Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has evolved from an online photo-sharing app into a platform that empowers its users to easily create, edit, and share their own videos in a variety of forms.
Creating a video for an Instagram post
While photos are still the most popular kind of post on Instagram, videos actually get 21% more interactions, according to a recent study by Quintly. For this reason, posting videos to your brand’s Instagram page is a smart way to boost your overall engagement.
As for the specifications of the video, here is everything you need to know about videos in your feed:
- File Size: 4GB max
- File Type: MP4 or MOV recommended
- Max length: 60 seconds
- Orientation: square or landscape
- Aspect ratio: 1:91:1
Quick and authentic vs. High production and promotional
There are two main styles of videos that businesses often share on Instagram:
- Polished high-quality videos for advertising and brand awareness
- Amateur videos that give viewers a peek behind the curtain so they can get to know the people that use the products or make up the brand.
If you don’t have a huge budget but want to do some editing yourself, there are some fantastic video editing apps available to help you create polished videos on your mobile device, such as:
- Clipomatic (iOS only) to automatically translate all speech from your videos into captions. This ensures that your audience doesn’t miss a beat—even when the video is muted.
- Splice (iOS only) or Quik to crop videos, add transitions, and music.
- FilmoraGo to create lightly edited stories on the fly, adding music and filters before sharing them with your followers.
The specifications for story videos are as follows:
- Max length per segment: 15 seconds
- Aspect ratio: 9:16 with 1080 x 1920 pixels are the recommended resolution, however, you can resize your videos before posting them.
Driving sales with Instagram video
In addition to promoting your brand and gaining followers, Instagram videos can be used to make sales directly. With 60% of Instagram users looking to find new products, tagging your products through Shopping on Instagram can help you convert video views into sales.
Use appropriate shopping hashtags as well so you’re reaching more than just your existing followers with all videos that showcase your offerings. Now with Instagram’s in-app shopping feature, users can complete a purchase without actually leaving Instagram, so it’s important that you’re set up to make sales on Instagram. You can also try to drive viewers back to your website by guiding them to a “link in bio” on your business’ Instagram page.