There’s been something of a visual content battle taking place recently, with Vine and Instagram going head to head; both cheered on by their respective armies of tech fans. Most have already picked their sides, but the apps’ parent companies, Facebook (Instagram) and Twitter (Vine), seem to be consistently pushing things forward with regular updates and new features.

After bringing Vine to Android’s Google Play market, Twitter has spent the last five weeks reacting to user feedback – this has included the introduction of front-facing camera capabilities and, perhaps ironically, Facebook integration.

With the ball firmly back in its court, though, Facebook made the announcement last Wednesday that it has improved Instagram’s embedding functionality. The latest in its string of updates will allow users to take videos and images created with the app and integrate them into other blog posts and web pages. As with most embedding, this is achieved by copying the relevant code from Instagram and pasting it onto the destination page. The content will then appear once published.

In a blog post, Facebook also made it clear that the names of those responsible for the embedded content would be very visible. It said:

“As always, you own your photos and videos, and we want to make sure that’s understood no matter where your content appears. Whether you want to embed your video on your blog or a friend wants to feature your photo on a website, everyone will clearly see that your content belongs to you.”

While the move isn’t exactly revolutionary, it will provide further capabilities for marketers looking to make the most of the buzz around short, instant video content and the huge user-base of Instagram.

It is thought the update is just the latest move in Facebook’s attempts to gain some ground in the race for “real time” content supremacy – something which Twitter undoubtedly has currently. The demand for concise, instantly accessible news, as well as responses, is increasing rapidly and it makes sense for businesses to capitalise on this.

Graeme Parton

Graeme has experience creating content for online sources and for the radio, and at university he studied Multimedia Journalism.