Although it’s facing competition from companies like Sony and Kodak, GoPro is still the dominant player in the action camera market. Selling more than 26 million cameras and having 47.5% of the action camera market in 2015. Instagram, owned by Facebook, is the dominant photo sharing site, having ammassed 800 million users in 2017.
But GoPro and Instagram haven’t exactly played nicely in the sandbox together. A GoPro user taking a video, say, mountain biking, could face challenges trying to share her video on Instagram stories. Even if her GoPro was connected to her phone by Bluetooth, the basic video format for GoPro is horizontal, or landscape, format. Instagram Stories are in vertical, or portrait, format. To share it, our biker would have to go through a host of steps to convert the video into an Instagram Story-friendly format.
How Did GoPro Resolve this Problem?
In a May 1st release, GoPro announced enhanced GoPro-Instagram integration in an upgrade to their app. They added a sharing feature that allows the user to pull up on their phone any synced video taken on their GoPro. After opening that video, the user can easily zoom and crop into the video to reframe it for vertical and Instagram Story format.
In a smart twist, the app allows you to put different crop and zoom settings at different points of the video. Once the video is reformatted, it can easily be shared to Instagram, where it can be further edited using Instagram’s native video editing tools.
Why is This A Big Development for GoPro?
One of the reasons Instagram became so popular is because it is so easy to post a photo straight from your phone. GoPro’s mission is likely to make it easier to share action videos on Instagram, which will mean that more people will post their GoPro videos — further increasing user interest and acquisition. (This makes me feel better about — I’m NOT the only one who has GoPro videos that never made it off the camera!)
Keeping in mind that many of today’s cell phones rival the videos that GoPro action cameras create, what does GoPro offer the end user that her cell phone doesn’t? Our hypothetical mountain biker would probably not want to risk holding her phone — or even mounting it on her bike — while coasting and bouncing down a steep ridge. GoPro took into consideration, making it tougher than just about any phone. Also, GoPro offers a plethora of mounting opt ions (including underwater housings), making it more versatile than a smartphone for capturing action video.
