An important note for IG creators.
According to Instagram's content team, posting Reels videos longer than 90 seconds can hurt your reach within the app.
The note was one of a number of notes shared by Instagram staff at a creator event in New York last week, where Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri answered a variety of questions about the platform, its algorithms, what it's working on and more.
Additionally, as reported by The Information's Kaya Yuriev, Mosseri and the IG team presented a slide stating that Reels longer than 90 seconds could have a negative impact on streaming.
The slide in question is as follows:
As you can see from this overview, most of the tips are very general and the same ones you’ve read countless times before (generate genuine engagement, post at the right time, etc.).
But there are some interesting notes.
Firstly, the advice here suggests that there are benefits to posting updates on other platforms at the same time, presumably for broader branding and to generate discussion all at once.
In terms of impact, IG says posting content you didn't create yourself, posting content with watermarks from other apps, engagement bait, and posting general low-quality content will negatively impact your reach.
Post a reel video that is longer than 90 seconds.
This begs the question: “If people don’t want to watch Reels videos, why does Instagram allow Reels videos longer than 90 seconds?”
To be clear, the current maximum post length for Reels created within the app is 90 seconds, but you can upload longer clips – Instagram has experimented with uploading three- and 10-minute Reels, but these experiments clearly haven't worked out, given that it's advising users not to do so.
Either way, this is a relevant note and may affect how you post.
Mosseri also spoke about creator monetization and the challenges of devising a fair and sustainable creator program, and he also spoke about subscriptions, which he sees as a solid revenue stream but which are only relevant to a minority of creators.
