In a recent blog post, Instagram announced they’d start letting users record and post sixty second videos. The change from 15-seconds to 60-seconds makes sense for the company as they’ve been seeing steady growth in video watching on the platform — the blog post cites 40% growth in video watching over the last six months — and allowing longer videos should help the company nurture that growth rate.
How Does it Work?
Instagram users are already able to record video through the app or post existing video. Allowing longer videos won’t change the recording and posting processes for most users of the mobile apps, but iOS users will be getting an additional feature to make video production easier.
In the same blog post, Instagram also announced that they’d be bringing back the ability to create videos from photos in user galleries, but this feature will only be available to iOS users for now. No word on when Android will get this feature.
Who’s Using Video on Instagram?
While Instagram is primarily thought of as an image sharing platform, video has been popular since day one. The 15-second video limit didn’t stop people from regularly recording and sharing moments from their lives, and there are already some emerging IG video stars like Rachel Ryle and Jeni’s Ice Cream.
Big brands have also been driving video adoption on the platform with companies like GoPro, National Geographic, and Nike regularly posting clips that get millions of views.
How will Instagram Change?
The change in video length is really about Instagram embracing the popularity of videos and making the format more accessible. You can expect to see brands embracing this right away, and popular IG videographers will probably be looking for ways to increase their current programming.
We should see more video from more sources as people that weren’t comfortable with 15-second clips take advantage of the longer format. We should also expect some video from other platforms to start migrating onto Instagram. Producers on YouTube, Twitter and other social networks might decide it’s worth it to edit and repost their content now that they don’t have to chop it into a lot of very small clips.
Probably the biggest noticeable change will be the number of videos that pop-up in user feeds. Depending on who you follow, you might see your feed taken over by video as brands and some power users decide to focus on video over still photos. It’s too early to really know if longer videos will become dominant, but expect brands to be aggressive.
What’s Next?
In Variety’s coverage of the change, they suggest that longer videos are a step toward monetizing videos with ads. This makes sense, considering that Facebook owns Instagram, already offers Instagram advertising through the Facebook Ads platform, and is always looking for new ways to grow ad revenue. There is no way to know when the monetization will occur, but don’t be surprised if pre-roll ads start making an appearance in your feed.
It’s also likely that Instagram will start offering more tools for video editing, especially if popular creators decide they want more flexibility. Instagram might decide to bulk of the capabilities of the main app, or build a separate tool like they did with Layout.
What are your thoughts on Instagram’s decision to allow 60s videos? Please share below.
6 Comments. Leave new
How on earth did Instagram gravitate from image sharing to video sharing is what I am still beginning to comprehend. Its better to remain an image sharing platform in my opinion.
The good news is that more and more people will begin to post videos on Instagram. Expect huge surge also in the number of vidoes we see on feeds.
I have never used Instagram video, mainly because of the 15 sec. limitation. I think Instagram is beginning to crack to hard nut, in order to keep up with being relevant in the social media space.
This makes perfect sense to me. I want full videos like Facebook and Youtube. Period.
I had concerns about Instagram’s 15 seconds videos. It made it hard to post good videos. I thank them listening to the cry of its members.
I am reading this for the first time. Thanks for this information. Now I can even share more exciting videos on our Instagram page. This is what we have been waiting from Instagram for a very long time. I did not think 15 seconds video will make any sense from a video.