How to Edit Videos for Instagram?

Instagram has come a long way from being just a photo sharing website. Currently, more than 1 billion people use Instagram with 80% of them being non-US citizens. It started out as a photo sharing website but now video forms a major part of its content. Have you ever wondered how to edit videos for Instagram to get the maximum followers? Brands regularly provide engaging content for their followers while subtly promoting their products.

Videos make much more sense than images to promote a brand. With videos, you can engage a person for a much longer time than with photos where the user will just like and scroll down. This is proven by statistics which say that while photos get more likes, videos get more comments since engagement level is more with videos.

Part 1: Instagram Video Specifications that you need to know

However, not all videos make the right cut with your followers. There are some particular formats, duration and other strategies that you must keep in mind to make a video that gets you the best response. Before we see how to edit videos for Instagram to get guaranteed results, we need to see what should be your video specifications to upload on Instagram.

There are 4 types of video content that you can add on Instagram -

In-feed video post

Instagram story

Instagram TV (IGTV)

Live video

Since Live Video is unedited by definition, we can’t have limitations for that. But for the other 3, there are certain technical specifications that are good to follow.

In-feed Instagram video post specifications

You can go for either of the 3 Video dimensions:

●     Square video: 600x600 pixels (1:1 aspect ratio)

●     Horizontal video: 600x315 pixels (1.9:1 aspect ratio)

●     Vertical video: 600x750 pixels (4:5 aspect ratio)

While most file types are supported but the suggested configuration of the videos is H.264 compression, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan and stereo AAC audio compression at 128+ kbps.

The maximum frame rate video that you can upload is 30 fps and the maximum size of the video accepted is 4GB.

Instagram story video specifications

Since these videos play in full screen, they need to follow the aspect ratio of smartphones which is 1080 x 1920 pixels (9:16 aspect ratio). Any other aspect ratio or a video that is not vertically aligned with not get properly displayed on the screen, damaging your viewer experience.

The file size of these stories can be a maximum of 4GB like mentioned before, with the length ideally up to 15 seconds.

Story videos are usually watched with the sound on, so when you are figuring out on how to edit videos for Instagram, do also keep in mind to add a nice soundtrack to your video.

Instagram TV (IGTV) video specifications

IGTV is a YouTube-like platform where you can upload longer videos. This has been launched in 2018 and allows you to upload videos 15 seconds to 10 minutes long on unverified accounts and up to 60 minutes of verified. The max size 650 MB on unverified accounts and up to a max size of 3.6GB on verified accounts.

Since Instagram videos are to be run primarily on smartphones, the aspect ratio here too should be 9:16 and vertically aligned..

The video format should be MP4 with a minimum resolution of 729 pixels and minimum frame rate of 30 fps.

For IGTV videos, you also need to add a cover photo in the dimensions of 420 x 654px. To upload the video, open the IGTV section of the Instagram app from the top right corner, click on profile and hit the + button to select the video from your gallery.

Part 2: Editing videos inside the Instagram app

While using the app you don’t even have to think how to edit your videos for Instagram since the platform makes the process extremely simple. N prior experience of video editing or technical knowledge is required to edit Instagram videos on its app.

Creating Instagram videos offers your viewers an inside view of your Instagram life or business. With Instagram, you don’t need to take separate videos from the camera and then use a different app to merge them. The app provides the facility to start and pause the video recording and at the end merges all videos into one to provide a seamless experience.

To create a video, click on the middle button of + in your app at the bottom of the screen. Select video in the next screen. After that, you just need to press and hold to record and video and release to pause the recording. Whenever you press and hold the screen the recording will continue to get merged to the previous recording till it reaches 60 seconds of length. You can press the Next button at the top right corner if you are done with the recording before 60 seconds.

Once the video creation is done, now the question comes how to edit videos for Instagram to make it more lively. To do this, you can use 1 out of the 24 Instagram filters to brighten up the video or make it dark as is required. You also need to select one frame from the video to act as your video cover art.

You can do image stabilization and switch the audio on/off for the video. And that’s it, your video is now ready to be geo-tagged, captioned, hashtagged and being published.

Instagram story editing

Creating stories has become a craze not only on Instagram but on many other apps too. While creating the videos itself you can add a lot of effects like adding filters, make a Boomerang, do Superzoom on an object to add a frame or sentiment, run the video in reverse, add face filters and use the hands-free mode which also provides you with a 3-second buffer to start with.

However, if you have a video which was not recorded using the Instagram app and you are wondering how to edit videos for Instagram now, worry not. Instagram app lets you edit videos not recorded using the app too before uploading it to Instagram.

Upload the video on Instagram by clicking on the Camera button on the left top corner of the app and then open the Gallery by using the top second right button. Select one video to upload it or select the “SELECT MULTIPLE” option to upload multiple videos. Once the video is uploaded you can use the following options to edit it:

Ø  Filters: There are more than 10 filters available that you can add to your video by doing a left or right swipe.

Ø  Text: You can add text to your video using the 5 different font styles. You can change the color and size of the text and this text will be visible above the video.

Ø  Pens: Just like text, you can draw or write over the video using your finger.

Ø  Stickers: There are actually practically stickers but different items to use on your video like location, GIFs, hashtag, mention, poll and more. Swipe up or click on the stickers option to use one of these.

These tools available in the Instagram app are more of enhancement tools than video editing functionalities. So if your question still remains on how you can edit videos for Instagram, then you need to look at separate tools with which you can do the video edits you need.

Part 3: How to convert and edit videos for Instagram with DVDFab Video Converter

Videos are a powerful tool to get a viewership. Sharing the same thing that your eyes are experiencing and communicating with your viewers with audio is a much better way to get across your message than writing it or just viewing a picture.

This is the reason why nowadays many publishers are making videos and reformatting it to work on different platforms. However, if you want to repurpose a video for Instagram then you need to multiple changes to your existing video. To do this we need a powerful video converter and editor like DVDFab Video Converter. We will go ahead with the assumption that you have installed this software on your Windows or Mac computer. Let’s see how to edit videos for Instagram using DVDFab Video Converter:

Step 1. Before we can do any changes, you need to load the video in the DVDFab Video Converter interface. To do so, launch the software and use the +Add to add the video from your local computer storage or the +Add from Mobile to remotely copy the file from your smartphone. You can also drag and drop the file to the main interface.

Step 2: Convert the video format to the one that is supported by Instagram, that is MP4 (with H.265 Codec & AAC audio, 3,500 kbps video bitrate). To do this, click on the Converter icon of the DVDFab application, click on Profile Switcher button, select Format and tick the checkbox of H265. From the options below, select MP4 10 bit.

Step 3: To modify the aspect ratio, open the Advanced Settings window by clicking on the Wrench icon appearing in front of your video. From the new windows, use the Resolution to select an appropriate resolution as discussed above or you can manually write the resolution you want.

In the same window, you can also modify the frame rate of the video depending on whether you are making an Instagram Story (>30fps) or video for IGTV (<30fps).

Step 4: Reduce video size by using the trim option in Video editor of DVDFab Video Converter. Click on the pen icon (right most) in front of the video to open the Video Editor. In the new window, you will find the option to Trim the video. Since you are allowed only a limited video size you will need to choose which parts to keep and which parts to remove. You can do this trimming both ways - trim from the either or both edges or, trim from between and select the “Merge” option to merge the two ends.

Step 5: Similarly, you can do many other modifications to your video like add Text or Image to the video, add subtitles if you have the subtitle file like .srt, change the brightness, contrast or saturation level of the video.

Step 6. Once you have selected all the changes that you want to do to make the video optimized for Instagram, go back to the main screen and click on OK to start the creation of the output file.

A combination of the Instagram app and DVDFab Video Converter can give you just the right video format you need to share with your viewers on Instagram. Use the Instagram app to add filters and stickers and use the DVDFab application to do all rest of the activities like converting to the right format, having the correct aspect ratio, frame rate and more.