Hot on the heels of Snapchat, Instagram added some new features for a surge at the start of the year.

Make your Instastories pop with stickers

Stickers have proven incredibly popular with Snapchat users. Hoping to emulate that success, Instagram now lets users add stickers to their video and photo stories.

Instagram's spin on Snapchat’s sticker implementation includes specific stickers associated with the weather, the time and user location.

The stickers button appears next to the drawing tool and should prove popular with Instagram users. The stickers are flexible and can be resized and moved around the screen.

Hands-free video, sort of

Keen to leapfrog ahead of their rivals, the team at Instagram has also added a 'hands-free' option for video recording. Well, kind of. It’s not really a true “hands-free” feature.

The new functionality means that users don’t have to hold down the video button to record a video anymore. Instead, they can tap once to start, then the video will record until they tap again to finish. 

This means the device can be put down in between, ao, users are now free to record videos of themselves doing things without having to constantly contort into a weird selfie pose.

Better image text

Photos are Instagram’s bread and butter. Now, users can add more text to their photos and videos, adjust the text size and automatic text wrap.

So, eager caption-makers can write more, make it bigger and have no fear that their text will be chopped off the sides of the screen.

Copy Transmission is a Melbourne-based agency :: Better Brands. Loud & Clear.