The stories have replaced the normal posts, even if Instagram never really wanted to confirm it. Currently, they’re trying to market the reels as the new big thing because TikTok is so strong, but stories remain very important.
As a result, the functionality for Instagram Stories continues to be expanded and today Adam Mosseri from the Instagram team at Meta (Facebook) officially confirmed and explained the likes for the Stories – they announced themselves in the app in January.
❤️ Private Story Likes ❤️
Starting to roll out today, you can now send some love by liking people’s stories without sending a DM.
Likes on stories are private and do not have counts. Rather, they appear as hearts next to people’s handles in your Stories view sheet. 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/l56Rmzgnnw
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) February 14, 2022
With the new function, you don’t have to send a direct message to a person on Instagram, but can like the stories like a post. However, the likes are only visible to the story creators and not to other users.
Sounds like a logical step to me, because at the end of the day, only one thing counts for Meta: active users. And as you push the limits of getting people active, you have to think of new ways.