Instagram seems to be releasing a feature that users have been asking for a long time. Meta's photo-sharing app is currently testing the repost feature to make it easier for users to share other people's photos in their feed.
The new feature was first spotted by social media consultant Matt Navarra on the profile of Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri. In a statement to TechCrunch, Instagram plans to test this feature in the near future involving a number of users.
"We're exploring options to reshare posts in Feed -- much like how you reshare on Stories -- so people can share what they love, and for original creators to get credit for their work," a Meta spokesperson said, as quoted from TechCrunch, Sunday (11/9/2022).
From the screenshots shared by Matt Navarra on Twitter, Instagram will add a Reposts tab containing posts re-shared by users. This tab will be placed on the user's profile, along with the tabs for posts, reels, and tagged photos.
Instagram has introduced the repost feature for Stories since 2018. But until now users can't repost other people's posts in the feed, except using third-party applications. With the presence of this feature, Instagram users no longer need to rely on third-party applications to repost other people's content.
The repost feature on social media was first popularized by Twitter through the Retweet feature. This feature has been adopted by many other social media platforms, including Instagram and TikTok.
At the beginning of last year, TikTok also started testing the Repost feature, which allows users to share other people's videos with their followers. But videos reposted on TikTok will only be visible on the follower's For You page, and not on the user's profile.
For the repost feature tested by Instagram, reposted posts will appear in followers' feeds and will be displayed on user profiles in the available tabs.
It seems that Instagram has been developing this repost feature a few months ago. Application researcher Alessandro Paluzzi first reported on the development of this feature in May.
Like other new feature trials, it is not yet known when Instagram will release this feature to all users. Maybe Instagram will share more information once this feature enters its trial period.