Instagram announces ‘Born on Instagram’ to discover new creators on the platform

At its Instagram Experience (IGX) event, the company shed some light on the various ways its community uses the photo-sharing platform. It announced a new program called ‘Born on Instagram’ to discover new talent across India and also highlighted its ‘Unlabel’ content series to showcase, what Instagram says, is how it’s the “kindest community online”. [caption id=“attachment_7172231” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  The newly announced ‘Unlabel’ series on IGTV will explore young Indians trying to challenge stereotypes. Image: Reuters[/caption] The ‘Born on Instagram’ initiative is an effort by the company to look for talented creators in India. Its main objective is to “celebrate, discover and showcase” creators from all over the country. They will also be given collaboration and mentorship opportunities. For now, the initiative will be launched in 15 cities this year. To protect its users from harassment in the comment section, the company spoke about its ‘Restrict’ feature. Users will be able to swipe left on comments to essentially shadow-ban them from your posts. Their comments will only be visible to them and remove them from the public view.

The inaugural @instagram Experience event will soon begin in Mumbai. Vishal Shah, VP of Product, Instagram is expected to address the event shortly #IGX pic.twitter.com/cGumyWKSuK

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“Instagram is gaining strong momentum both globally and in India. Much like Indian culture, passions pursued by Instagrammers here are the most diverse and represent urban and regional trends. This, combined with the way people freely express themselves on the platform, creates an amazing opportunity for creators and businesses here,” said Vishal Shah, VP of Product at Instagram. Instagram also spoke about how businesses have been leveraging the platform to get more customers and reach a wider audience. Influencers and brands have been taking advantage of the Branded Content Ads feature this year that enables them to promote branded content from creators as organic feeds and story ads. Finally, the company revealed its new content series called ‘Unlabel’ that is made in collaboration with Yuvaa. It explores young Indians who go out to challenge stereotypes and be themselves.