With Instagram expanding its 90-second Reels test to more users, users will have more time to film their Reels videos.
Some users are now seeing the ability to make Reels up to a minute and a half long, as shown in this example submitted by Jonah Manzano (and shared by Matt Navarra), giving you an extra 30 seconds on top of the current 60-second maximum.
Longer Reels were first tested in February, and various users have subsequently seen the option appear in the app. When we asked if this upgrade is being rolled out to all users, Instagram told us that it is currently under testing and that there is no official plan for a wider rollout at this time.
Instagram’s video products are now being re-aligned around the Reels format, with Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri stating back in December that:
“We’re going to focus even more on video and combine all of our video formats under Reels,” says the company.
When Instagram announced the larger unification of its video products in October, it discontinued the IGTV brand, and it makes sense for the platform to make Reels longer as well, in order to better blend its different video offers into a single content stream.
Here are the best Instagram apps for PC.
It’s also worth mentioning that, according to Meta’s most recent earnings call, Reels currently accounts for more than 20% of all time spent on Instagram, demonstrating the format’s appeal – despite the fact that it’s a straight duplicate of TikTok.
The next step will be to shorten all video uploads (users may still upload video clips up to an hour-long through the post composer), which will bring everything into better alignment and make the next stage of Instagram’s content shift easier to navigate.
Which will likely be this:
#Instagram is working on a full immersive feed 👀 pic.twitter.com/zTXVpH4C6n
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) March 25, 2022
It’s also worth noting that Instagram removed its in-stream video ad placements option earlier this month, which fits in with the company’s broader push to compress video content and convert all of its content into a full-screen, immersive, TikTok-like feed, aligning with emerging habitual behaviors.
Instagram hasn’t revealed anything about the next stage, but it appears to be the obvious conclusion, which will be a significant change for the app, but one that makes sense.
Longer Reels is another step in this direction, and while it is not yet available to everyone, it will be gradually made available to more users over time.