At last – the long awaited “repost” feature in Instagram is coming soon. But not for all users.
On September 8th, a Meta representative confirmed to TechCrunch that they plan to test the repost feature soon to a select group of people.
As of today, Meta has not publicly announced this soon-to-be feature.
The Reposts Tab Is Being Tested
So, how did this news break to the community?
Matt Navara, a social media consultant, screenshotted the profile of Adam Mosseri, current Head of Instagram, to his Twitter followers on September 7th.
Image source: Matt Navaro via TwitterBased on the screenshot evidence, it looks like users will get a Repost tab within their profile. This tab will likely house all reposts a user has shared to their account.
After additional internet sleuthing, others were able to find the introduction screen for users getting selected to test the feature – introduced months ago by Alessandro Paluzzi:
Image source: Alessandro Paluzzi via Twitter.comThis news becomes relevant again, as it seems that Adam’s profile is the first to be spotted with the Reposts feature in the wild. Instagram may have been planning this for quite some time and are quietly rolling out the Beta test now.
Keeping Up With Other Platforms
The repost feature in Instagram seems to be a long time coming. The platform already allows users to share posts within their stories, but not in their feed.
Twitter has long held this type of feature with its Retweet function, enabling users to reshare tweets from users to their Twitter feed.
TikTok has also joined the resharing bandwagon by testing out its own version of reposting. TikTok currently has a Repost feature that shares the specific content to a users’ followers. However, it doesn’t have the capability to show all the user’s shared posts.
Why This Matters
Until now, Instagram users had to use a 3rd party app to be able to repost content. Having 3rd party apps connected to any social profile has a risk of privacy and security issues.
By adding the Repost feature, users are able to get rid of unwanted 3rd party apps and can repost natively.
Additionally, the Repost feature allows users to reshare content directly within their feed instead of in their stories features.
From a content perspective, the Repost feature provides opportunities for content creators to get discovered quicker. As users can share content directly to their feed, it credits the original source.
The Expected Rollout Of Reposts
While certain users are seeing this function in the wild, Instagram has not shared any details about its rollout plan – or if it even plans to roll out to all users.
This article will be updated as more information is shared about the feature.
Featured image: DVKi/Shutterstock
