If you’re an avid Instagram user, you’d know that Stories are an integral part of the experience. From adding GIFs and conducting polls, to playing games through the use of filters, Instagram’s Stories have improved a lot since they were first implemented.

Of course, Instagram isn’t going to just stop there.

Just this morning, Instagram unveiled its latest chat sticker for use in Instagram Stories. Instagram users will now be able to start conversations with groups of friends, right from their stories, by allowing them to request to join a chat! Sounds convenient? Check out Instagram’s demonstration video, to see how it works:

How It Works

Instagram users will now be able to add a “Join Chat” sticker to their Stories! Their followers, or rather, anyone who can see the Story, will be able to tap on it to request to join the chat. From there, the user who posted the Story will be able to start a group chat, with the people who requested to join it!

Unfortunately, requesting to join the chat doesn’t mean that you will automatically be included. The person who posted the Story with the sticker will have the ability to choose who they would like to include into the group chat, as shown in the third image below:

Instagram, The Verge.

Though Instagram’s updates are generally hits (adding GIFs to stories, for one) or misses (the upcoming proposal to hide likes on Instagram), this one’s definitely a hit in our book! It seems as though it acts like an open invitation, or just to call for people to talk about a similar topic – which is pretty convenient, and makes for easy socialising. Whether people will actually use it, though, is another thing altogether.

It’ll be interesting to see if influencers and celebrities on Instagram will use this function, and how they’ll make use of it. With their sizeable followings, it might be tough to sift through a whole list of requests to join chats, should they want to interact with their fans. Nevertheless, it’s definitely a function that could prove useful to both influencers or celebrities, and any other regular Instagram user.

A sleepless cryptid with a sweet tooth, who spends most of her free time on the internet. Sheryl loves binge-watching shows on Netflix, Persona 5's Joker, arcades, and all her emotional support K-Pop boys.