Instagram isn’t holding back on coming changes to its service. As you more than likely know by now, the company recently announced that it will change the way it orders posts in users’ feeds. No longer will posts simply appear in chronological order. Rather, Instagram will show users the posts they think they’ll care about most first.
On Tuesday, Instagram announced that users will soon be able to share videos up to sixty seconds in length. In the past, fifteen seconds has been the limit.
“We want to bring you fun, flexible and creative ways to create and watch video on Instagram,” the company said in a blog post. “As part of our continued commitment, you’ll soon have the flexibility to tell your story in up to 60 seconds of video. This is one step of many you’ll see this year.”
In the last six months, the time people spent watching video increased by more than 40 percent,” it added. “And longer videos mean more diverse stories from the accounts you love, whether it’s Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) hanging out with friends or beauty star Bretman Rock’s (@bretmanrock) latest makeup tutorial.”
Longer videos will begin rolling out today, but it sounds like it’s going to be a slow roll-out. The company says everyone will be able to use them in the coming months.
In February, Instagram began rolling out sixty-second video ads to marketers.
The company told us in an email, “We recognize that advertisers have a variety of creative resources and want to bring more choice to help them reach their business goals.”
Instagram also introduced video view counts in February, which it said would extend to ads as well. The counts will appear beneath videos. It’s considered a view when the user has seen it for at least three seconds. According to Facebook and Nielsen, up to 47% of the value in a video campaign is delivered in the first three seconds.
“This is a long requested feature in our community and video views help share the depth of engagement videos receive,” the spokesperson told us.
On iOS, Instagram is bringing back the ability to make videos out of multiple clips from your camera roll. This will be available this week as part of the new Instagram update for iOS, version 7.19. They didn’t mention the feature for Android.
Video has been a major focus of Instagram parent company Facebook, and with its new Oculus Rift shipping to consumers and supporting Facebook 360 videos, I won’t be surprised to see Instagram-related announcements having to do with that as well.
And in terms of the new Instagram algorithmic feed, I also won’t be surprised to see videos playing a role in the ranking there. We know Facebook’s feed loves them.
Image via Instagram