The Federal Reserve on Monday announced it is opening accounts on Instagram and Threads in an effort to engage with a broader swath of the population and promote information about the agency.
The aim of launching the two profiles is “increasing the accessibility and availability of Board news and educational content,” the Fed said in a press release announcing the move.
“Instagram posts generally will include photos, videos, frequently asked questions and answers, economic education content and more,” it added. “Posts on Threads will include press releases, speeches, testimony, reports and all other content that is regularly posted on the Board’s X account, formerly known as Twitter.”
Apart from X, the Fed already has accounts on Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn. It still, however, doesn’t have a profile on TikTok, the platform owned by Chinese company ByteDance that has come under fire over national security concerns related to its ties to Beijing.
The Fed Instagram account’s first post was a reel that featured Chair Jerome Powell describing the Fed’s mission and promising to continue sharing material explaining how the Fed’s decisions affect everyday Americans.
Two subsequent posts included photos of Powell’s visit to York, Pennsylvania, alongside Patrick Harker, the head of Philadelphia’s Reserve Bank, to meet with local business owners and others who shared their concerns about inflation and high operating costs.
During his visit, Powell said many of the challenges facing the U.S. economy, including staff shortages in health care, are tied to the response to the COVID-19 crisis.
“We are still coming through the other side of the pandemic,” he said, according to Reuters.
Powell did not make any mention of the steps the Fed is planning in regard to monetary policy but officials have indicated they expect interest rates to stay high for quite a while to curb inflation.
“Inflation continues to be too high, and I expect it will likely be appropriate for the (Fed) to raise rates further and hold them at a restrictive level for some time,” Fed Governor Michelle Bowman told a banking conference Monday, Reuters reported.