Instagram has just announced that it is allowing its users to now reshare their Live videos to their story. This is important, as it fixes one of the major issues that the company had with live video. Which was the fact that once the live video had concluded, it was basically gone forever. Which is a stark difference from the way it works on Facebook, where the live video is available for playback at anytime. This change does make it easier for those that missed a live video on Instagram, of course, that is if users want to reshare it to their story.
The way this works, is now when you finish your live video, you will see a button to share the video to your story. It will tell you that the video will be part of your story for the next 24 hours, so those that missed it live can watch it. Of course, users don’t need to reshare it, they can simply tap on “discard” and it’ll be gone forever, like it normally is. This isn’t a huge change, but it is one that will get more people into watching and interacting with video, especially if they aren’t around when the video got started. That’s actually a pretty big deal.
Instagram Live has been pretty popular for the photo sharing service. It has allowed the company to get more users into video, which means more ad dollars. That’s a big reason why companies like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have been working hard to get more users into using and interacting with video. As video ads are more expensive than regular ads. It also means that users are spending more time on the site to begin with, which is a bit factor for advertisers when they look at how many ads they want to place, and which platforms they decide to use, etc. So while this is basically all for bringing in more money (Instagram does need to keep its shareholders happy), it does also bring in more features for users to interact with each other and people around the world. Which is something unique that only social media has been able to do so far.