Blog Post

Instagram Update: Video Chat Capabilities

by: Marissa Heckman May 3, 2018

Table of Contents

What’s The Deal

Mark Zuckerberg announced this week that Instagram is rolling out a new feature allowing multiple users to video chat on the platform. Picture a multi-person Facetime on Instagram. This feature looks extremely user-friendly with the general outline of how to use it below:

Start a group message with a desired group (this is optional)
Select the video icon to call each member
All accepted parties will appear on your screen for a virtual face-to-face video chat

What Does This Mean

This is another attempt to bring the ‘social’ back to social media. As many users have complained about the user experience being bombarded with ads, this is a white flag. With this being a new update, it is unclear if business profiles can leverage this feature, as it was stated as a way to chat with friends. However, check out a few suggestions if this capability is permitted now or in the future.

Ideas for Leveraging This Feature

Social giveaways are known for being engagement boosters and great for brand awareness. Why not make the experience even more valuable by offering face-to-face time with the winners of your giveaway? Directly connecting with your following as a brand is an undeniable way to build brand loyalty and showcase your core persona.

Need something more intimate than an Instagram Live? Influencers could use this feature for when they want to chat with their utmost loyal followers. Through this they, as well as brands, could gain valuable feedback on their content, brand image, and more.

Is your brand led by a celebrity or spokesperson? Your page could gain followers by offering a weekly 5 minute chat with a different user each week.

Things to Consider

Similar to Messenger on Facebook, it could be possible that the Instagram Video Chat feature is able to listen in on conversations in order to develop areas of opportunity for ad targeting.

Once this feature rolls out, we’ll be able to see it’s initial potential and dive into how it can be leveraged for brand awareness and for building a larger community.