Big changes are coming to Instagram Stories

Image: instagram You can now do a lot more with Instagram Stories. In an effort to increase engagement with the feature, the photo app added tagging, links and Boomerang support to Stories in an update rolling out Thursday. With the update, users can tag accounts within their Stories just like they'd tag accounts in a photo or video post. Interestingly, unlike photo tagging, being tagged in a Story will notify you within a direct message with the person who tagged you (if a friend tags you in a normal photo post, the notification will appear in your main activity feed.) Instagram is also adding the ability to link to web pages within Story posts — for verified account holders. (Instagram says this feature is for verified accounts only for now since it's still a test but that could change at some point in the future.) Image: instagram Finally, the app is integrating Boomerang — Instagram's app for one-second videos — directly into Stories. Instagram is hoping these features will help users build "deeper connections" and "tell a richer story," says product manager Nathan Sharp. More broadly, the company is also likely looking to boost engagement with the feature, which has been more successful than other efforts the company has made to copy Snapchat's feature of the same name. Facebook is also testing multiple Snapchat-like camera features in its main app as well as a new standalone app in Brazil.