Video is taking over social media. 🌐

What began with Youtube, and then Snapchat, has now made its way to every other major social media app, with one key trend showing no signs of slowing down: shorter, temporary videos.

Looking back at the history of social media, we can probably trace this back to Snapchat’s infamous ‘Story’ feature.

Invented in 2011, Snapchat was an almost immediate success with users flocking to view and share video ‘Stories’ that were automatically deleted after 24 hours.

Only a year later, Vine followed suit, providing users with a platform to make and/or view 7-second long videos.

Years later in 2016, Instagram unveiled Instagram Stories, their answer to Snapchat’s invention.

Now, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have all tried to incorporate similar features into their respective apps.

Recently, TikTok have announced that they will debut their new TikTok Stories feature so that users can share videos that will automatically delete after 24 hours.

It seems that the comfortably impermanent Stories feature has become an important feature in social media. But it isn’t only short videos that social media companies want to make use of.

TikTok have also recently announced their plans to allow users to share videos up to three minutes long.

While video length might be important, it seems that social media apps are all looking for new ways to incorporate video of all kinds into their apps.

So, what are Instagram’s forecasted changes, and how should advertisers prepare? 🤔

Let’s find out.

What changes are Instagram planning?

In a recent video posted to Twitter and Instagram, Adam Mosseri announced that after seeing the success of video in Instagram’s main rivals – TikTok and Youtube – Instagram plans to move towards a more entertainment-focused model.

Looking to “embrace video more broadly”, Mosseri claimed that Instagram plan to include and immerse viewers by providing full-screen video experiences and the option for users to receive recommendations for content that might interest them.

While Mosseri might have been vague in terms of their exact plans – one thing is clear; Instagram no longer want to be the photo-sharing app.

What does this mean for advertisers?

With the video trend looking to become more and more significant on social media in general, but particularly on Instagram, advertisers might feel tempted to scramble to meet these new demands and optimise all future campaigns for video.

While this is understandable, it’s important to remember the reason why users choose which social media apps to use in the first place.

Some of us like to share our thoughts, stay updated on the news, and hear other people’s opinions about hot topics. For these people, Twitter is likely the app they will spend the most time on.

This means that when people go on Twitter, they go for these reasons. So, when Twitter rolled out their take on the Stories feature, it failed.

Why? Because people don’t go on Twitter to share or view videos.

As a visual society, making campaigns pop visually is always a good idea. Especially on Instagram, where aesthetics is everything.

But when it comes to the new changes, only time will tell whether they will be successful and users will take to them.

In the meantime, advertisers can create inventive Instagram campaigns that incorporate video, without feeling pressured to change to a 100% video campaign.

To learn more about what Instagram’s Planned Changes Mean for Advertisers, get in contact today.