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Unsurprisingly, Instagram announced that Reels will be extended from 30 seconds to 60 seconds on July 27, 2021, via their official Twitter account.

Reels. up to 60 secs. starting today. pic.twitter.com/pKWIqtoXU2

— Instagram (@instagram) July 27, 2021

This is not the first time that Reels has been extended. It was initially at 15 seconds and was extended at 30 seconds. Take note that TikTok already launched its 3-minute videos and Youtube Shorts are at 60 seconds, too. So, following the trend is not really surprising for Instagram.

In addition to this, Instagram already enabled longer videos in its other elements: for regular feeds, videos can be up to 60 seconds. IG Stories enables 15-second snippets. And up to 60-minute videos on IGTV.

So, users are already looking forward to this extension.

This gives users more room for creativity and more room for social media cross-postings. Users can now create longer videos and repurpose that clip by uploading to TikTok and Youtube and to Instagram, too.

(If you want to cross-post, make sure to leave any watermarked clip behind as Instagram will penalize your reach if it happens.)

Now that Instagram is also experimenting with a TikTok-like vertical feed, we can already foresee where it's going - users can upload different videos, edit them, then put them together.

But until then, users still have the longer Instagram Reels to be happy about.