Silly or Personal, there are certain pictures that you don’t like to be seen by certain people, say your Boss, Potential clients or your Stranger followers.
Unlike Facebook, Instagram is like an open book, anyone (unless your account is private) can follow you and see your pictures. More the followers you gain, more are the people who you don’t know viewing your stuff and more spam messages and comments.
Especially if you use your account for both personal and professional purpose, you may not know each one of your followers. And you won’t be comfortable sharing everything with everyone.
So, Instagram added a new feature called Close friends, which lets you show your Stories only to a list of people (say, close Friends, Family) and hide from the rest of them.
In this tutorial, I will show you how to share Instagram stories only with specific followers or even non-followers.
How to Use “Close friends” feature to show Instagram stories only to Specific people/ followers
To make use of Close friends feature, we have to add the people whom you want to share the stories with, to the ‘close friends’ list. Then we choose the close friends option while adding a new story.
Note: Please remember that this feature only works with Stories and not for normal posts.
Step-1: Add people to “Close friends” list
As I said, first you have to add people to your list. And you can any person to the list, whether they are following you or not.
To add people to close friends list:
- Open Instagram and go to your profile tab.
- Tap on Menu icon (burger icon) on the top-right corner and then tap on Close friends.
- Now under Your List, search by name or username of the person and tap on Add button next to the name.
- Alternatively, under Suggestions tab, you can see your possible close friends (based on people who you follow back), you can go through the list and add people.
- After you have done adding people to list, tap on Done on the top-right corner.
Step-2: Post new story with Close friends option
Once you made the list, you are now ready to add story exclusively visible to people on the list. To post a story for close friends list:
- Tap on your Profile picture or Swipe right from home tab to add a new story as usual. Compose your story by adding picture or text as wish.
- Once you are done and ready to post, tap on Close friends option in the bottom.
- Alternatively, you can also tap on Send to and then tap on Share button next to Close friends option.
That’s all. The story will be posted and only people on your list can see your story. And the story will have a green colored label stating that it is a “Close friends” story.
FAQ’s: Things to Note
Can a person on the list know if a story is “Close friends” only?
Yes, the story will have a label in green stating the same.
How can I differentiate normal story from ‘Close friends’ story?
There will be a Green-colored label “Close friends” on such stories. Also if you post a normal story, there will be a pink colored circle around your Profile picture, but for Close friends only stories, there will be a green colored circle.
Can a person in my list see how many people and who are in my list?
No, they can’t. They only know that they are in your list by seeing the label on your stories. But they can’t see other members of your list.
If I add or remove a person to the list, would the person you added/removed get a notification?
No, they don’t get any notification when you add/ remove them.
Can I edit the list after posting the story and can newly added people see the story?
Yes, you can. And the newly added person can see your story.
Can I make more than One list so that I can post stories for different groups of people similar to Facebook?
No, only One list. As of now, you cannot make multiple lists. But it would quite useful if they such option in future.
Conclusion
Stories for Close friends feature is quite handy. As it adds better privacy to your pictures, you can now post stories that you previously hesitated to post.
As I already stated above, you can only make a single list. I think it would be more useful, if there is an option to make multiple lists, just like in Facebook.
What do you think? let us know in comments below or send us a DM @DigicularCo on Instagram or at #Digicular and don’t forget to follow us. We also started a new Digicular Youtube channel, be sure to check it out.
