Fresh from the success of its recent multi-account posts, Instagram is now working on a related option which will link several accounts together and tie them to one secure login, which will help users to manage their different Instagram accounts. This interesting new option will provide users with a wide range of management alternatives, extending far beyond having the ability to manage business accounts.
The new feature has been described in this way: it will allow you to quickly and securely log on to all accounts you have on Instagram with a single password and ID. It will also allow you to designate one of your accounts as the Main Account, and use that one to log into all of your other accounts simultaneously. Each of your accounts will still be separate, but when you log in, it will be much faster and simpler. Anyone who knows the password and ID for your main account would thus have access to all of your other accounts which may be connected to it.
Who will benefit the most?
Users who will be particularly assisted in this regard are many younger users who have chosen to operate secondary ‘finsta’ accounts, which they use to share updates which are more personal, without having them impact their main profile. The ‘Finstagram’ trend has changed the way many users operate on the social media platform because they put much more thought and effort into their individual posts, especially those involving photos.
The realization that these posts will be seen by hundreds or perhaps thousands of other individuals, provides motivation for users to make them as free from error as possible, recognizing that the posts reflect back on their reputation. This trend is directly responsible for what led to the internal development at Instagram for providing more enclosed sharing options, such as the Private List favorites for regular posts, and the Close Friends groups for sharing Stories. These options allow you to choose specific groups of friends with whom you’d like to share certain updates.
Instagram vs. Facebook
Instagram differs from Facebook in that it currently does not allow users to manage multiple accounts without going through a lot of hoops. Facebook allows users to post vacation photos to their personal profiles, share employment opportunities to your business page, and upload pictures of your world famous dog to a fan page, all through a single main account.
Instagram users on the other hand, who routinely post material related to their personal life, their job, and perhaps also a blog, are required to log in and out of these different accounts in order to post material to them. The code currently being developed by Instagram will allow users to link accounts together with a single ID and password, for the account which you decide will be your main profile.
In the same way that your Facebook personal page is separate from your Facebook business page, your Instagram accounts would still be separate from each other. However, the quicker login method will probably allow you to log in more quickly to non-Instagram platforms as well, in the same way, that you might log into Netflix or Spotify through Facebook.
Instagram has been working on other features related to the concept of identity as well, for instance, the aforementioned Close Friends feature, which allows the sharing of Stories with only those individuals selected by a user. The social media platform is also working on an option for two-factor authentication, and a method for syndicating feed posts to several accounts controlled by a single user.
When the Main Account feature goes into effect, it will also pave the way for Facebook’s master plan of providing cross-app encrypted messaging capabilities between WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. There are some slight differences between Instagram’s concept of Main Account, as opposed to how it’s used on Facebook. The Instagram version would not force a user to enter their real name when originally creating an account, while Facebook does insist on that.
Multiple account users
With regard to the new multi-account management, it does raise an interesting question about exactly how many Instagram users have multiple accounts which need managing. This would include users who operate several business accounts, as well as the users who have multiple profiles that are aligned with the finsta trend, which are all personal profiles.
Since the social media platform is developing the capability to manage multiple accounts in this way, it seems reasonable to assume that a great number of users are now using multiple profiles on Instagram, whether they be business accounts or personal accounts. There are known to be approximately one billion active users on Instagram in any given month, but it would be interesting to know what the active count would be if the multi-profile figures were actually accounted for.
This is not to say that the multi-account users are artificially inflating Instagram’s active user account, because it would still be very high, even without multi-profile users. Both Twitter and Facebook have recently announced that they will be using new user account metrics in their quarterly reporting statistics, so it’s possible that Instagram will likewise adopt a more accurate way of representing their active user account each quarter.
Rollout of the new feature
There is no scheduled rollout of the new feature since it’s currently being tested by Instagram developers, and when asked to comment on the situation, Instagram officials declined to offer any enlightenment. It is expected that this new capability will serve to advance Instagram’s current ‘Login with Instagram’ functionality, which allows you to use your Instagram credentials to log into other applications, in the same way, that you might use ‘Login with Facebook’.
At any rate, this should end up being a very handy feature, because it would theoretically allow you to log into any website or third-party app using your Instagram credentials, and you would also be able to select which of your Instagram accounts you wanted to connect to that service.
