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I like Instagram and Instagram Stories but notifications of tags in Stories leaves something to be desired.
So what happens when somebody tags you in their Story?
You as the tagged person or brand gets a direct message letting you know that somebody tagged you:
Of course, as of September 2017 Instagram does not offer mobile notifications of new messages-as far as I can tell. Fingers crossed that you’ll see the message before the story expires in 24 hours. Since my social media life is highly automated and highly dependent on notifications for further engagement I often miss the Instagram direct messages for hours at a time. Ugh.
So what that means is that you have to see the little red button in the top right corner of your Instagram home screen to realize that you have a message or a tag waiting.
Of course you don’t know whether it’s a tag or a spammy “thanks for following me” message until you click on that number.
As long as you see that within 24 hours, because remember Instagram Stories do expire after 24 hours, you can see what the person posted about you.
If you want you can then reply via direct message to the person. Public comments are not possible in Instagram Stories.
You also can’t remove the tag but can report it. Interestingly, in your own Instagram Stories you can now delete specific images before the 24 hours are up. That’s a relatively new feature that Instagram added.
As far as I can tell based on a couple tests I ran you can basically tag anyone with an Instagram account-whether you are connected to them or not.
To tag somebody, take the picture and then click on the text tool and start with the @sign.
Also, in case you were wondering where that tool is to get started I put that arrow there for your convenience in the picture below.
And while there are no official rules on when to tag people, common sense and courtesy would dictate in my opinion that we only tag people when it actually makes sense. So for example, a tag like the one below even though it’s possible shouldn’t be done:
Since that’s a picture of me and has nothing to do with Adobe, I shouldn’t tag them. But if it was a post about me sharing how I’m attending an event for Adobe than the tag could make sense.
Sometimes, I think it’s OK to tag yourself. While most Stories viewers are also followers if you geographically tag a story many others end up seeing it. Tagging yourself might entice them and remind them to follow you officially as well.
Some people might argue that that’s overly promotional but I would say that if they like you or your content found via the location tag they might be interested in connecting further. Plus, just because you’re tagging yourself doesn’t mean that they have to click it and it also doesn’t mean that they then have to follow.
So that’s how tagging currently works in Instagram Stories. Have you seen success with it? Drop me a note here. Have you seen people overly tagging others?
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