Instagram Says Posting Longer Reels Can Hurt Your Performance

Here’s an important note for IG creators.

According to Instagram’s content team, posting Reels longer than 90 seconds can actually hurt your reach in the app.

This was one of several notes shared by the IG crew at a creator event in New York last week, at which Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri answered various questions about the platform, the algorithm, what they’re working on, etc.

And as reported by The Information’s Kaya Yurieff, Mosseri and the IG team presented one particular slide which stated that Reels that are longer than 90 seconds can hurt distribution.

Here’s a look at the slide in question:

As you can see in this overview, most of the notes are fairly generic, and the same as what you’ve likely read many times before (generate authentic engagement, post at the right times, etc.).

But there are some interesting notes.

First, the advice here suggests that posting at the same time as when you post your updates on other platforms can be of benefit. That, presumably, is due to broader branding and generating discussion at one time.

On the impact side, IG says that posting content you didn’t make, posting content with watermarks from other apps, engagement bait and general low quality content will hurt your reach.

And posting Reels longer than 90 seconds.

Which begs the question: “Why would Instagram even let you post Reels longer than 90 seconds if people don’t want to watch them?”

To clarify, the current maximum posting length for Reels created within the app is 90 seconds, but you can upload longer clips. Instagram’s been experimenting with 3 minute and 10 minute Reels uploads. Though evidently, those experiments haven’t been going great, given that it’s advising people not to do so.

Either way, it’s a relevant note, which could impact your posting approach.

Mosseri also discussed creator monetization, and the challenges in coming up with an equitable, sustainable creator program, while he also discussed subscriptions, which he believes are a solid revenue pathway, but are only relevant to a small number of creators.