Instagram Live and Your Disappearing Content

So Instagram has been taking a lot of queues from one of it’s main competitors in the fight to keep users interested. Earlier Instagram stories was introduced – can you say SnapChat – and now Instagram Live is coming. Well, for some parts of the world it’s here, but for us in the UAE, we are still waiting for this particular functionality to become available on our phones. Unless anyone can prove that completely incorrect. If you do have it on your phone, would love to hear from you and how you are using it.

Instagram has seen continued growth with over 600 million active monthly users. Over 60% of them log in daily, making Instagram the second most engaged network after Facebook and a staggering 30% of internet users are on Instagram. Here in the UAE and GCC region, the growth of Instagram and SnapChat users has far superseded global trending patterns with massive growth spikes on both channels.

Unlike Facebook Live but similar to Snap Stories – once you finish broadcasting your Live video, the content disappears. There’s no way to reply it or see it again. This also follows in the footsteps of anonymous chat apps like Confide, where once you have uncovered the message, it’s gone!

Unfortunately, as we have seen plenty of times in the past, disappearing content doesn’t alway disappear completely. It still resides on servers and it won’t be long before another app allows you to record your Instagram Live videos and then share them across other social media channels.

For those of you already on Facebook Live, you’ll know that one of the good and bad things is the ability for people to comment on your video. It’s great for engagement but if you are trying to make a point or get through some content, it can be really distracting. Especially if the comments are either full of praise, or perhaps there are a couple of trolls on the video making it hard to concentrate on what you want to say. Instagram Live has a great little function that differentiates it and that is the ability to switch comments off on the broadcast. That way you can really make your point and then open the floor to questions, comments or heckling!

Whilst live video is incredibly powerful, it’s yet another way into our private lives and our private information if we are not careful. With live there are no do overs, so if you say it, or do it and people are watching. That’s out there, and you can’t take it back. So always remember you are ‘Live’ – think about what you are saying and what you are doing. Here’s a couple of top safety tips to bear in mind once you get your hands on Instagram Live.

Safety Tips for Live Streaming

• Never give out personal information. Things like your home address and telephone number are a No No.
• Within your live broadcast you can be giving away lots of small clues, which when put together can add up to a lot of information. Things like what your house looks like, its street name, your car number plate, what event or location you’re at, even a letter in the background might let someone pick up personal information.
• When live broadcasting remember to disable your location. Then the location you’re broadcasting from can’t be picked up by random ‘friends’.
• Children and young people do broadcast alone from within their bedroom. This can be a major concern regarding privacy for them and the family, so it’s important rules and boundaries are in place for videoing in the home.