Instagram has now gone ahead and launched its Blend option for reels which lets you create shared feed of recommended Reels with friends or group chat. The Blend Feed will be presenting combined Reels feed which would be based on every member’s suggested Reels. The reel is suggested on every person’s activity on Instagram which includes Reels they watch and interact with.
Instead of sending Reels to each other which is the common norm of interaction in the app, Blend feed would show all Reels which you and your friend show individually within single stream. Blend feed realigns itself to collective interests which is based on future reels which you are sharing in the chat.
This feature would lead to more active engagement based around shared interests which would enable each user within chat to check out recommended reels at any point of time. When chat members would be commenting or reacting to a Reel, it would trigger notification in the chat which would help in sparking further discussion.
Blend is aimed at maximizing sharing behavior which is based on rising of DM activity and popularity of Reels which is formalized as a shared experience approach. It feels more like an interactive and collaborative process. A lot of this type of sharing now focuses on related highlights for every person and does not show others full stream of what is seen in the app.
In case you have got a variety of interests which influence your Instagram feed and you might have that friend who likes reels of dogs and other one who likes DIY content whereas another liked fitness. With the help of Blend, all of the different interests would be injected into any Blend feed which is created but the fun of sharing each with specific friends tend to be more engaging and personal which lets you share and curate such as small gifts.
When you enable everyone to see a full stream of the same and at any time, it feels less personal and less engaging. If you let everyone see a full stream of the same and at any time, it feels less personal and might be less engaging. If you consider, it could be full stream of the same and at any time it would feel less personal and less engaging.
This is not the first time that a social media platform has gone to bring social elements into content discovery, earlier TikTok had with its algorithm driven For You Page which shared content based on user behavior and encouraged communal interaction through likes, shares and comment. With Instagram Blend, it would enable it to keep pace with its competitors by offering interactive experience.
Instagram Blend is expected to give collaborative experience for users who scroll through Reels alone and would make content consumption more social. Instagram Blend would be targeting video content mainly short form Reels which would make it relevant for users who spend a vast amount of time on social media.
So what are you waiting for? In order to create Instagram Blend, you must open a one-on-one group DM chat and tap the new Blend icon at the top of the chat, after this you need to select invite for inviting people from your DM chat for joining the Blend. The Blend would get created when at least one member of the chat would accept the invite and you could revisit Blend by going for DM chat and tapping the Blend icon.
Blend is very much similar to Spotify which enables people to combine their tastes into one shared playlists which refreshes daily. So go ahead and test this new feature from Instagram!
