Since June, Instagram has been testing a new feature that many users question the necessity of: Instagram Notes.

Instagram Notes allow for sharing short updates that disappear 24 hours later (like stories) and are visible only when you open the Instagram inbox.

Many have compared Notes with Facebook status and early 2000's MSN statuses:

So far, Instagram Notes are only a test and available to a small amount of users. If you're not among those, we'll show you how Instagram Notes work.

What Are Instagram Notes?

Instagram Notes are short "status updates" that last only 24 hours and appear solely in the inbox section. Notes let you share updates with your Close Friends' list and those of your followers who you follow back. Notes can be only 60 characters long.

⚡️Tip: Unfollow those who don't follow you back in bulk with Combin Growth! Just select the users and press one button – the app will do the rest.

You can find Notes above your DM chats. Users can reply to your Notes by sending you a DM, like they do with stories.

How to Use Instagram Notes

To see if your have Instagram Notes available and if you can use them, go to your inbox section and look at the top of your page.

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You will see a Note above your chats if someone from users who you follow create one.

If you want to make an Instagram Note, press the + icon and enter an update.

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Then select who you want to share it with and hit Share.

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Users won’t get a notification when you share a Note. If you tap on someone else's Note, you'll see a window offering you to send them a DM.

How Instagram Notes Can Help Your Business

While some users find it entertaining and some mock it, others wonder how it’ll be relevant to their social strategy.

It's hard to come up with ideas how this novelty might be useful for business purposes. Yet, we've been thinking and here's what we've come up with:

You can use Notes to share exclusive deals, discounts or any other updates with only those you follow (and who follow you back) or with Close Friends. Some businesses give discounts if people follow them on social media – you can use the Note feature just for that. Thus you'll be sure that these people are actually followers, not just visitors of your profile. But for that, you need to follow them 🙃

In general, we don't think there would be any particular use of this feature for businesses. Unless Instagram comes up with an innovative idea to run ads in our DM section.