Whether or not TikTok will get banned within the U.S. or not, Instagram is actually making a flurry of strikes that seemingly align with making an attempt to current itself as the very best different for customers.
In the present day, Instagram has formally introduced that customers can now create 3-minute Reels within the app, permitting some further time in your short-form masterpieces.
As defined by Instagram chief Adam Mosseri:
“Beginning at present, you’ll be able to add Reels to Instagram as much as three minutes lengthy. Now, traditionally, it’s solely been 90 seconds, and that’s as a result of we’ve needed to focus Instagram on short-form video, not on long-form video. However we’ve heard lots of suggestions from lots of you creators on the market that 90 seconds is simply too quick, so we’re hoping that upping that restrict as much as three minutes will enable you to inform the tales that you simply actually need to inform.”
However hold on, didn’t Instagram simply inform us, like, just a few months in the past that movies longer than 90 seconds is a damaging for content material peformance?
Sure, sure it did:

Actually, Instagram has repeatedly instructed creators that posting longer Reels is a nasty concept, together with this tip that it shared earlier this month:

So, I assume, you’ll be able to publish longer Reels if you need, however you most likely shouldn’t, primarily based on Instagram’s repeated recommendation?
In any occasion, Instagram has been experimenting with longer Reels for a while, with 10-minute Reels even examined with some customers.
So it’s not a brand new idea, whereas it may additionally higher align Reels with TikTok, which permits customers to publish longer movies in-stream. YouTube additionally formally prolonged the size of Shorts to 3 minutes earlier this month, after asserting it final yr, and on this sense, Instagram’s actually simply trying to transfer consistent with the competitors, and allow extra inventive alternative for its customers.
However whether or not it’s best to do it, I don’t know.
All of it comes all the way down to the content material itself, and your viewers, and possibly there’s extra alternative in longer clips than Instagram has beforehand seen.
However the present recommendation from IG is that you simply shouldn’t publish Reels longer than 90 seconds.
However now, you’ll be able to. If you need.