Instagram Has Added A New 'Countdown Sticker' For Stories
Instagram has started to roll out a new Countdown Sticker feature within Instagram Stories. The feature gives you the ability to create a countdown towards a particular date/time and share it with your followers. In addition to being able to name the Countdown Sticker, you can customize it by selecting from over a dozen color schemes.
.@Instagram has started to roll out a new ‘Countdown Sticker’ in Stories. Those who come across the Story have the option to set a reminder and/or share the Countdown.
— Lindsey Gamble (@LindseyGamble_) December 12, 2018
Brands can use this for new product releases and have their followers share the Countdown to spread the word. pic.twitter.com/2fv3PHfbYB
When someone comes across your Countdown Sticker, they have the option to Set A Reminder to receive a notification when that countdown ends as well as share the Countdown Sticker themselves. Unfortunely, it doesn’t give you a count of how many people Set A Reminder or have shared your Countdown Sticker.
Below are screenshots of how the feature looks and works:
As I mentioned in a previous post, Countdown Stickers can be really useful especially for brands. They could use them to create awareness and anticipation for a upcoming product release. Thanks to the sharing function, their followers can join and help spread the word by sharing the Countdown Sticker in their own Story. Other examples of how the feature can be used are Influencers letting their followers know when their new blog post will be live or artists counting down to a big announcement (i.e. upcoming tour dates, new single, new single, etc).
The Countdown Sticker is the latest example of Instagram continuing to expand Stories. The more features and tools that the photo/video sharing platform adds for Stories, the more people will put out Stories content, which is important as Facebook sees the Stories content format being critical to growing Instagram especially when it comes to generating revenue.
Additionally, there have been several reports that Instagram will soon give you the ability to share your Story as a link so be on the lookout for that in the near future.
