Instagram enhances Reels with new Collab features: Multi-user collaboration, music integration, and interactive challenges

As we reported just a couple of weeks ago, Google recently introduced collaborative features on YouTube Shorts, and now Instagram is following suit with its new set of features for its Collab tool. This enables up to four users to collaborate on shared Carousels, Reels, or Posts, with the resulting content getting shared with the followers of each author and showcased on their individual profiles. Both private and public accounts can be added as collaborators on a post or reel. If your account is private, you can start your own post or reel and invite a collaborator as long as they follow you back.

Music is a key component of Collabs, and now users can add tracks to their photo carousels from Instagram's library, which the platform plans to expand to more countries. In a collaboration with Spotify, Instagram has also launched the Reels Music Chart feature in Mexico and Brazil, with the clear intention of expanding to more regions soon.

Creators can also invite their followers to join in on fun prompts and challenges they create in Reels with the 'Add Yours' sticker, through which users can submit their unique creations in a Reel. Then, the creator can hand-pick their favorite submissions to celebrate their fans’ creativity, notifying the user about the creator's selection in the process.