Instagram’s free update gives you cool tools to personalise your pics

Instagram has updated its app to give you more text options and more photos and videos in your carousels. It's also reportedly testing Spotify integration that may launch in a future update.

Instagram has introduced some big improvements to its creative tools to help you make them more compelling. The features include new fonts and effects in your reels and stories, the ability to add text and stickers to photos and carousels, and an increase in the carousel photo limit so that you can have up to 20 images and videos in a single post.

The new features are rolling out now and turned up in my app yesterday so if you don't have them already, check you've got the latest version from the appropriate app store.

Here's what's new.

What's new in Instagram's August 2024 update

Photos and carousels now enable you to add text either on its own or as multiple layers. The latter option uses stickers to create the layers that you can then add text inside. Sticker shapes are rectangles, squares, circles, hearts or stars.

The carousel update rolled out earlier this month but Instagram is now making a bigger fuss about it. It upped the photo and video limit to 20 photos or videos in one post, and it works exactly like it did before: simply tap on Post and then select the images and/or videos that you want to use.

The goal of the new features is to help your posts stand out, but of course what really matters when it comes to reach is Instagram's algorithm: that's what decides who gets to see your posts, and after lots of criticism by creators who felt that their posts weren't getting enough visibility Instagram significantly changed its algorithm earlier this year. Where previously it recommended very big accounts and aggregators, accounts that primarily repost other people's content, it promised to focus more on smaller, more original accounts.

There may be more new features coming. According to Techcrunch , Meta is testing deeper music integration in the Instagram app that would enable you to "continuously share" music from Spotify instead of just adding a single song to your post. The idea is that the feature would ensure that you continued to generate Instagram content even when you're not actively using the app.