Instagram, the social media platform that has taken over the fresh air of being a broadcasting station, wants to prove that it throws smaller and more intimate parties as well. Instagram is using Blend to give you reels not just for you but also for your best friend who just can’t stop sending cat videos at 2am. That type of shared scrolling is just what group chats need to get a little noisier, a little funnier, and maybe a little more emotional.
Instagram has officially announced a new feature called Blend to socialize and personalize the Reels experience. This feature, announced on Thursday, lets users create a customized shared Reels feed with a friend or a group chat. The feeds provide new content every day, personalized for each person with the content each member may enjoy, making it collaborative in terms of content discovery.
The concept is simple, where users are sort of going to blend their own preferences together with those of their friends for more engagement through shared viewings and conversations. For instance, if a user in the Blend reacts to a reel, it should notify everyone in the group, so the conversations continue in DMs. It’s Instagram’s version of making scrolling less passive and more engaging.
Not a TikTok Imitation
There have been lots of instances where features would be borrowed from TikTok by Instagram, but Blend takes a different approach. It adds a degree of sociality that does not exist at all in TikTok. TikTok is all about super personalized content and gives an extremely solitary experience. On the other hand, Instagram hopes that the social shared entertainment will drive more users back to Reels and will give birth to a stronger bond between users of the app.
Meta increasingly started focusing on bringing back the “friends-first” charm of Instagram. Blend could be a calculated attempt to realign Instagram with its original spirit of social sharing, which is something that a lot of its users feel has taken a backseat to sponsored content and algorithmic ad pushes.
How It Functions
Creating a Blend is pretty simple. Just open a one-on-one or group DM chat, tap the new Blend icon at the top, and send out invitations. When at least one person accepts, Blend goes live and starts curating personalized feeds for everyone in the chat on a daily basis. The feature is opt-in, only private for invitations, and is intended to give increased power to the users when it comes to shared spaces. Basically, it’s an Instagram version of Spotify’s other Blend, where users mix their music tastes into a single playlist that refreshes daily. It seems that Instagram is borrowing from a winning idea but twisting it a little to fit the short video area.
Increasing Watch Time & Community
From the perspective of business, Blend could be a key switch to pull for further boosting Reels engagement, an important growth area for Instagram in its battle against TikTok and YouTube Shorts. This may actually help Instagram to maximize watch time and length sessions by encouraging a group of friends to log on and watch and react to content together, while keeping users within the app ecosystem longer.
In the initial phase of its rollout, Blend has the potential to strike the balance of Instagram’s dual identities, an influencer platform filled with viral content and also a connecting place for close friends. The adoption of this feature will greatly depend on how users familiarize themselves with this new interactive kind of scrolling.
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