Dive Brief:
- After rolling out 60-second video ads for marketers last month, Instagram made 60-second videos available for all its users, expanding that limit from the previous 15-seconds.
- Video viewing on the social media platform is up 40% over the last six months, BuzzFeed reported, which could be what sparked the decision to make minute-long videos more widely available.
- From a practical standpoint, the move means marketers have a fresh video format in terms of length to add to social media creative content production.
Dive Insight:
Instagram has made several waves in the past week, beginning with the announcement that it would be doing away with its current chronological feed, opting instead for an algorithm-based timeline in the near future. That news was met with trepidation from both users and influencers alike. The wider availability of longer videos hasn't raised as many eyebrows, but does raise questions about the quality of videos that will be fed onto the platform.
Explaining the impact of longer video for organic marketing on Instagram, Kelsey Harmon, associate strategy director at R/GA, told Digiday, “We always want to start with the audience, not the platform. And if we have an audience on two platforms, that means two types of formats and two executions. Which has definitely changed what is required in terms of workflow and production.”
In terms of user content, BuzzFeed sees a future with more bad content since quality video is difficult to create and the old 15-second limit helped to minimize the space for poor production choices.
When Instagram added the 60-second video ad format it was in anticipation of marketing dollars moving from TV to digital and the new format was a way for agencies and marketers to easily move 60-second creative possibly produced for TV over to Instagram.
