Instagram continues to lean into more enclosed group sharing, this time via a new option that enables you to share a Story with multiple group lists at once, so you can better curate who sees your updates.

As you can see in this example, shared by Instagram chief Adam Mosseri (via his Instagram Channel), in addition to your “Close Friends” list, which has been available as a sharing option since 2018, Instagram will now also display other lists that you’ve created, so you can share your content with selected groups.

So rather than public posting, you can feed your updates into your more enclosed group pods. And given that Instagram users now share way more content via DMs than they do in their feed, or via Stories, it’s a logical way to feed into that more intimate type of engagement.

Instagram also recently added the capacity to share feed posts with Close Friends only, providing another way to facilitate more enclosed group engagement.

Over time, the way that people use social apps is evolving, and as the novelty of public posting wears off, people are increasingly turning to their social feeds primarily for content discovery, which they can then feed into their group engagement.

As such, this is another step to align with that shift, and maximize IG engagement.

And for brands, it could provide another way to segment your audience, and provide more specific updates to users based on their interests. You can add up to 250 people to an IG group, and while it would take more work to set up, that could provide a way to deliver more relevant Stories updates to specific audience subsets.

The new option to share Stories into multiple groups is being rolled out to all users from today.