Instagram Live Stories officially lands in the UK

The image and video sharing site wants to encourage its community to post content "in the moment," and to broadcast in real-time users simply need to swipe the Stories camera icon at the top of the app and toggle into 'Live' mode.

As seen in the picture above, live content will be showcased within Instagram's Discover tab which suggests content to users based on their viewing history and preferences.

Videos will disappear the second the broadcast ends rather than being saved to the app setting it apart from Facebook's Live function which saves videos long after they are first shot.

As with Facebook, viewers can react to the live-stream with comments and once live subscribers can pin comments for everyone to see or them off altogether.

At the time of launch last year Instagram product boss Kevin Weil told Re/code that the new feature was designed to make Instagram more personal rather than providing an alternative to traditional TV. He also confirmed that unlike Facebook, Instagram won't partner with brands or celebrities to encourage people to use its live product.

Just last week, Instagram revealed the first ad formats for its Stories section of the app, announcing it had already courted Asos, Nike and Airbnb as some of the first of 30 advertisers to get on board.

The company has said that 150 million people use Stories, the launch of which was inspired by rival Snapchat's own Stories section, each day. It added that brands have proved to be popular on Stories, with one third of the most viewed videos coming from businesses.

From today, the full Live experience will also be available in Germany, France, Brazil, Canada and Japan.