Current Instagram users know that the massive social media app is nowhere near the original design it had back at its inception in October of 2010. What was once a platform for people to post their favorite photos and memories has now adapted to being majorly a video platform. Adam Mosseri, who is The Head of Instagram, said in an Instagram post on his Instagram account that the platform is focussing on “Creators, Video, Shopping, and Messaging” to adhere to the trends and needs of social media users worldwide. If business marketers are working to stay ahead of the curve, they need to begin focussing on creating meaningful clips to promote their works.

With the rise of YouTube and TikTok respectively, Instagram has had to become focussed on staying competitive and prominent within the social media space. Instagram now has easy access to account stories, as well as full tabulated menus within the app dedicated to video. More interestingly, Instagram now has two separate video formats for different video lengths. Videos under one minute are referred to as ‘reels’ which are short videos that tend to gain high amounts of interaction, while videos over one minute can be viewed regularly no matter the length. Many of the reels on Instagram are original videos created on TikTok and then uploaded to Instagram. Video production services should be taking note of this shift regarding the videos they are creating. Now obviously, not all videos can be short in length, but video production companies who are creating videos for viewership and engagement can find a lot more success using social media formats.

Video development companies who specialize in online marketing can create short and targeted videos for Instagram and other social media. Furthermore, video production services that are mindful of the major shift to video and short videos can shoot lengthy films with the intention of cutting the footage into small bite-sized clips for viewers to see. This practice is commonly done by podcast production services and large marketing firms to create engagement with a targeted audience. The key to these short films or reels on Instagram is to have a clip shorter than one minute that has something very meaningful within it to hook the consumer in and gain enough interest to make the viewer want to watch the full film. It is the same concept as a movie trailer, but with everyday items and advertisements