For most of this decade, the advice to businesses on social video has been the same: keep it short, keep it vertical and get to the point in the first two seconds. This week, Instagram signaled that the rules are changing.
On Monday, October 26, Instagram announced it is testing a format called Features that lets creators post horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long. If your business has been wondering whether a podcast, a webinar or a long-form interview series is worth the effort, this is a good moment to take a hard look at the question. Here’s what changed, what it means and how to decide whether your business should go long.
What Instagram Announced
Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Vice President of Product Tessa Lyons introduced three connected video tools in an announcement video, as reported by Social Media Today and TechCrunch:
- Features: horizontal videos of up to 90 minutes, aimed at formats such as podcasts, interviews, vlogs and comedy. Instagram tested them first with creators in Brazil and began a small U.S. test with select creators on October 26.
- Clips as Reels: creators can link up to eight short Reels back to the full-length video, so a viewer who likes a clip can keep watching the whole thing without leaving the app.
- Series: a way to group related Reels into episodic, topic-based collections, which Instagram has been testing since June.
According to Fast Company, the previous maximum for vertical Reels was 20 minutes, so this is a big jump. TechRepublic reported that Features will appear in users’ feeds and on the Explore page, and that Instagram is also testing ways to make live video easier to discover, including for people who don’t follow the broadcaster.
One important caveat: this is a limited test. Most businesses can’t post a Feature today, and Instagram hasn’t said when the format will be widely available. That makes now the time to plan, not panic.
Why This Is a Notable Reversal
Instagram has tried long-form video before. Its IGTV product launched in 2018 and was later discontinued. In the announcement, Mosseri admitted, “For a long time, I have been against doing long-form video on Instagram,” noting that shorter content drives more shares and DMs, according to TechCrunch. Lyons, who pushed for the change, told WIRED that one of IGTV’s core mistakes was that it allowed only vertical video, when “a lot of great long-form content is horizontal.”
The bigger strategy is about where people watch. The Verge noted that Instagram’s TV app, launched late last year, has expanded from Amazon Fire TV to Google TV, Samsung TVs and Apple TV. Lyons described the plan to WIRED this way: “TV becomes a great destination for watching long-form, horizontal content, and mobile becomes a great place for discovering that content.” Mosseri said the goal is to make short-form and long-form video “symbiotic.”
In plain terms, Instagram wants to keep viewers who find a great clip from wandering off to YouTube to watch the full episode.
What It Means for Businesses
Platform changes like this tend to reward organizations that already have the right kind of content. Three takeaways stand out.
The clip-to-full-episode funnel is becoming the standard model. Many businesses already post a short clip from a webinar, keynote or podcast and hope people follow a link elsewhere. Instagram is building that journey directly into the app. Whether or not you ever post a 90-minute video there, the lesson applies everywhere: your short content should be a doorway to something deeper, not a dead end.
Horizontal video is back. For years, many teams reshot or cropped everything for vertical screens. If the TV becomes a major viewing screen for long-form social content, landscape footage matters again. When you record a panel, an interview or a customer story, capture it in a way that works both wide and tall.
Monetization is still unclear, and that cuts both ways. Instagram hasn’t announced a YouTube-style ad revenue program for Features. A Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch, “It’s too early to share a long-term monetization model.” For a business, the goal usually isn’t platform payouts anyway. It’s attention, trust and leads. But it does mean you shouldn’t abandon a channel such as YouTube, where your long-form library can be found through search, in favor of an unproven test.
Should Your Business Go Long? Five Questions to Ask
Long-form video takes real time and money to do well. Before you invest, work through these questions with your team.
- Do you have something worth 20, 40 or 90 minutes? Long form works when the content is genuinely substantive: expert conversations, how-to walkthroughs, behind-the-scenes stories or event recordings. A stretched-out sales pitch will lose viewers quickly.
- Can you sustain it? A series with three episodes and a long silence hurts more than it helps. Pick a schedule you can keep, whether that’s monthly or quarterly.
- Where does your audience already watch? If your customers are active on Instagram, a Feature could reach them where they already spend time. If they search for answers, YouTube and your own website may matter more.
- Can one recording feed several channels? The most efficient approach is to record once and publish in pieces: the full conversation, a handful of short clips, an audio version and a blog post summarizing the key points.
- How will you measure success? Decide in advance what matters, such as watch time, inquiries or newsletter sign-ups, so you can judge whether long form is paying off.
How to Prepare Now
You don’t need access to Features to get ready. A few practical steps will put you in a strong position if and when the format opens up more widely:
- Audit the long-form content you already have, such as webinar recordings, conference talks and recorded interviews, and identify the strongest pieces.
- Start shooting new interviews and presentations in landscape with enough framing room to cut vertical clips.
- Practice building short clips that stand on their own but make viewers want the full story. A strong clip has a clear point, a hook and a reason to keep watching.
- Plan any long-form effort as a series with a consistent theme, which fits the direction Instagram is heading with Series.
- Keep your website and YouTube channel as the permanent home for your best long-form content, and treat any one social platform as a distribution channel.
The Bottom Line
The pendulum in social video is swinging. Short, vertical clips aren’t going away, but the platforms increasingly want full shows, not just highlights. For business leaders and communicators, the opportunity isn’t to chase every new format. It’s to build content substantial enough to deserve a viewer’s time, then package it so people can find it in the short form and stay for the long form.
That’s a production and storytelling challenge as much as a technology one. Interviews, podcasts and video series that hold an audience depend on preparation, structure and delivery, the same fundamentals that have always made broadcast content work.
If you’d like help planning a podcast, video series or content strategy that fits your business and your audience, schedule a consultation. Let’s talk about what your story could look like at full length.