What does pinned post mean on Instagram

Following up on its brighter logo and the re-introduction of chronological feeds to the platform, Instagram has just introduced a new feature that allows users to pin posts to their profiles. While many were excited to hear about this new feature, others were confused about what exactly pinning a post means on Instagram, and how they could use the feature themselves.

Table of Contents Show

Here's how to pin posts to your profile.
Users could already pin stories to their profiles.
Meta is rolling out a wave of new features.
Instagram is testing a feature that lets you pin posts to your profile
What does it mean when your post gets pinned on Instagram?
What does it mean when a post is pinned?

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Pinning a post means that that post will appear at the top of your profile whenever a user clicks on it. Instagram is currently allowing users to select up to three posts to pin, and those posts are meant to be a kind of first impression for users who may be trying to find out more about you through your profile. These posts can be photos or Reels, and the feature was first rolled out in a testing capacity in April.

Source: Instagram

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“Your profile is your space, so we’re looking for more ways to give you control over that experience,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained in a video explaining the new feature. The ability to pin posts may be a welcome addition to Instagram users who are familiar with similar functionality from a site like Twitter. This way, you can highlight your favorite posts even if they're somewhat buried chronologically.

Here's how to pin posts to your profile.

The process to pin posts yourself is actually relatively straightforward. All you need to do is navigate to a specific Reel or photo and click on the three dots in the upper right corner. From there, you can select "Pin to your profile," and the post should then appear at the top of your profile page the next time you're on it.

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Users could already pin stories to their profiles.

The ability to pin posts is really just an expansion of the pinning feature that already existed on the platform. You could pin stories already, and now, you can also pin Reels or posts.

This feature also makes the process of pinning easier and is very much akin to what TikTok and Twitter allow users to do with previous posts that they have made.

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Meta is rolling out a wave of new features.

Instagram's pinning feature isn't the only recent change that has come to one of the platforms managed by Meta. One of the most notable changes was to Reels itself, which now supports videos that are up to 90 seconds long, instead of the previous limit, which was 60 seconds. They also introduced several new audio and visual tools that were designed to make Reels a more appealing place to post.

Even as Instagram and Facebook remain successful products, Reels has likely not been the success that they were hoping it would be. While there is certainly plenty of engagement with Reels videos, much of that content is simply repurposed from things that were once posted on TikTok. Meta may still be a dominant player, but TikTok is nipping at their heels.

Instagram is testing a feature that lets you pin posts to your profile

Instagram is exploring a new feature that lets users pin specific posts to their profile above their photo grid, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The new feature is currently in the testing phase and is showing up for select users on the platform. Users who have access to the feature are seeing a “Pin to your profile” option that you can select from the three dot menu next to posts.

“We’re testing a new feature that lets people feature posts on their profile,” a spokesperson from Meta told TechCrunch in an email.

The ability to pin a specific post to your profile could be a welcome feature for users who want to highlight their favorite posts that may have been buried somewhere farther down in their photo grid. The feature could also be useful for creators who post frequently but want to highlight a specific post.

Currently, users have the option to pin Stories to their profile, but this new feature would expand this ability to posts. Although you can currently highlight a post in a Story and then pin that story to your profile, this new feature would make that process a lot easier and more straightforward. It’s worth noting that the feature works similarly to Twitter’s “Pin to your profile” feature that lets you pin a tweet to the top of your personal feed.

It looks like Instagram has been developing this feature for at least a few months, as reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi spotted it back in January.

The pinned posts test comes roughly a week after Instagram announced that it’s removing the “Recent” tab on hashtag pages for some users as part of a small test. Currently, when you select a hashtag, you’re taken to a page where you can parse through the content that has been posted using that hashtag via three categories: Top, Recent and Reels. With this change, some users will now only see the “Top” and “Reels” tabs on hashtag pages. The change could be seen as a way for Instagram to further promote Reels, its TikTok rival, while also focusing on surfacing posts that are receiving the most engagement on the platform.

Instagram is also testing a new feature that will make it easier for users to discover and support social causes directly through hashtags. When you search for specific hashtags associated with certain social movements, you now have the option to support them through new options. The company is rolling out the new feature to select hashtags focused on popular movements on Instagram, including #BlackLivesMatter, #womensrights and #climatecrisis.

What does it mean when your post gets pinned on Instagram?

A pinned comment is a comment that appears at the top of a post or in the comment summary that appears in the feed. When someone pins someone else's comment, Instagram notifies the author that their comments have been highlighted in the post. This option to pin comments aims to help manage comments.

What does it mean when a post is pinned?

A pinned post is a social media post saved to the top of your page or profile on Facebook or Twitter. Pinning a post is a great way to feature an important announcement or highlight some of your best content.