Users can now like a video or picture uploaded by someone on Instagram Story, without sending them a message. This new feature, called Private Story Likes, is being rolled out by Instagram. 

This is good! With the introduction of Stories likes, it is a convenient way for me to engage with a user’s “Stories” content by liking it without the need to open a chat in DM. And, as previously mentioned, Stories likes will not appear in your DMs, so don’t expect a high volume of them.

“So now, as you go through Stories, between send message and that little paper airplane, there will be a heart icon,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained while demonstrating yesterday on Twitter. Tapping on it will send the creator of that Story a “Like”. Story Likes are private and only the creator or owner can view them. As part of the Story insights, creators will see a small heart icon next to the name of the viewer in the view list. 

It’s a good way to get more people to engage with your Stories, and it could also give Instagram another stream of data to use in ranking and highlighting the Stories in your feed that are most likely to be of interest to you.

It’s important to note that the Social networking site hasn’t said this is or will be a factor in how well your page is ranked at this point. I think the company will look at how it can use direct feedback from users to make Insta-Story better. For example, by showing users more of what they like after engaging with a particular Story. 

It will be fascinating to see how Instagram uses the insights it gains from this change and whether or not that helps it enhance user engagement, even though it may appear to be a minor update technically.

From today, all users will be able to use the new Like for Stories button. 

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