Instagram rolling out new feature ‘Private Story Likes’ without sending a DM

Instagram is rolling out ‘Private Story Likes’ a new features for Insta users. With this new update the platform allows you to like somebody’s posted Instagram story without sending them a DM. You all must be knowing that DMs are Direct Messages between two Instagram users or a group of users. Till now you have been using it to respond peoples stories in Instagram.

Instagram stories are mainly the photos you share on this platform. Through them you can share your photos, videos and text directly. Now private story likes feature will help you to appreciate someone’s story without clogging up there inbox.

Instagram private story likes

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has announced in the video through his Twitter handle about the roll out of this new feature. He has confirmed that now as you go through peoples Instagram stories you will see a heart icon between send message and the little paper airplane. If you tap on the icon it will send a like to the author of that story. The like will be visible in the viewer sheet instead of both of your DM thread.

“Started to roll out today, you can now send some Love by liking peoples stories without sending a DM (Direct Message). Likes on stories are private and do not have the likes counts. Rather it appears as hearts next to people’s handles in your stories view sheet” “Adam Mosseri” the Instagram chief tweet about this through his official Twitter handle.

This statement makes clear that there will be no like counts for the stories. However this is a very different approach then what Instagram chose for users main feeds. The Meta owned Instagram tested ‘hiding like counts’ feature on the main feed for more than two years before deciding to leave them on by default. You have the option to hide them on your posts.

No public counts will be visible for likes on stories but you can see them on your stories view sheet. The Insta chief added that the idea for developing private story likes feature is to let people express more support for each other but also to make DMs a little bit cleaner.