On Social Media Today, there was an interesting post from the NYC Creator event about official Instagram best practices on Reels posting. It’s a short but thought-provoking read, comparing best practices from last year with this year. Long story short, the only change from a year ago is:
“This is the exact same list that it shared last year, with one change: Now, you shouldn’t post Reels longer than 3 minutes instead.
Technically, this relates to Instagram’s algorithmic recommendations, in that IG wasn’t recommending Reels longer than 90 seconds last year, but now it is. In that sense, the advice makes sense, but I do find it humorous that Instagram had tried to frame this as a user preference issue, as opposed to it really being driven by what IG itself wants.”
As the story says — importantly, I think — sometimes the apps and their algorithms drive change, not consumers.
