You love the feature on Facebook, but will you love photo tagging on Instagram? Like it or not, here it comes! You can now tag friends in Instagram photos, search for photos of yourself using your name, and show the world that you have people to hang out with.
Instagram rolled out the new photo tagging feature today, and it's all ready to go. The feature acts just like the Facebook photo tagging feature with a few small differences. The first difference is that you have to tag friends manually.
How to Tag Friends on Instagram
Here's hot to tag friends on Instagram: take a photo, and then choose the "Add People" option. Then, manually enter the names of the people who are included in a photo. From there, you can decide whether to post your photo publicly or privately. You can also search for photos that other people have taken of you by looking through the "Photos of You" section.
Businesses, take note: you can take a business in any photo too. So, you can add a business location to a map, or simply tag a business in a photo. This way, fans will see all those amazing pictures that relate directly to your business. These new features are baked into the newest version of Instagram, and this is the biggest change that Instagram has seen since its launch a few years ago.
Privacy Issues?
It happens all the time on Facebook: some friend tags an unflattering photo of you for all the world to see. But, you can change these settings via Facebook, and make sure that nobody but you can see photos that you are tagged in. This is also the case with the new Instagram feature. You can change your settings, so that you have to approve every photo that you are tagged in before it reaches all of those viewers.
Facebook/Instagram has stated that this new update will be good for business, and that Instagram followers will love the new photo tagging option. But, I'm not so sure that's true. Facebook and Instagram should be two separate social networks. Now, Instagram is starting to look more and more like Facebook, and that might not be a good thing. After all, most people hate Facebook's photo tagging feature, and now those people are likely to start hating Instagram too.
A Good or Bad Move?
Are you thinking: "great, more photos that I don't want to be tagged in!" Or, are you thinking: "awesome, it's about time Instagram added new features!" Instagram users will definitely be split over this new feature announcement. What camp are you in? Do you like to tag people or wish that people would stop tagging you?
I'm predicting an exodus from Instagram once people start tagging each other, which can be annoying. Hopefully, Facebook doesn't run Instagram into the ground with these new changes. Instagram has always been unique, but now it's starting to become a little too similar to what Facebook is offering.