Meta Introduced Telegram-Like Channels on Instagram

by Kay Lee

Meta-owned Instagram now has a new Telegram-like channels feature, which was announced by Mark Zuckerberg by launching his own broadcast channel where he plans to share news about the company's products and technologies in the future.

"Hey everyone! We're starting to roll out Instagram channels -- a new broadcast chat feature. I'm starting this channel to share news and updates on all the products and tech we're building at Meta. This will be the place I share Meta products news first," Zuckerberg wrote on his channel called Meta Channel 📢.

Broadcast channels are a public, one-to-many messaging tool designed to let creators engage with a wide audience of followers and keep them up-to-date.

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According to Zuckerberg, creators can keep their followers posted using text, photo, video, voice notes, and polls. For now, only creators can send messages, while followers can emoji react to content and vote in polls.

However, the social media platform will be adding more features soon, such as the ability to collect questions for an AMA via question prompts or bring another creator into the channel to discuss upcoming collabs.

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Channels will also be coming to Facebook and Messenger in the coming months. For now, channels only work on mobile devices.