Meta’s Instagram is introducing a new way for people to interact with Stories. Starting today, you can send a private like when someone shares an image or video that catches your eye. Previously, the only way to reply to a story was to send the creator a direct message or an emoji reaction. In either case, your reply would be displayed in the message inbox, cluttering the interface.
❤️ Private Stories Likes ❤️
Starting to roll out today, you can now send some love by liking people’s stories without sending a DM.
Likes on stories are private and don’t count. Instead, they appear as hearts next to people’s handles in your Stories view sheet. 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/l56Rmzgnnw
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) February 14, 2022
Once you have access to the feature, you will find a new heart icon located between the “Send Message” pill and the plane icon. If you decide to send someone a story, it will appear in the viewer sheet, which you can access by viewing your own story again. People who publicly view your stories will not see a like count.
“The idea here is to make sure people can express more support for each other, but also clean up the DMs a little bit.” , the head of Instagram. “Messaging is a key priority for us, and a big part of that is focusing on DMs between you and the people you care about.”
Instagram often adds small but useful features like this. Last fall, for example, the company added the option to . Story likes won’t fundamentally change the way you use Instagram, but it’s a welcome addition all the same.
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