Now all your new Instagram videos are Reels - The Verge
From now on, if you post a public video on Instagram, unless it’s really long, it will become a Reel, and you are just one algorithmic choice away from having a viral moment, which feels more like a TikTok kind of consideration.
Welcome to the new era of Instagram, as it shifts even further into an all-Reels, all-the-time machine to keep users’ short attention spans inside its app instead of TikTok. Other than incentivizing users to create Reels with easier templates to let you react to content and a new Dual feature that records using the front and back camera simultaneously, it has one more shortcut to a wealth of new Reels content: pretty much any video you post on Instagram.
Is your account public, and did you post a video under 90 seconds? Into the Reels suggestion algorithm it goes, playing to whoever Instagram thinks will find it interesting, and it will be fully available for them to Remix and add their own spin to using the built-in content tools.
Instagram: “Video posts are now shared as reels”
Image: Instagram
If you go to post a new video on Instagram, you’ll get this splash screen noting the change.
I wonder if it may surprise any users who have been on Instagram for a while without diving into Reels or treat their content very differently than they would on, say, a public TikTok account. This also applies to Photos in its own way because “[i]n the coming weeks, you will be able to remix public photos.” And on your profile, now videos and Reels are combined under one button.
The Instagram Help Center describes how things work now:
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