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Instagram will start treating most videos as Reels

Instagram will start treating most videos as Reels.

by
Alex Gatewood
July 22, 2022

Image: KnowTechie

The days of Instagram as a photo-sharing app are over as the platform makes major shifts to compete with the likes of TikTok. Now, Instagram will share every video in under 15 minutes as a Reel for better discovery.

In a blog post on the company’s website, Meta recently shared the new way that Instagram will handle video uploads. In addition to the Reels change, the platform will now organize your profile’s Reels and Videos section into a singular tab.

The biggest change comes to uploaded videos that are under 90 seconds long. If you have a public profile and share a 90-second or less video on Instagram, Instagram will automatically throw it into its Reels discovery algorithm to try and reach more users.

instagram reels and videos tab — Image: Meta

And, of course, Instagram treats Reels differently than other videos. Videos with the Reels tag can be Remixed by other users. That lets other people use clips from your Reels to create their own.

Interestingly, the platform also says that Remixing is coming to photos sometime soon as well. Public photos will start to get the Remix feature “in the coming weeks.”

Thankfully, users can turn off Remixing for individual posts or as a whole through their profile settings.

TikTok remains Instagram’s biggest competitor. And the Meta-owned platform has drastically changed its ways to keep young people interested.

Instagram’s focus is no longer on photo-sharing as it uses Reels to try and keep a hold on the young, short attention spans that now flood social media.

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