Last February, Instagram announced the launch of Broadcast Channels. The announcement was made through their official blog and by launching Mark Zuckerberg’s own broadcast channel: Meta Channel. At that time, the tech giant was testing the feature with only a few US creators and a few invited creators. It’s only recently that they opened the feature globally.
Broadcasting to followers
To get an idea of how Broadcast Channels look like, think of Discord or WhatsApp groups, but only the admin or creator can send messages. Broadcast Channels are visible to everyone, but only followers can join. With these channels, Instagram aims to allow creators to cultivate deeper connections with their followers.
Creators can send texts, videos, voice notes, and photos to their broadcast channel. This way, creators can instantly broadcast any updates or important information to their followers. They can also engage with their audience by creating polls that their followers can participate in or using question prompts to gain feedback from followers. These can help creators know what their followers want. Apart from that, creators can also collaborate with others — creators or fans — to engage in their channels.
Once creators start a broadcast channel, followers get a one-time notification to join. After that, the channel still remains discoverable, but followers don’t get further notifications to join. People can search for specific creators and see if they have a broadcast channel. Meanwhile, creators can also share their broadcast channel via Stories on Instagram. Users can also mute or leave the broadcast channels altogether.
Users can also browse for random broadcast channels through their inboxes. To do so, they have to go to the Search bar in the inbox. There, a list of suggested channels will display, and they can choose which one to join. Meta is working to launch broadcast channels on Messenger and Facebook too.
Photo credit: The images used are owned by Meta and have been provided for press usage.
