Instagram Chooses Brazil to Test Short Music Videos

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The social media company has begun testing a new tool for short music videos in Brazil.

Called Cenas (“Scenes”), the feature allows anyone to record a short 15-second video, dancing or performing a song. It is the first time that Instagram, which belongs to Facebook, is testing the prototype of a feature in Brazil.

According to the company, the feature is still in its testing phase and there is no global release forecast. According to Robby Stein, Instagram’s global product director, there are several reasons for the decision – among them, the strong local musical culture and the high engagement of Brazilians in the social media.

“The creators and users who communicate with friends in the country use the music functions extensively on Instagram,” explained the executive in an exclusive interview with the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.

The social media giant does not disclose the total number of users it has here – worldwide, there are more than one billion active users on the platform every month. According to Luiz Peres-Neto, professor at the Higher School of Advertising and Marketing, there is a good prospect of Brazil becoming an increasingly active testing ground for social media.

“As far as experimenting with new ideas in the cultural area is concerned, Brazilians are very open to exploring and creating on top (of the possibilities),” says the researcher. “We are a large open-air media laboratory.”

Distribution

‘Cenas’ can be viewed in two different areas on Instagram. For those who want to produce their own videos, access to the Stories will be required, a popular resource of short messages on the social media. Introduced in August 2016, the tool keeps videos and photos on the web for up to 24 hours and already accounts for 500 million active users every day worldwide.

In addition, viewing the most popular ‘Cenas’ within the Search tab will be available, aimed at showing people the main creations of influencers and content producers on the social media.

Making such a short video is easy and takes no more than a few clicks. In a demonstration watched by the Estado de S. Paulo, a Facebook employee took no more than two or three minutes to make a short video dancing Macarena, the Latin hit of the 90s.

More than just simulating the classic choreography, however, the video also had scene cutting effects and even a hairstyle change, in sync with the song by the band Los Del Rio.

The new tool will use the same licensing agreements Instagram has in place with record labels and artists for Instagram Music – the feature, launched last year abroad, allows users to include excerpts of songs and lyrics in their posts. According to Stein, Brazil’s musical diversity, with genres such as ‘sertanejo’ and ‘funk’ among the most popular, is not an issue for the tests.

According to the executive, the new feature will use the same moderation rules on violence and sexual content that prevail in the rest of the platform.

Rivalry

With the release of the ‘Cenas’, Instagram not only tests a new feature but also seeks to curb the spread of short video apps looking for a spot on Brazilians’ cell phones. In recent weeks, Chinese apps such as TikTok and Kwai have been gaining popularity here, promising something very similar to Mark Zuckerberg’s new tool: videos with music, smart editing, and fast sharing.

“We’re keeping an eye on the emergence of video platforms with a strong focus on music,” Stein told Estado de S. Paulo, without naming them. “However, we believe that we are the only company to have a well-trained community of creators and users, as well as easy content editing.”

According to ESPM’s Peres-Neto, it’s hard to anticipate the Chinese’s resistance to Facebook – in other challenging times like Snapchat, they eventually had resources imitated by the company and lost ground. “The lifespan of products like Facebook and Instagram stretches because these apps are constantly changing.”

Source: O Estado de S. Paulo

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