Instagram Video Length: How Long Can Instagram Videos Be For Marketing
Ever wondered how long can Instagram videos be for marketing your business? Video marketing is one of the most powerful marketing strategies you can use. In this post, you’ll learn the optimal Instagram video length and how to use it for Instagram marketing.
The Instagram video length can actually vary depending on the specific feature of Instagram you are using. The most common Instagram video lengths you’ll need to know is the Instagram feed video length, Instagram Story video length, IGTV video length, and Instagram Live video length.
How long can Instagram videos be for an Instagram feed video
The length of an Instagram feed video is limited to a minute long. Even though that doesn’t seem like a long time, there are actually many ways you can utilize this time to market your business on Instagram.
Now you can upload longer videos into the Instagram feed, but you’ll ultimately need to trim them down to only be a minute long. If you are recording a video directly on Instagram the video length is also only a minute long. As you can see in the photo below, the bar will slowly fill up as you approach the 1-minute length of the Instagram video.
You can also film some of the video, pause, and continue filling until you reach the Instagram video length of 1-minute. I’ve found some of the best ways to use a minute long Instagram video is to ask a question and follow that up with a brief tip and then use a call to action.
For example, I might say something like, “Do you struggle with generating leads for your business on social media? Well, one major mistake that many business owners make is that they lead with features and not benefits of their business. You need to focus on what your prospects care about and their problems not about you and your business. Make that shift and you’ll start to get more leads for your business. By the way, if you want to learn even more strategies to get leads for your business, head to coachmikemacdonald.com to get even more free training on building a profitable business from home.”
When you follow that format you can drive traffic from Instagram to another platform or use it to generate leads for your business.
Increase Instagram Video length by using an image carousel
Now the 1-minute Instagram video length for the Instagram feed doesn’t really change, but you can post multiple videos in a row like you do posting multiple pictures in a cluster. This is called an image carousel and can be a way to post a longer video than 1-minute.
A cool site I use to trim down my YouTube videos to the right Instagram video length is called tube2gram.com. With this tool, you can even scale parts of your video down and put them in an Instagram story – More on that below!
While you can put many 1 minute videos together on your Instagram newsfeed I think it’s better to keep the videos short and then dive traffic off from Instagram to a platform that you own or at least to an evergreen content platform like YouTube.
If you are using Instagram for marketing it’s important to drive traffic to a place you can capture a lead or to something you own because Instagram is always changing and likely will become a pay to play platform like Facebook is becoming. For that reason diversifying where your audience can find your content is important.
Instagram Story video length and using video stories to generate leads and drive traffic to your website
The Instagram Story video length is much shorter than the Instagram newsfeed video length so you need to be much more creative using Instagram Story videos for marketing. The Instagram Story video length is only 15 seconds long.
However, similar to the carousel picture feature for the regular news feed, you can also string multiple videos back to back for Instagram stories.
One cool strategy you can use is promoting a recent YouTube video through the Instagram stories. For example, you can take a short clip, like the intro of a video and use tube2gram.com to trim just the intro into a 10-15 second clip. From there email it to yourself and upload it into your Instagram story.
You can then add a few pictures and graphics around it to make the video stand out more. See the picture below of an example. From there if you have a business Instagram profile and over 10,000 followers you can even link that Instagram story clip to your YouTube video or channel.
You can even include a second call to action telling people to subscribe and link to your channel again in another video clip or with a picture. You can see another example below.
Instagram Live Video Length and why it’s powerful for Instagram Marketing
The Instagram Live video length is also pretty long and clocks in at 60 minutes per Instagram Live. Personally, I think if you are using Instagram Live for an hour it’s probably a bit much. Although you could effectively use it to do a live broadcast of a webinar so your Instagram followers could see it if they didn’t register.
Regardless of how long your Instagram Live video is, it can be a very powerful marketing tool. Coming from a background of belly-to-belly marketing and offline marketing, one of the best options to sell your products was always face-to-face.
Well with the ability to use Instagram Live videos, it’s pretty much the closest thing to being with someone in person as far as Instagram marketing is concerned. People do business with those that they know like and trust, and live video is one of the best ways to create that relationship with your audience.
You can interact with them in real-time, and answer their questions and engage with people on a one to one basis. This is extremely powerful. The only downside is that the content doesn’t stay on your Instagram page forever.
So while Instagram Live videos should be a part of your Instagram marketing strategy, it’s also good to have a marketing strategy that can center around evergreen content as well. This would be strategies like blogging, or YouTube videos.
If you’d like to learn more about blogging to grow your business, check out this post: 14 Easy Steps On How To Write The Perfect Blog Post Fast.
IGTV Video length and how to use it for marketing
IGTV is the newest part of Instagram and a lot of people don’t quite know how to use it yet. You can get an account with any profile and it is very simple to set up.
I look at it almost like a YouTube channel, but the videos are meant to be vertical, not horizontal. You certainly still can upload videos horizontally, but the best format is for vertical videos.
The video length for IGTV can actually vary depending on how you upload the video. If you are posting from a mobile device your video needs to be between 15 seconds and 10 minutes long.
However, if you are posting from a desktop browser they actually allow you to upload a video with a length of up to 60 minutes long. You can see the details of where to upload those videos in the picture below or head to Instagram.com/tv/upload. However, be aware that it does appear that you need to be logged in to Instagram first if you want to use that link, otherwise the page won’t load.
How long can Instagram videos be for Instagram video ads
If you are running Instagram video ads, they also have their own video length you need to be aware of. The length for Instagram video ads is actually 120 seconds or 2 minutes maximum.
This is important to know because if you are running video ads that are going to target people on Facebook and Instagram, they need to be under that length. Doing this is another powerful Instagram marketing strategy because someone may be on Facebook and see your ad and then head to Instagram and see your ad as well.
When you are everywhere on social media it adds credibility to your business. Having that omnipresence feeling with your marketing can help to establish your brand and business in your customer’s mind.
Also when your videos are the correct length for ads on both Facebook and Instagram it can save you a lot of time by not having to redo multiple ads for each platform.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if you are running video ads on Instagram, be sure to make the videos in a square aspect ratio. This could be the size of 800×800 for example.
You may also consider shrinking down the video and adding captions and a headline above your video to draw even more attention to your Instagram video ad. See the picture below for an example.
Takeaways for Instagram marketing with video
Now that you know how long Instagram videos can be, you can properly use each version of them to market your business through Instagram. If you enjoyed this post you might also want to check out my free Instagram marketing training on how to get more leads and sales through Instagram.
If you’re new to Instagram marketing and want to learn how to make money with Instagram check out this post as well How To Make Money On Instagram $100 Per Day Strategy. Also if you haven’t yet followed me on Instagram you can here: Instagram.com/mikemacdirect.
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