are apps to download Instagram videos to your gallery, but it just feels so long-winded. Most Instagram downloader websites allow you to quickly download multiple images from a profile, but they're not perfect.
Most of them won't let you download more than a handful of images in a single session, or they will charge you to download everything from an account. However, if you only want to download a few recent posts from an account, you could try a service like Bigbangram or Ingramer.
A one-tap feature to save photos from a feed or Stories, with a watermark feature similar to Reddit or TikTok to prevent misuse of the feature, would certainly be convenient and appreciated.
3. Notification Categories
Instagram's notification system is a mess for anyone who has more than a couple of thousand followers. It’s easy to get lost in the notifications clutter. Trying to take note of likes, comments, and even mentions all from one page can be confusing.
For those of us who enjoy interacting with followers by responding to comments and mentions, finding those posts when you've left your notifications unchecked for a while can be a nightmare. It would be much easier to engage with people if you could filter likes from comments and mentions.
An update that allows Instagram users to sort likes, comments, and mentions separately would make a lot of difference.
4. In-App Post Scheduling
Aren’t we all tired of using third-party apps to schedule Instagram posts? If you're a content creator or a brand who creates content in batches, the roundabout way of scheduling posts outside Instagram can become burdensome.
However, it is important to recognize Facebook's Creator Studio, which does allow users to schedule feed posts that reflect both on Facebook and Instagram. It is not as straightforward as we envisage an in-app scheduling feature would be, and it only works on PC, not mobile.
Also, there’s no content library in Creator Studio, so you won’t be able to store or manage your visual assets or templates there. To schedule posts with Facebook's offering, visit the Creator Studio and link your Instagram account(s). From there, follow the steps to create feed posts and schedule them in advance.
5. Links in Captions
Having to scroll to the top of an Instagram page just to access the link in the bio is so 2015. We're not sure why Instagram captions do not allow clickable links yet.
There’s so much flexibility that would come with an update like this. The link in bio has served its purpose over the years, but now it’s time for an improved version of that.
Instagram Suggestion Box
The time spent scrolling through Instagram, creating content, and sharing with the rest of the world all points to how much we’ve grown to love the app.
Although there have been several updates over time, there are still important improvements that need to be made.