Making Donation Easier With The New Instagram Feature

Ilustrasi Instagram (Image by USA-Reiseblogger from Pixabay)

JAKARTA - Instagram continues to help people and business people affected by COVID-19. Through its new Live Donations feature, Instagram users can open fundraisers and channel them directly to the selected organizations.

"Many people are facing challenges today, and we want to do our part to support the non-profit organizations and communities that need it most. Now, you can easily create a Live fundraiser with 100 percent of the money raised directly to the non-profit organization of your choice," wrote Instagram in its official statement compiled from TechCrunch, Wednesday, April 29.

Live donation feature on Instagram (Twitter @Instagram)

The reach of donations through this new feature is quite wide, because Instagram has worked on top of Facebook's donation infrastructure. So there are more than one million non-profit organizations and many people who have joined.

To use the Live Donations feature, users can tap the camera on the top left of the Instagram page or simply slide the screen to the left. Then, tap 'Live' at the bottom of the screen, select “Fundraiser” and select the non-profit organization you want to support.

During live IG, users can see directly the fundraising process in real time. Users can also tap 'View' to see more details of the raise, including individual contributions, if they want to give them a thank you note, users can tap "Wave."

Users who have raised funds, made donations, or used the "Donations" sticker in the Story will get a free sticker created by illustrator from Brasjl @leonatsume.

These stickers can be used in Stories to raise awareness of other users to participate in fundraising. Later, the user's Story with these stickers will be combined into a Story together with other people they follow, who also contributed, and can be found on the front row on the Story homepage.

Today, we shared a new way to feel directly connected with someone over video - and announced new product updates across @messenger @facebookapp @instagram @whatsapp @facebookgaming and @portalfacebook (🧵) pic.twitter.com/EeVoJMysC6

- Facebook (@Facebook) April 24, 2020

Instagram says it has seen an increase in the use of its Live feature during the pandemic, which saw a 70 percent increase as users turned to the platform to entertain bored people at home and provide other information.

Social media platforms are one of the ways that people are connected during the pandemic, even the previously bubbling IGTV platform Instagram saw a tremendous boost with the service's daily users rising 48 percent month over month, and mid-March to mid-April.

As previously known, this new Live Donations feature was released after TikTok launched a donation feature that works both on its video feed and live stream. Even so, Instagram Live Donations are certainly different from TikTok.

The reason is, TikTok only supported a few charities at the launch, while Facebook said the Live Donations feature on Instagram could be used to create fundraisers with more than one million non-profit organizations.