Instagram announces Carousel Music, ‘Add Yours’ Stickers and updates to Collabs

Instagram has called it; static, one-dimensional photos are SO last decade.

Yep, that’s right, the world’s 3rd-biggest social media platform has made some serious moves this week, announcing a host of new features to improve how users interact with the images shared by their favorite creators. 

This latest round of updates has cranked up the volume in three key ways. In short, you can now:

1. Add music to your photo carousels.
2. Invite other creators to collaborate on a post or reel
3. Allow followers to submit user-generated content with “Add Yours” stickers.

All in, each of these helps to make the platform more enjoyable for users by enhancing the contextual atmosphere within image sequences and boosting the sensory aspects of their experience.

If you’re a creator looking to build brand awareness, grow your Instagram following and…ultimately…supercharge the caliber of your content creation, jumping on these features is a no-brainer!

Let’s take a closer look at what the updates mean in a little more detail. 

Carousel music

We’d try and explain the long and short of this ourselves, but the folks over at Instagram did a pretty good job of it in their recent announcement.

“Whether you’re sharing a collection of summer memories with friends or moments from your camera roll, you can now add music to your photo carousels. Building off our launch of music for feed photos, anyone can add a song to capture the mood and bring their carousel to life.”

For creators, this means you can add a whole other dimension to your posts. 

Adding top billboard tunes or classic anthems to your photo carousels will make them better placed to capture the attention of your target audience and give them a more rounded content experience. It’ll add bags of feeling to the moment or message you’re trying to convey through visual storytelling, letting you paint a far fuller picture of the snapshot on screen. 

Instagram left nothing to chance with the launch of carousel music. 

The platform teamed up with Disney-icon-turned-pop-sensation, Olivia Rodrigo (the voice behind that Good 4 You track we’ve all been humming for the last few months, and her latest TikTok trending song Vampire), to drum up a real buzz about the feature. She coordinated the release of her new single, bad idea right?, with the release of carousel music, being the first account to use the feature officially.

You can see the feature in action on the post below if you open it on Instagram:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Olivia Rodrigo (@oliviarodrigo)

 

Updates to Collabs

It’s not all about music, these guys have been busy at work trying to bring us closer together.

Instagram’s tech team has updated the collabs feature, meaning users can now invite up to three people to collaborate on their posts and Reels. This means more connection, more exposure and most importantly, more fun for users.

When sharing the news of this update, Instagram said:

“We’re opening up more possibilities with Collabs: now, you can invite up to three friends to co-author a feed post, carousel or reel. Once they accept, the content will reach each collaborator’s audience and appear on each account’s profile grid.”

The possibilities with this one are endless. As a creator, you’ll have waaaay more opportunities to work alongside your friends and fellow creatives. Plus, the revamped Collabs feature promises to make it easier for you to strike up brand deals and produce sponsored content that’ll help grow your following.

“Add Yours” Stickers

And that’s not all. In fact this may be the biggest feature of all for creators.

Starting now, you can turn up the interaction with “Add Yours” stickers. 

These stickers allow creators and artists to invite their followers to get involved in challenges with super-fun prompts during Reels.

Participants can slap stickers onto their favorite creator’s content and feel part of a wider, more connected community. Plus, when you recognize your followers’ contributions, you’ll be fostering an interactive relationship with your target audience which will work wonders for maximizing your engagement rates, viewer retention stats and…if all goes well…the popularity of your profile.

Pretty neat, right?!

Want more music?

If you want to make the most of Instagram’s latest updates, you’re gonna want access to the greatest hits money can buy. 

Spoiler alert; that’s where Lickd comes in! 

We specialize in making sure that content creators have access to the best possible audio, without any extra fuss. You focus on the content, and we will handle the copyright laws. 

With Lickd, you’ll get instant access to a whole library full of trending tunes, viral hits, and world-class artists (such as Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, Lizzo and so many more).

And if you sign up for a Lickd creator subscription, you get unlimited royalty-free music and 75% off mainstream music licenses!

To find out more, check out the rest of the website and sign up for an account or 14-day trial.