Meta pushed another round of updates to Edits this week. Most of them fix problems every grappler filming in a gym already deals with: bad lighting, mat noise burying your voice, and highlight edits that take forever to time to the music. FIX DARK, YELLOW GYM FOOTAGE WITH AUTO COLOR Edits now has automated color adjustment that balances brightness and color for you. Run it first on any clip shot under fluorescent lights or in a dim back room. Rounds that look muddy or yellow should come out much closer to what you saw on the mat. BOOST QUIET CLIPS TO 150% VOLUME You can now raise the volume of a single clip up to 150% inside a project. When you explain a detail and the phone across the mat barely picks you up, boost that one clip and leave the rest of the edit alone. LET THE BEAT TIME YOUR HIGHLIGHT EFFECTS New flashing light and zoom effects line up with the music and sound in your clip automatically. Drop them into a sub compilation or a competition highlight and they land on the beat without you placing each one by hand. FIX CAPTIONS IN BULK Edits added new caption styles and bulk caption editing. When auto captions mangle words like kimura or berimbolo across a whole breakdown, you can clean them up together instead of one line at a time. BUILD TECHNIQUE CAROUSELS ON ANDROID The carousel editor that came to iPhone earlier this month is now on Android too. Step by step technique photos, tournament weekend recaps, and promotion day photos can all be put together inside Edits.

Last week I flagged that Instagram is removing the option to link Reels together on October 28, and that the change might be clearing the way for longer videos. Two days before that deadline, Instagram started rolling out a long form test to select US creators. Here's what's in it and how to get your footage ready before it reaches your account. WHAT INSTAGRAM IS TESTING 1. Features. Videos up to 90 minutes long, aimed at podcasts, vlogs and interviews. It was tested in Brazil first and is now going to select US creators, with wider access planned over the next few months. 2. Clips as Reels. You can link up to eight Reels to one longer video, so every clip points people toward the full thing. Select US creators get it this week. 3. Series. You can group Reels under one topic so episodic content stays connected. It has been in testing since June and is expanding globally now. 4. TV remote. Your phone will work as a remote for Instagram's TV app. Instagram says it's coming soon, with no date yet. WHY INSTAGRAM WANTS YOUR LONG VIDEOS YouTube owns long form and the living room. Nielsen ranks it the biggest streaming provider in the US, and YouTube says people watch more than a billion hours of it on TV screens every day. Instagram wants that time, and creators who post long video are how it gets there. Instagram has tried this before. IGTV launched as a standalone app in 2018 and shut down in 2022. This attempt lives inside the main app, Instagram rebuilt its TV app last December to support it, and viewing habits have moved a long way since IGTV, so it has a better shot this time. Nothing is guaranteed. KEEP YOUTUBE AS YOUR LONG FORM PAYCHECK According to vidIQ, YouTube's Partner Program generally pays $1 to $10 per 1,000 long form views. Instagram pays close to nothing for views unless a brand deal is attached. Keep posting your long videos to YouTube, where the views earn money, and treat Instagram as a second home for them. Use it to go deeper with the people who already follow you and to show sponsors that your audience will stay with you for more than 30 seconds.

A creative studio called Ames Create sorted 1,239 top videos from 18 creators by how they open. Those videos pulled more than 2.5 billion views across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Each one was scored against its own creator's typical top video, so small accounts counted the same as big ones. Every video in the set was already a winner, so the numbers show which openings ran furthest among winners. Here's what to take into your next post. LEAVE A QUESTION HANGING IN THE FIRST SECOND Curiosity gaps were the most common opening by a wide margin: 28% of top videos, used by 17 of the 18 creators. The opening plants a question in the viewer's head and makes them watch for the answer. "Watch his left hand right before the sweep." "Why I stopped pulling guard at tournaments." "The grip that ended my worst losing streak." LEAD WITH THE SHOT PEOPLE STOP FOR Visual spectacle opened only 2% of top videos and ran 33% above normal, the biggest lift in the study. The image does the work before anyone says a word. Grappling hands you these shots every weekend: the slam, the flying triangle, the scramble that ends on the back, the hand getting raised. Cut the walk to the mat and the grip fighting that goes nowhere. Open on the frame someone would screenshot. NAME A MOMENT EVERY GRAPPLER KNOWS Relatable callouts ran 19% above normal, the best result among the five most common hooks. "When coach says one more round at 8:59." "When the 19 year old blue belt asks if you want to go light." "When you finally hit the move from the instructional you bought two years ago." SAVE THE HOT TAKES FOR THE COMMENTS Controversy openings ran 30% below normal, the weakest of any hook measured. Direct questions ran 14% below and bold claims 10% below. If you do open with a question, ask one the viewer can't answer in their head and scroll past. KEEP SHORTS UNDER 30 SECONDS The typical top YouTube Short ran 27 seconds. 55% came in under 30 seconds and 91% under a minute. Give each Short one technique or one finish, and let the full match live in its own video.

Instagram just handed you tools that cut editing time and show you what's working. Put the time you save into more posts and a closer look at the results. ⚙️ BUILD BETTER REELS IN LESS TIME STEP 1: Run First Draft, then finish the cut yourself. It sits right inside the Instagram app. Pick your clips, tap once, and it trims the dead air in about ten seconds. It will still leave in the line you said twice, the cough, and the moment you retied your belt. On rolling footage it holds shots too long, so trim it down to a cut every two seconds or so before you post. STEP 2: Turn on everything in Edits Labs. Open Edits, tap your profile photo in the top right corner, and scroll to Labs at the bottom. Toggle on whatever your account shows. • Auto Adjust fixes color and lighting in one tap. Gym fluorescents need it. • Improve Audio cuts background noise like the gym music, the round timer, and the roll next to you. • Carousel Editor builds carousels with far more fonts than Instagram offers and exports them straight to your feed. Edits is free right now. Build the habit while it costs nothing. STEP 3: Shoot at the highest quality your phone allows and skip the beauty filter. Go into your camera settings and pick 4K if you have it. Instagram has said for years that grainy video hurts reach, and filters look dated now. STEP 4: Set translations before you hit share. Tap More Options, then Accessibility and Translation, and pick your languages. Instagram dubs your voice with AI, and Portuguese and Japanese are both on the list. You can't add translations once the reel is live, and they only cover your spoken words, so keep adding your own captions. Plenty of people scroll on mute. ⚙️ MAKE YOUR PROFILE CONVERT STEP 5: Pin three posts and give each one a job. New visitors size you up in about five seconds, and your pins do most of the talking. A matching color grid is optional now. • Your story. Under 30 seconds, with on screen text giving your name, belt, team, and one fact people won't expect.

Meta rolled out a batch of updates to Instagram and Edits this week. Two are worth using right away if you post technique breakdowns, and one feature some of you rely on goes away on October 28. FILM WITH THE CLIP RUNNING IN YOUR CAMERA Instagram added a Use as reference option. Open any Reel under 90 seconds, tap the three dots, and choose Use as reference. The clip plays in a small window inside your camera while you record. You can drag it anywhere on screen, pause it, and replay it as many times as you need. A countdown helps you start in sync. Two ways to use it: 1. Recreate a finish from a match clip. Put your partner in the same position and drill it beat for beat with the original running in the corner. 2. Talk through a sequence while the clip plays, so you hit each detail in the order it happens. iPhone only for now. SAVE YOUR LOOK AS A KIT IN EDITS Edits now lets you save a set of visual style settings as a Kit and reapply it to any project. Build one for your breakdowns with the same text style, colors, and effects every time. After a few posts, people should recognize your breakdowns before they see your name. BACK UP YOUR LINKED SERIES BEFORE OCTOBER 28 Instagram is removing the option to link Reels together into a series. If you've been chaining a guard passing series or a tournament recap that way, set up a backup now: 1. Put the part number on the cover of each Reel. 2. Pin Part 1 to your profile so new viewers start in the right place. 3. If the series holds up as one longer video, post it as one. Instagram has been exploring longer content, so this could be clearing the way for longer single videos. TWO SMALLER UPDATES Audio links: you can now link the specific song or sound in your Reel, and viewers can tap through to hear it. Trending topics: Edits will show you what's driving engagement with your audience. It's limited to accounts over 10,000 followers for now.