Posting Video on Instagram

Instagram is enjoying a huge popularity right now, and it has recently improved its support for video footage. You now get to showcase 60 seconds of video maximum, square format of course, and it is a real challenge to put together content that fits those constraints.

I decided to create some video snippet adverts for longer videos i have posted to Vimeo and YouTube already. This Instagram video called “Dreadbox Love” is my first attempt.

You can not specify a thumbnail, something I only realised after posting my video, and you can not edit or update the video file afterwards, something else I only realised after posting my video!

And how you post the video is itself a bit of a trial. The only support for video uploads is via the Instagram app, so it can not be done easily from a Windows PC. This is a shame because it is a Windows PC that I use to create and process all my video content. The route I have taken to post videos to Instagram is to use DropBox: I upload my finished video to DropBox from my PC, then access DropBox from my smartphone, and from there export the video to Instagram. It’s a tortuous route but it just about works. I have no idea why Instagram make it so difficult to upload content to their platform, seems very counter intuitive, but that’s just me!