Just as superlatives in Yearbooks are framed by the “Most Likely”…” categories, Instagram in my opinion, has checked quite a number of boxes on the list, since its initial release in 2010. Borrowing an idea list from TreeRing, the categories would include: “Most Changed Since Freshman Year“, “Most Likely To Travel the World” and recently, “Most Likely To Become Internet Famous“.
This, I attribute to the spike in the usage and viewership of IG Live since the restriction of movement, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic would also appear to influence major app updates that in the space of approximately 2 months, these announcements have been made by the Facebook company: the ability to access DMs via web browser; plans to save live videos to IGTV, and a new feature to let people order food through the app. You can find an extensive list here.
The app has definitely gone from the era of the 15-second video-limit, to 60 seconds and more recently in 2018, the introduction of IGTV (Instagram TV) that can accommodate for videos up to 60 minutes [for larger accounts]. Although this app can be accessed as its own app despite being integrated with the Instagram app, there have been some noticeable changes in the last few days.
Here it goes…
IGTV videos that appear in your feed [on the app] with play lengths that go beyond the maximum of 60 seconds, no longer play to the maximum time limit of 60 seconds before the prompt to “keep watching” in IGTV. Now, it ranges between an uninterrupted video play length between 2 and 15 seconds before suggesting the switch to IGTV to continue watching. That is, whichever video you’re watching would be cut short anywhere between 2 and 15 seconds of initial play, in order to continue playing as an IGTV video. This raises the question on what may have informed this decision by the Facebook company and why?, primarily because it’s difficult to ignore the success of short videos that flock the feed and stories on Instagram.
An article on later.com explains that: “By 2021, mobile video will account for 78% of total mobile data traffic, and Instagram is betting big on mobile video with the launch of IGTV”. It further explains in “Understanding IGTV insights” that: “Your Audience Retention stats is where you should focus your attention. A “view” on IGTV is counted for every time a person watched at least three seconds of your video. So while your views may be high, that doesn’t necessarily mean your viewers watched the whole video. But the Audience Retention stats are unique to IGTV and they let you see how long you’ve kept your audience’s attention for. It’s a great tool for pinpointing the perfect video length for your audience”.
Therefore, is this “update” targeted at enhancing viewership on IGTV and indeed ensuring monetization for content creators?
More Likely To…Succeed?
The realisation of creators being able to finally monetize their IGTV content seemed to be upon us, going by a confirmation tweet in February, by Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, to a post by TechCrunch about Instagram internally prototyping options for IGTV creators to earn money via its Instagram Partner Program. This included that it had started reaching out to its top video creators to partner on ad tests. Bloomberg also reported in March, the company’s plans to roll out IGTV ads in Challenge to YouTube. As reported, IGTV has had so much trouble attracting creators because of its lack of monetization options.
Is this feature a step in this direction of many more to come?
In my opinion, this “change” would most likely inform two human decisions:
- Impulsively drive viewers to watch [IGTV] videos, since the few seconds of initial video play [for them], narrowly establishes the essence of the video; OR
- discourage viewers from continuing the watch, if the viewer has no intention of going the long haul and the content isn’t convincing enough within those few seconds. As this feedback from a WhatsApp user suggests:
“I just feel I haven’t been given enough of a preview/teaser for me to be interested in moving to IGTV. When the prompt comes up, I just continue scrolling.”
The purpose of this article, stands as an observation piece. At the time of writing this article, it would seem as there is little to no substantial information on reportage. It stands to reason that, this “update” might still be under on-going review by the tech giant, with a proper roll out plan, in the coming weeks.