Instagram has rolled out three major features designed to make the platform more social. Users can now repost content, share their location with friends, and discover what content their friends are enjoying through a dedicated tab.
The new Reposts feature allows users to share public Reels and feed posts directly to their followers’ feeds. Unlike the previous method of sharing through Stories, reposts now appear in a separate tab on the user’s profile. Each repost credits the original creator and displays the sharing user’s profile picture with a purple repost icon layered on top. Users can add personal notes to reposts by typing in a thought bubble that appears before saving.
“Reposts are credited to the original poster,” Instagram explains. This means content creators may reach new audiences when their posts are reshared, even if those viewers don’t follow them directly.
The Instagram Map feature, accessible through the Direct Messages inbox, resembles Snapchat’s popular Snap Map, which currently has over 400 million monthly active users. This opt-in feature shows friends’ last active locations and displays location-tagged content including Reels, posts, and Stories from followed accounts for 24 hours after posting.
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Instagram emphasizes user control over location sharing. Users can choose who sees their location — close friends, selected friends, or no one — and can disable sharing at specific locations or with specific people. Location updates only when the app is opened or running in the background. For supervised teen accounts, parents receive notifications if their teen activates location sharing and can manage these permissions.
The global rollout of the Friends tab in Reels shows users public content their friends have liked, commented on, or reposted. It also includes recommendations from “Blends,” which are shared Reels playlists. Users can hide their own interactions from appearing in others’ Friends tabs and mute activity from specific accounts.
These updates follow Instagram’s recent shift toward more friend-focused features, a move possibly influenced by revelations from Meta’s antitrust trial that only 7% of Instagram activity was friend-driven. The features, which have been in testing for months, represent Instagram’s effort to boost social connection while balancing growing concerns about privacy and feature overload.
The features are rolling out globally, with Instagram Map initially available in the US before expanding to other regions.
