“The ability to create longer Stories posts comes highly requested by our community,” the company told Social Media Today. “We’re excited to be testing 60-second Stories so that people can create and view Stories with fewer interruptions.”
This is the latest in a series of changes being rolled out by the meta-owned social media platform in a bid to compete with its main rival TikTok.
In July Instagram increased the maximum length of its Reels format from 30 to 60 seconds and in October it integrated all video content into a single format called Instagram Video, replacing the previous IGTV format.
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told Decoder in an interview earlier this year: “We’re looking about how we can - not just with IGTV, but across all of Instagram - simplify and consolidate ideas, because last year we placed a lot of new bets. I think this year we have to go back to our focus on simplicity and craft.”
Comparing Instagram’s Reels with its competitor TikTok he said, “I’m not yet happy with it.”
“We’re growing both in terms of how much people are sharing and how much people are consuming, but we have a long way to go,” he said. “We have to be honest that TikTok is ahead.”
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