Instagram Changes Mean You Can Think Outside the Box

Good news for all you photographers out there: you no longer have to spend time worrying about how to crop your images for Instagram, because the app now supports both landscape and portrait photos and videos. While you can still post square-cropped images, the choice is yours.

Converting your videos to a different format is easy. In iOS and Android Instagram apps, you’ll see a small icon with two arrows in the lower left-hand corner of your image. When you tap the icon, your video will resize to landscape or portrait, depending on your video’s orientation.

The update also allows you to use the same filters for both images and video, meaning any Instagram filter can be used on anything you upload.

So what does that mean for your Instagram marketing strategy? Your images and videos can look exactly how you intend them to, without resorting to third-party apps or creative editing to get the look you want.

A video posted by Animoto (@animoto) on Sep 1, 2015 at 1:56pm PDT

So the next time you make a video, here’s how you can create an Instagram edit for it too:

• Take a few of your favorite images from the longer video.
• Speed up the video’s pacing to fit into Instagram’s 15-second time limit.
• Make sure your video is no more than 15 seconds long.

If you need help learning how to upload video to Instagram, check out Ana Brandt‘s quick tutorial that shows you what you need to know. And if you’d like more info on how to create your own video, take a look at our Instagram FAQs.

Let us know if the changes to Instagram are changing your video marketing strategy below in the comments, or head over to Animoto’s Video Marketing Challenge page to share your Instagram videos with other photographers.