Remember the outage of Instagram, Facebook, and essentially the most important of all social medias a couple of months ago?
Sucked, right?
Especially when so many of our livelihoods depend on them, when we have to push out brand promotions and publish content that we worked super hard for and only to lose engagement.
It was also really confusing at first. We didn’t know if it was our account’s issue, our device’s issue, or a universal thing.
Well, no more. The latest Instagram feature lets you know if something is wrong with the platform or if it’s your account.
How does the outage alert feature help users?
The lack of clarity when there’s an outage can be frustrating. That’s why Instagram is testing a feature that tells people when something is wrong. Meant to eliminate confusion and chaos similar to the one that happened a few months back, the outage alert informs users directly if there is a global outage or just a glitch.
Now, you don’t have to go looking for answers to your friends, scrolling through Twitter, or googling what’s wrong.
So, where do you go to check if you think there’s an outage?
Your activity feed. You’ll see a notification when there is a technical issue. Furthermore, it will also notify you when the issue is resolved.
But Instagram has also stated that this won’t happen every time there is an outage but only when there is high confusion amongst its users and everyone is looking for answers. The notifications would look like this:
(Credit: Instagram)
As ever, there is a caveat to the outage alert feature. It’s still being tested and rolled out just in the US first. Let’s hope it’s a success and we get to see the feature in India soon. Coz creators, like you, we did not enjoy being in the dark!
How does the account status feature benefit creators?
If you’ve ever reported anything to Instagram in the past year (we did ‘cause online bullying or harassment is not okay, read about it here), you’d have seen the “Support Request” feature. It pops up in your activity feed.
Instagram is making changes to this feature too and upgrading it to “Account Status.” What’s that? The platform calls it “your one-stop shop to see what’s happening with your account and content” you’ve published.
The new tool makes it easier for people to know if:
- Their account is at the risk of being disabled.
- Their content is against Instagram’s Community Guidelines
The Account Status feature keeps you in the loop and helps you understand what to do with your account in such times. That means, creators can take action before a post gets deleted or, worse, the entire handle gets suspended.
How? By requesting a review of the reported content if you think there has been some misunderstanding or mistake on Instagram’s end.
(Credit: Instagram)
The gist on Instagram’s latest features
Instagram has been on a constant journey of upgrading itself to make it easier for us content creators to do what we love. These new features are just a continuation and the start of many more to come.
So, creators, create. Post. And earn with Do Your Thng!
