Instagram is expanding beyond short vertical clips with a broader video strategy designed to make the platform a destination for social entertainment on both phones and televisions. The company is developing episodic Reels, TV-focused viewing features and smartphone remote controls as it seeks to challenge YouTube’s dominance in long-form video.
Instagram is building a longer-form video experience
“We believe that entertainment and creativity aren’t limited to a three-minute video,” Tessa Lyons, Instagram’s vice president of product, told WIRED. She said the company wants to overhaul Instagram video and create “the best place for social entertainment.”
The strategy reflects a broader shift in online viewing, as social media platforms increasingly resemble streaming services and more people watch longer videos on large screens.
Instagram is also expanding creator tools that turn Reels into episodic content. The feature, called “Series,” is already available to some creators in the app and is being tested for television viewing.
“We want to be able to say, ‘Reese loved Episode 3,’ so as soon as Episode 4 comes out, we have to make sure Reese sees it,” Lyons said. The feature is intended to help Instagram recommend new episodes to viewers who have already shown interest in a series.
TV viewing and social discovery
Instagram is focusing on how people watch videos on television. The company is exploring ways to make the TV experience more social, including tabs that show connections what other people are watching. It also plans to turn smartphones into remote controls for TV viewing.
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Lessons from IGTV
Lyons believes the new video-focused approach avoids one of IGTV’s central mistakes. IGTV was Instagram’s previous attempt to support broader video content, but many viewers struggled with its vertical-only format and tried to rotate their screens.
IGTV failed to connect with users, in part because it allowed only vertical videos. Meta discontinued the app a few years after its release in 2018.
Connecting short clips with full episodes
Instagram’s latest changes build on its strengths as a clips platform while challenging YouTube’s dominance on television. Short clips of people sitting behind podcast microphones have become widespread across social media, and many creators use them to increase visibility. WIRED’s own podcast now also records video for social media clips.
Instagram is positioning itself as a single path from discovery to fandom. Instead of viral clips and long-form content living on separate platforms, users could encounter Myrick’s medical rant in the morning, open Instagram on a TV later that night and receive a prompt to stream a full podcast episode.
“What we’re seeing now is that a lot of great short-form content is vertical, and a lot of great long-form content is horizontal. We have the design challenge of finding a way to make all of this work together in one product,” Lyons said.
“TV will be the best place to watch long-form horizontal content, and mobile will be the best place to discover that content.”
Source: www.wired.com