Instagram launches Reels in Kolkata

Mimi Chakratory, Your Bong Guy, Wondermunna, Jeet, Nusrat Jahan and Ritabhari Chakraborty amongst others who have already created their own Instagram Reels

Instagram today announced the extension of the testing of Reels, a new video format, to India. Your Bong Guy and Mimi Chakraborty have become two of the earlier people in India, from Kolkata, to post on this format. Reels offers a new way to create and share short videos on Instagram and aimed at redefining the future of entertainment on the platform.

With over a billion people globally, Instagram is used by people to express themselves, across its many surfaces – Feed, Stories, IGTV and Live. With Reels, people can express themselves while entertaining others, whether that’s by trying out by a fun new dance or spreading the message on something they care about. People can record and edit 15-second multi-clip videos with audio, effects, and new creative tools on Reels, share it with their followers on Feed, and, if they have a public account, make them available to the wider Instagram community through a new space in Explore.

Sharing to Reels in Explore means they may appear there and be visible to a larger audience, especially as more than 50% of accounts on Instagram globally visit Explore every month. Reels in Explore showcases an entertaining selection of reels made by public accounts on Instagram, which may inspire people to create their next reel.

Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India, said, “One of the key pillars of our Facebook India strategy is unleashing expression for the country. With the rise in video consumption across the country, and videos making up for over a third of posts on the platform in India, Instagram has a big role to play. People across the big and small cities of India come to Instagram to express themselves safely, and also be entertained. Reels gives people the ability to create short form content, with new video editing tools, and be a creator on a global stage.”

Your Bong Guy, being one of the early users of Reels, shared his experience “I was excited to be amongst the first few in Kolkata to try out Instagram Reels. I always shared a lot of my content on Instagram, and now it seems I can make and share a lot more entertaining short form Bengali content on the platform. This will be fun!”

The feature was rolled out in India earlier this week, and has already been used by popular public figures and creators such as Mimi Chakraborty, Jeet, Nusrat JahanYour Bong Guy, Indrani Biswas aka Wondermunna, RJ Praveen, Kirti Bhoutika, Sandy Saha, Ritabhari Chakraborty, Rupam Islam, Priyanka Sarkar, Koel Mullick, Rituparna Sengupta, Abir, Tridha Choudhury amongst others.

While this is a test, Instagram is committed to getting the experience right and will continue to learn and build as India creates and shares Reels. To see all the Reels from India on the day of launch, do follow #FeelitReelit.

To create a Reel:

Select Reels at the bottom of the Instagram camera. You’ll see a variety of creative editing tools on the left side of your screen that you can use to create your reel, including:

• Audio: Search for a song from the Instagram music library for your reel. You can also use your own original audio by simply recording a reel with it.
• AR Effects: Select one of the many effects in our AR library, created by both Instagram, and creators all over the world, to record multiple clips with different effects
• Timer and Countdown: Set the timer to record any of your clips hands-free.
• Align: Line up objects from your previous clip before recording your next, which helps for seamless transitions like outfit changes or adding new friends into your reel.
• Speed: Choose to speed up or slow down part of the video or audio you selected which helps you stay on a beat or make slow motion videos.

To share a Reel:

With Reels, you can share with your followers and may be discovered by the huge, diverse Instagram community on Explore.

• If you have a Public Account: You can share your reel to a dedicated space in Explore, where it has the chance to be seen and discovered by the wider Instagram community. You can also share to Feed so your followers can see your reel. When you share reels featuring certain songs, hashtags, or effects, your reel may also appear on dedicated pages whenever someone clicks on that song, hashtag, or effect.
• If you have a Private Account: You can share to Feed so your followers can see your reel

To watch Reels:

Reels in Explore is a new space to enjoy reels created by the diverse community on Instagram. Discover your new favorite comedian, inspiring advocate, trending dance, or beauty trend in a vertical feed customized for you. If you enjoy a reel, you can easily like, comment or share it with your friends.