Instagram turns Reels into trailers for full episodes

On October 26, 2026, Instagram began testing Features, a long horizontal video format, with some videos running up to 90 minutes. The length isn't the point. The link is: up to 8 Reels attach to one long video, and each short clip becomes a trailer for the full episode. Viewers can finish the episode on their TV. This changes the most for podcasters, interviewers, vloggers and hosts of educational shows. For now only some creators in the US and Brazil have access, but you can start shooting for the new setup today. Below I explain how, how many clips one episode yields, and where the money comes from.

What Instagram launched on October 26, 2026, and how Features differs from Reels

Features is long horizontal video inside Instagram. Instagram head Adam Mosseri and VP of Product Tessa Lyons presented it in a video of about 6.5 minutes. According to Variety, the company is testing different length limits, including videos up to 90 minutes.

Until now Reels was Instagram's main video format: a short vertical clip made for phones, watched in an endless feed and sent between friends. Features works the other way. A horizontal picture, like on YouTube or TV, and the length of a full podcast episode or interview.

Instagram will show long videos in the regular feed and in Explore. Explore is where recommendations come from creators the viewer doesn't follow. There's no separate tab you have to go to specifically for long video. That's an important detail, and I'll come back to it in the section on IGTV.

Why Instagram came back to long video after shutting down IGTV

This is attempt number 2. Attempt number 1 was IGTV: Instagram kept it running from 2018 to 2021, then removed both the feature and its standalone app. Back then long video lived apart from the main feed, and you had to go there on purpose. Few people did.

In the announcement Mosseri admitted he had long been against long video. His argument was simple: short Reels drive more shares and DMs, which is what holds Instagram together as a place for conversation. You don't forward a 90-minute interview to a friend.

What changed in 5 years? Television. On October 23, 2026, 3 days before the Features announcement, the Instagram for TV app came out. More on it below. And the link to Reels: long video no longer hides in a separate app. It gets picked up by a short clip that already brings in reach.

Mosseri said "We're very committed to it long term" and immediately cautioned that refining the format would likely take some time. Whether to trust a promise when the caveat next to it already sounds like an exit is up to you. For me it's enough that the company shipped a TV app for the format at the same time. That costs more than testing a button.

How Reels and Features connect: Clips as Reels, Series, live streams and TV

The news has 4 parts, and each one on its own changes how creators publish video.

1. 2018IGTV launches
2. 2021IGTV and its app shut down
3. 23.10.2026Instagram for TV on Apple TV, Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung
4. 26.10.2026Features announced, small test in the US

Who the Features test affects and who it doesn't

The format is built for genres where people are willing to sit for an hour: podcasts, interviews, vlogs, educational shows, stand-up. Right now only creators with individual agreements with Meta can make long videos, mainly comedians and podcasters. Features was first tested with some creators in Brazil, and a small test in the US began on October 26, 2026. Over the coming months Instagram promises to expand it to tens of thousands of creators in the US. The company hasn't said when the format will launch worldwide.

Who isn't directly affected: creators of short entertainment clips, shops with 20-second product reviews, people who run Instagram as a photo storefront. Only one thing changes for them. Horizontal episodes and clips with a "Watch full video" button show up in the feed and in Explore, so there's more competition for the viewer's attention.

One note for creators whose audience is in Russia: Meta is banned there, people reach Instagram only through VPNs, and Russian brands have been barred from advertising on it since September 1, 2025, so at best Features will work as a clip showcase while full episodes stay on YouTube.

Brands can come at the format from two sides. They can buy integrations from podcasters who get access. Or they can shoot their own long video and cut clips from it. The marketing agency Puritano walks through a branded documentary scenario for Features. A 90-minute documentary for a brand sounds bold. A 20-minute documentary plus 8 clips from it sounds like a plan, and here it is step by step.

Shooting plan for a branded documentary for Features

1. A 20-minute horizontal film about production: how the product is made, who makes it, where things break and how they get fixed. A viewer who came from a clip will sit through 20 minutes, and the brand doesn't spend its budget on 90 minutes of footage.
2. Shoot 16:9, but keep people closer to the center of the frame. A 9:16 vertical gets cut from every scene later, and a person at the edge of the frame won't make it into the clip.
3. During the shoot, mark 8 points for Clips as Reels: a timecode and one line about what the fragment is about. Each of the 8 clips leads to the full film through the "Watch full video" button.
4. End every clip on a cliffhanger: show a hard stage of production beginning and stop before the result. If clips run 30 seconds each, 8 clips take up 4 minutes of 20. That's 20% of the film, and the viewer sees the other 80% only in the full video.
5. Burn in subtitles in advance, in both the film and the clips. Features has no automatic subtitles.
6. Plan for distribution through the feed and Explore, where people who don't follow the brand see the film and the clips. People finish watching on TV through Instagram for TV: Apple TV, Fire TV, Google TV and Samsung TVs. So the picture and sound have to hold up on a big screen, not just a phone.

The money in this setup doesn't come from the platform. Instagram has no ongoing ad revenue share for long videos, and the brand pays for production itself. A brand documentary is a promotion expense that pays off in awareness and sales, not in payouts from Instagram.

And the main limitation: right now only creators with individual agreements with Meta can make Features. Most brands don't have that access. So for a brand without access, the realistic route is releasing the film through a podcaster or creator already in the test. The brand shoots or pays for the material, and the creator posts it as a long video with 8 clips. That's the route I'd take: the creator's audience is already used to watching long episodes from them, and a brand profile starting from zero won't give you that habit.

What's confirmed about Features and what isn't

There's a lot of retelling around the format, and some of it passes off wishes as announcements. I put into a table what Mosseri, Lyons and company representatives actually said, and what remains open.

How to prepare for Features without access to the test

Most people don't have access, and Instagram hasn't opened a public application form. But the format doesn't rest on a button. It rests on how the material is shot. You can prepare at the shooting and editing stage right now, and that groundwork will pay off even if the test reaches your country a year from now. Here's the order I'd do it in:

1. Shoot horizontally, 16:9, but keep people closer to the center of the frame. A 9:16 vertical gets cut from the horizontal later, and if the guest sits at the edge, all that's left of them in the clip is a shoulder.
2. Add another camera or a close-up for each speaker. A vertical clip with one face looks better than a narrow strip with 2 faces.
3. Mark moments during the recording: the time and one line about the fragment. The target per episode is 8 marks, exactly as many clips as Instagram lets you attach to one video.
4. Edit each clip as a complete thought with a cliffhanger. The opening hooks, the middle delivers the point, the end stops where you want to know what's next. Then the viewer has a reason to tap "Watch full video."
5. Burn subtitles into the long version and the clips. Features has no automatic subtitles, and without them some people in the feed will just scroll past.
6. Group recurring segments into series: one title, an episode number, the same cover. Then there's almost nothing to migrate when Series arrives.
7. Go through your archive on YouTube and other platforms. Mark episodes that haven't gone stale in a year as candidates for moving over, and cut 8 clips from each in advance.
8. Check the rights. If a guest agreed to publication on YouTube, it's better to confirm Instagram with them too, especially if the episode had a sponsor.

I think the archive point is the most underrated. A podcaster with 2 years of episodes is sitting on ready material that nobody on Instagram has seen. Cut 8 clips per episode, and on the day access opens they'll have 50 full episodes and 400 clips to go with them. Not an empty profile and panic.

Example: one hour-long podcast becomes 32 Reels a month

Take a podcast that comes out once a week, with episodes running 60 minutes. That's 4 episodes a month.

Instagram lets you attach up to 8 Reels to each episode. 4 episodes at 8 clips each gives 32 Reels a month, roughly one a day without a single separate shoot. Before, that volume of short video would have meant a separate content plan.

If each clip runs 60 seconds, 8 clips take up 8 minutes of 60. That's 13% of the episode. For a 90-minute episode, the same 8 minutes is under 9%. The viewer can see the remaining 87% and 91% only in the full video, and that's the whole calculation: the trailer shows a piece, but doesn't retell everything.

Next, the weekly layout. The episode drops on Monday, and the 2 strongest clips go out the same day. The other 6 are spread across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 2 per day. Friday, Saturday and Sunday stay free for a live stream, Stories and archive clips. Each of the 32 monthly clips leads by button to its own full episode, and if the segment is set up as a series, a new viewer can get from any clip back to the beginning.

Why not all 8 clips on release day? Instagram shows clips not only to followers but also in Explore. 8 clips at once compete with each other for the same viewer. Spread over a week, they reach different people and keep the episode alive longer. That's reasoning, not a promise from the algorithm: the company hasn't explained how Instagram will rank linked clips.

How to measure clicks from Reels to Features and compare with YouTube

The announcement didn't describe how Instagram will show long video completion in analytics. So you'll have to count yourself, and it's better to settle on metrics before the episode comes out than to fit them afterward.

Here's what I'd track:

• views of each of the 8 clips separately;
• views of the full episode, especially in the first days, while most traffic comes from clips;
• conversion rate: full episode views divided by the sum of clip views;
• which clip drives the most people to the full episode: repeat its topic and opening in future episodes;
• average watch time of the full episode.

Comparing with YouTube is tempting, and it's easy to fool yourself. YouTube Studio has an "Audience retention" report showing what share of viewers stays at each minute of a video. On YouTube a person often arrives from search or recommendations and picked the episode by its title. On Instagram they came from a clip, meaning they already watched a piece and decided to continue. These are different viewers, and comparing their averages head to head is wrong.

It's better to compare the shape of the curve on the same episode. Where viewers leave on YouTube, where they leave on Instagram. If on Instagram the drop comes right after the fragment shown in the clip, the person came for that piece, got it and left. That's not a bad episode. That's a clip that gave away too much.

For the first 2 months I'd keep a plain spreadsheet: episode, 8 clips, views of each, full video views, conversion rate. You can't decide anything from one episode. From 8 episodes, which is 64 clips, you can already see which openings work.

Why Features revenue is counted from brands

This is the main difference between Instagram and YouTube. YouTube has an ongoing ad revenue share with creators of long videos. According to YouTube's official blog, a creator in the Partner Program gets 55% of ad revenue on long videos and 45% on Shorts. Instagram has no such ongoing scheme for long videos yet. Mosseri said it plainly: on Instagram "you primarily get paid by brands."

That gives you a simple rule. You can't plan Features income as a share of Instagram ad revenue, because that line doesn't exist in the budget. Count from integrations: how many brands will pay for a mention in the episode and in the clips.

And here Features has an ace. Before, a brand bought either one post or one mention in an episode from a podcaster. Now you can sell a package: an integration in the full video plus presence in some of the 8 clips that circulate in the feed and Explore for a week.

I'd sell the package, not the episode. The pitch to the brand is simple math. A mention in the episode is seen by people who watched up to it. A mention in 3 clips out of 8 is seen by everyone scrolling the feed, including those who never made it to the full video.

The flip side: if the integration is in every clip, the clips turn into ads, and people don't get to the full episode. The brand doesn't need that, and you need it even less. 2 or 3 placements out of 8, the rest of the clips clean.

The pitfalls of long video on Instagram

Here's what creators who get into the format early will trip over if they don't think ahead:

• The test could be shut down. IGTV lived from 2018 to 2021. Mosseri promises long-term support, but he himself says the format will keep being refined. Keeping full episodes only on Instagram is risky; the archive needs to live somewhere else too.
• Subtitles by hand. Features has no automatic subtitles. An hour of video without subtitles, in a feed where many people watch with the sound off, loses viewers at the start.
• Vertical cropping. A horizontal shot made without clips in mind cuts badly: people at the edges, graphics outside the vertical window.
• A clip that retells the whole episode. Then there's no reason to tap "Watch full video." A clip should deliver the point of one idea, not the whole story.
• Unclear analytics. How Instagram will show completion and clicks hasn't been announced. Keep your own spreadsheet from day one.
• No money from the platform. There's no ongoing ad revenue share. A creator waiting for Instagram payouts on long video will wait a long time.
• Access by agreement. Right now Features goes to creators with individual agreements with Meta. Buying courses on "how to get Features access" is pointless: the company hasn't published any open eligibility requirements.

Where the Features test goes next

My bet is that the format stays and expands. Here's why. The company released a TV app on 4 platforms 3 days before the announcement, and you don't do that for a month-long experiment. The US test is promised to grow to tens of thousands of creators. Series and live streams in the Reels feed are launching in parallel. This isn't one button; it's a set of tools that pulls viewers from short video into long video.

What's likely to change:

• The length limit. Variety writes that Instagram is testing different options, and 90 minutes may become the ceiling, not the norm.
• Monetization. Without a revenue share, big podcasters won't move their main production off YouTube, and Instagram knows it.
• Subtitles. A format without automatic subtitles, in a feed where many watch with the sound off, looks unfinished. They'll add them.

For YouTube this is direct competition for podcasts and interviews on the big screen. For creators it's simpler: there'll be one more platform where a full episode can live. And the clip cutting many already did for Shorts will start bringing viewers into long video without a link in the bio.

There's a grim scenario too. Instagram has already shut down long video once, after 3 years. If Features doesn't rack up TV views within a year, it'll be quietly wound down, and creators will be left with a horizontal archive. That's exactly why the archive shouldn't live only on Instagram.

Questions

What to do

1. Shoot your next episode horizontally with people closer to the center of the frame, and mark 8 moments for clips during the recording.
2. From those marks, edit 8 vertical clips with burned-in subtitles and a cliffhanger at the end. Until you have Features access, post them as regular Reels, 2 a day.
3. Rename your recurring segment into a series with episode numbers and a single cover.
4. Open your YouTube archive, list the episodes that haven't gone stale, and write down 8 timecodes for each.
5. Put together a "episode plus 3 clips out of 8" package for brands and show it in your next integration conversation.

Step 4 takes one evening. A spreadsheet with 50 rows, 8 timecodes in each. When the "Watch full video" button shows up on your profile, the clips will already be sitting in a folder.