In the land of online long-form video, YouTube is king. Beyond user-generated content, it’s become a place where AAA content is syndicated; and the primary home for influencers, product reviewers, and talking heads looking to monetize their content. But now there’s a new game in town: Instagram.
Specifically, Instagram has announced that it will allow video uploads of up to 90 minutes. That’s up from its previous Reels limit of 20 minutes, and represents a strategic run time that factors in cinematic content, as well as event panels & keynotes, and several other long-form formats popular on YouTube.
There are several actions this move could spark, all of which are likely deliberate from the minds at Meta. For example, Instagram could become more of a home for monetizable creator content. Today, that’s precluded by short-form video, which doesn’t have as much elbow room for commercial breaks.
That logistical reality is at the heart of several factors that make YouTube a more attractive choice for creators. And it can be seen in YouTube’s more favorable terms – not to mention scale – for creator monetization. It currently shares 55 percent of revenue for ads placed within creator content.
Chicken & Egg
In total, YouTube has shelled out 100 billion in creator payouts over the past four years. Instagram, by comparison, leaves it to creators to strike sponsorship deals with brands (which YouTube also allows). Instagram also offers subscriptions to users, the revenue from which is split with top creators.
Altogether, YouTube has become the clear choice for creators. Though its monetization has been refined over the years – to the highly-vocal chagrin of many creators – it remains the more attractive outlet. It’s become crowded and competitive, but is ultimately the place where top creators can make a living.
What’s the point of all this? With more favorable terms, and the monetization potential with long-form video, YouTube has attracted the best creators and content. That in turn attracts audiences, which attract more creators… and around we go in the flywheel of network-effect-driven content marketplaces.
Beyond chicken-and-egg dynamics between content and users, a third factor is attracted as they grow in step: advertisers. YouTube continues to ratchet up its revenue and has become the hypergrowth story of the online video age, including content that’s increasingly watched on the living-room big screen.
Piece of the Action
Back to Instagram’s play, all the above hasn’t gone unnoticed by Meta, and it now wants a piece of the action. Boosting video runtime limits is the first step. If our speculation is correct, we’ll next see updated terms & conditions for creator monetization that are competitive with YouTube’s offerings.
This also puts Instagram in another class. It’s currently competitive with Snapchat and TikTok – likewise grounded in snackable and feed-friendly short-form video. And it will likely continue to stay competitive there. But this move expands its persona a bit, growing its addressable market in all the above ways.
To separate these strategies and prevent its feeds from getting muddled with opposing use cases, look for Instagram to launch a new tab in its primary navigation, dedicated to long-form video. We also expect it to seed the experience with some first-party or studio-partnered content to get the ball rolling.
For other creators, the practical result is that they’ll cross-post YouTube content to Instagram. With the fixed/sunk costs of production behind them, they can amortize against additional distribution. That could fragment their audiences to a degree, but they’ll likely live with that tradeoff to double dip for dollars.
