Instagram expands Close Friends feature to the main feed: How to use

Instagram is caring for your close friends. It is expanding the Close Friends feature to the main feed, allowing users to share reels and photos exclusively with close ones. The feature is meant for small groups and Meta-CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself shared about this new update. Also Read: Meta AI Adds UPI Lite, Hindi Support, and Deepika Padukone’s Voice to Ray-Ban Glasses in India

“Sharing with your Close Friends is now expanding to Feed and Reels. More types of posts with the same smaller groups,” noted Zuckerberg in his ‘Meta Channel’ on Instagram. Also Read: YouTube’s Next Big AI Upgrade: Lip-Syncing For Auto-Dubbed Videos Coming Soon

Instagram first announced the Close Friends feature a few years back and since then it has done almost nothing related to it. The feature was there and many used to share their daily activities with their close ones. While sharing daily updates is important, the usual posting of videos and photos with close ones can be vital as well. That’s probably what folks at Instagram thought. Also Read: Meta Wants Employees To Build The Metaverse 5X Faster Using AI

This update emphasizes making the social life as authentic and real as it can be. That said, it is also competing with apps with the same aim like the BeReal app. It is worth noting that other popular contenders like Twitter (formerly X) also had a feature similar to this called Circles. However, it discontinued it sometime back. X surely has some other different goal.

Coming back to the Insta feature, users can now use the feature on the stable version of the app. It is arriving on both Android and iOS devices. But if the feature doesn’t show up in your app, wait for it as it may be on the way. Check for updates and you should be having it.

As for how to use it, it’s really simple. Follow the steps below to use the Close Friends feature on the main feed.

How to share Posts/Reels with Close Friends

Step 1: After updating the app to the latest version, open it and tap on the Plus(+) button in the bottom center.

Step 2: Now, create your post. It could be a photo or reel. Then, tap on Next.

Step 3: On the final Share page, you should see a tab that says ‘Audience’. Tap on it and you should get two options: Everyone and Close friends. Tap on the circle in front of Close Friends to select it.

Step 4: Lastly, tap on Done and then Tap on Share in the top right corner.

Now, only your close friends will be able to see this particular post/reel. They will get the Close Friends icon at the top right side of the post (which is green colored), denoting that it’s a post/reel for close ones.