Instagram has rolled out a series of new features designed to form stronger connections with followers.

These new features can be used with Instagram’s fastest-growing channels–stories and live videos.

Countdowns in Stories

Users can now add interactive countdown stickers to Instagram stories.

Marketers can use this feature to countdown to an event, like a product launch or a webinar.

Ecommerce retailers can also use countdown stickers in stories to remind followers about a limited-time offer that’s expiring soon. Or one that’s about to start.

After a countdown sticker is created the first time it will be readily available to reuse until the countdown ends.

Other users who see the countdown can follow it, which will allow them to receive a notification when the countdown is over.

Questions in Instagram Live

Question stickers can now be utilized during live videos, allowing users to receive questions from their followers and answer them in real-time.

Live videos are already a popular outlet for answering followers’ questions.

However, if there are a lot of people asking questions at once, it’s easy to lose track of the good questions.

Also, people joining the stream part-way through might have no idea when the person in the video is talking about.

With question stickers in live videos, the person in the video can easily see all the questions, and viewers will be able to see the question currently being answered.

See an example below:

These features are available on iOS and Android starting today. Broadcasting live videos is only available on iOS, but they can be viewed by users on Android.

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