Instagram @mentions wise up to Twitter

The next time you tag an Instagram friend in a filtered photo and share it to Twitter, you can rest assured that behind the scenes the photo-sharing entity is automatically figuring out the tagged party’s Twitter name so that he or she is properly mentioned on the information network as well.

The Facebook-owned property made a tiny improvement to its service Friday that better connects its service to Twitter. Now, Instagram matches and translates Instagram people tags to Twitter @mentions when the usernames are not the same.

“It can be cumbersome sharing a photo to Twitter and @mentioning someone whose Twitter username is different from their Instagram username. Today, we’ve rolled out a change that will make sharing to Twitter more seamless,” the company said in a blog post.

Here’s how it works: When an Instagram user mentions a person with a connected Twitter account, that person’s Instagram username is included in the photo caption, but the person’s proper Twitter username will go out in the tweet.

Conversely, Instagram extracts the “@” symbol from the tweet when the mentioned party has not connected his or her account to the photo-sharing app.

In the big scheme of things, smarter mentions are a minor addition to Instagram’s service, though they do promise to rectify the occasionally confusing situation that occurs when an Instagram photo mention makes its way to the information network with the wrong Twitter name included.

Photo credit: VinothChandar/Flickr