Instagram Announces That It’s Testing Audio Clips for Notes in the App

They’ve been in testing for a while, but Instagram has now officially announced that a new audio clip option is coming to Notes in the app.

As shared by Instagram chief Adam Mosseri (in his Instagram channel), the new audio option for Notes will provide another way to engage via the group prompt option, which displays a Stories-like bubble at the top of the IG inbox for all of your contacts to see.

As per Mosseri:

“We haven’t started testing anything publicly yet, but we’re working on the ability to create audio notes to share with your friends.”

Audio notes could be particularly popular in regions where many languages are spoken, as it’s often more common for people to be able to understand various types of spoken language than it is to actually write them. That could make it a big update for users in India, and other areas of significant cultural diversity.

Instagram first launched Notes last December, as a means to tap into the rising use of DMs as a social option, with the main feed increasingly transforming into a content discovery stream. TikTok has led the way on this, by taking the emphasis off of who you know, in favor of highlighting the best content from across the app. Meta has since moved to align both Facebook and IG along the same lines, which has seen more and more users sharing personal updates in Stories and DMs instead.

As such, Notes serves a more direct engagement purpose, in broadcasting chat prompts for all to see.

And it’s apparently catching on, especially with younger audiences, with Instagram reporting back in June that over 100 million teens had shared a Note in the preceding three months. Meta also says that teen users create Notes at 10 times the rate of non-teens.

With this in mind, IG recently added the option to include a song in your Note, with audio clips set to become the next feature to enhance the experience.

It’s interesting to see how such tools are being adapted into the latest behavioral shifts. I wouldn’t have predicted that Notes would become a significant element, but then again, it does align with usage trends, while also providing a quick and easy way to let all of your close contacts know what you’re up to at any given time.  

Snapchat is the app that teens have generally turned to for this purpose. But maybe, Notes is now also filling that role, which could end up being a big win for IG.

Audio clips might also not seem like a big addition. But it provides another way for users to engage, and again, different communities will have different ways of using the feature.