7 Best Practices for Instagram Videos

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms around, and probably the best for visual content. That’s why, if your brand is making video content, you need to get it on the ‘gram. Here are our 7 best practices for Instagram videos.

When creating a brand video for Instagram, it’s important to ask yourself what your purpose is. Are you trying to attract new business, are you launching a new product, or are you rebranding? Whatever your ‘why’ is should determine the kind of video you make, because it will also tell you who your target audience is, and the best time to post the video.

Our next best practice for Instagram videos is to make them unique. There is so much content on social media that your video needs to be dynamic and one-of-a-kind in order to get noticed, and not just scrolled past. Ask yourself what makes your brand unique and how you can best portray that on video. Consider who your target audience is and what will capture their attention.

All your videos should be in line with your brand identity, but your Instagram videos should tell the story of your brand. Not just in terms of what you do or sell, but your ethos and what is important to you. The tone of your video will give your audience an insight into the kind of brand you are and what kind of content to expect in the future.

All the shots in your video should be high-quality, but the ones you begin and end with need to be the most engaging. The first shot needs to draw your audience in and excite them enough to watch the whole runtime rather than keep scrolling through their feed. The last shot is what will make a lasting impression on your audience, and the image they will take away with them, so it needs to be memorable.

Social media audiences are inundated with content and, as such, have little patience for content that drags on. Telling your story as succinctly as possible will ensure your audience sticks around for the whole video and leave them wanting to know more and explore your brand further. You also need to get the correct time: Instagram Stories can be a maximum of 15 seconds, Reels can be up to 30 seconds, videos in the feed can be a maximum of 60 seconds, and videos on IGTV have to be a minimum of 1 minute long. This will also help dictate where you decide to post your video on Instagram.

Videos can only be upgraded to Instagram in MP4 or MOV format, have a maximum of 30 frames per second and a maximum file size of 4GB. Instagram used to only accept square videos, but now other ratios are accepted. 

However, to get the most out of the platform, you should still make your videos square, as they will take up the most screen space and capture your audience’s attention. Square videos can have a minimum resolution of 600×600, and a maximum of 1080×1080.

Our final Instagram best practice tip is to include subtitles and closed captioning. You’ll want to do this for two reasons: the first is that some members of your audience may have hearing difficulties and you don’t want to alienate anyone. The second reason is that audiences may well watch video content on their Instagram feed on silent or low volume, especially when in a public place, so your video needs to entice even without sound.

Those are our top 7 best practices for making Instagram videos that will get your brand noticed. Instagram is still going strong as the go-to social media platform for visual content, so if you’re not sharing your brand videos there, you could be missing out on a very large audience.