All Videos Longer Than 15 Minutes Will Be Instagram Reels: Is Meta Forcing You To Make Reels?

Instagram Reels is one of the most popular features that the Meta-owned platform offers. It looks like the social media site is putting all its efforts into Reels considering the new features it has just announced. Simply put, if you're posting a video shorter than 15 minutes, it would go online as Instagram Reels.

New Features For Instagram Reels

"We want everyone to be able to easily express their creative ideas, so we are adding more features that allow you to capture, edit and share them - right from your phone," Instagram said in a blog post. The new Instagram feature will go live pretty soon. This means all your regular videos spanning less than 15 minutes will be considered Reels.

That said, existing videos will show up as regular videos on Instagram. For the same, Instagram has announced several new features that make creating and editing Instagram Reels easier. For instance, users have more options with remixing that can be shared on Stories with other friends and creators.

Users with a public account on Instagram can share their videos and reels to a wider audience, which further boosts the possibility of being visible on the platform. Instagram Reels will also have options like green screen splitting the screen to horizontal or vertical, picture-in-picture reaction, and more.

Additionally, users will also be able to remix public photos. But this has raised a few privacy and safety concerns as there's no consent involved. Users can use public photos of other creators to make their Instagram Reels.

Is Instagram Forcing You To Make Reels?

Over the years, Instagram has expanded from a merely photo-sharing platform to a mega social media channel that competes with TikTok. Presently, there are multiple ways to share your photos/videos on Instagram via Stories, regular posts, videos, or even Reels.

So far, users had the choice between regular video or Reels. It looks like Instagram is now forcing its users to create more Reels and use the platform for content creation. The stiff competition from TikTok could be one of the reasons for this. However, it seems like Instagram is taking away the choice of the user to have an upper hand in the market.