Today, the social networking giant Instagram has updated its ‘Stories’ feature to allow sharing with just a select group of close friends rather than your entire list of followers or the general public.
By adding controls similar to Facebook’s audience settings, Instagram now allows users to create an exclusive ‘Close Friends’ list naming those individuals permitted to view your more personal moments in Instagram Stories.
You can update your Close Friends list at any time no-one will be notified when they are added or removed. However, Instagram will show you when you are on someone’s Close Friends list by showing you a green badge while viewing their stories and marking their profile with a green ring rather than a red one when stories are available.
To Create The List
To create your list, tap on the new ‘Close Friends List’ option on the side menu. You can then scroll and select the followers you want in your list or tap ‘Search’ to find specific followers to add. It’s also not possible to request ‘Close Friends’ status from another user, they have to decide to add you themselves.
Sharing Just With Close Friends
To share with close friends only, create your story as normal and then select ‘Close Friends’ at the bottom left when it’s time to share.
Why Use The Close Friends Feature?
This feature will be of great value to users who want to share moments with their friends that don’t necessarily fit with the content of their Instagram feed, especially if they have a large number of followers.
Many users currently operate multiple profiles and the Close Friends feature will reduce the need to create secondary accounts for personal content.
Although users aren’t notified when they’re added to or removed from the Close Friends list, I feel that alerting users when they are watching friends-only content may make it all too obvious what has happened should the green badges suddenly stop appearing regularly. Therefore I wouldn’t count on people not noticing when you decide to remove them from the list.
The new feature rolls out globally today, so be sure to update your Android or iOS app to the latest version. For full instructions, see the Instagram Help Center.
