George Kao Courses

✍🏽 Authentic Content Flow (ACF) 2023+

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IG Reels, Stories, Video Posts?

8:40 Video (29 MB) HD Video (75 MB) Audio (8 MB)
I wanna record just a little bit about Instagram because I got a question about it from 1 of you. And even though I have an entire course about Instagram strategy and to use it and all that stuff, you might wanna, you know, check that 1 out. But 1 of the common confusions about Instagram is the difference between videos, you know, reels, stories, what's the difference, and how should we think about each of these? Okay. So when you simply record a video and upload it to Instagram, it's technically called a video post.
Now, video posts can be as far as I know at at this time, anyway, up to 60 minutes so you can, you know, upload up to an hour long video. It can be either this direction, you know sorry. Vertical portrait mode or landscape mode video, both can be uploaded to Instagram as just a regular video post. It shows up in your in your grid, you know, when your people go to your Instagram account, just your posts, you know, your regular posts, up to 60 minutes an hour long. And then if you upload a video that is up to 15 minutes long, 15 minutes long, so maximum 15 minutes, you upload the Midjourney now turn it into what's called a real, REEL.
It's I'll tell you why they're doing it. It was shown that shorter videos tend to get more traction. They were trying to compete with TikTok. And they're trying to compete with YouTube shorts. And so Instagram started really emphasizing what originally reels were only short videos of to 1 minute long.
And then because all the bosses and shareholders of Facebook and meta were like, oh, let's go more into Reels. You wanna compete with TikTok. So then they started calling all videos reels that are under 15 minutes long. It's kind of ridiculous. So it's it's just a to me a kind of a stupid label called a real.
And it's not stupid because the algorithm does emphasize Reels. It emphasizes anything called a real. They'll emphasize it because it's good for the shareholders of Meta. Trying to compete with TikTok like I said. So it's a silly game we're all playing right now.
We we upload short videos. If it's under 15 minutes, just it's gonna be called a real, and it's still shown on your profile in the posts area. So it's it's a bit about algorithmic play, but it's the same thing. Okay? Essentially, between a post and a real, it's the same thing.
Video post and a video and a real REEL again. So stories is the is the different creature. A story on Instagram is, you know, when you go to Instagram and some people have a have a certain circle on on their profile picture. On their profile picture around their profile picture, there's a certain colorful circle. You click on that circle and then you see something short.
Wow. It's like, you know, a 15 second video. 15 second second video. It's very short, or they have a series of 15 second videos, or they have They have an image that pops up for only a few seconds and then the next 1 and the next 1. That's called a story.
And a a video story, you can post videos of stories, can be up to 60 seconds, I believe, now. Let me go ahead and and and take a look if I If I create a story, how how long can the video be? If I create a story, I believe it could be up to 60 seconds long and didn't start recording. Yeah. So it can be up to 60 seconds long as a video story.
Anyway, like I said, I have I'm sorry. I have a whole course on on Instagram, so you might wanna take that to to get on the details. But long story short, a story is up to 60 second video or an image. Okay? Or you can or you can type some text to make it look like big words on a colorful background.
That's a story. And the limitation of a story is that it's only available for 24 hours. 24 hours on on on Instagram. However, after the 24 hour period. It disappears after 24 hours.
But after the 24 hour period, it still stays in what's called your archive and you can go into the archive and turn that story into what's called a highlight, which if you go to someone's Instagram profile, you see now let me go just go to my Instagram real quick. Again, this is not an Instagram course, but I wanted to answer this basic question. If you have questions, you should take my Instagram course. But Let me go ahead and show you because this again, you could tell I could talk about this for hours. Right?
So in in an Instagram profile, I don't have a I don't have a story right now. That's why there's no colorful circle around my picture. But I do have highlights. These are all highlights. And highlights came from, highlights came from originally were stories.
This is originally a story, and this is originally a story. Now, sorry, this was originally a video that I reposted as a story. You could do that. You could you could post any of your videos as stories to give a 15 second clip and they can click on the story to view more. Okay?
You can click on the story to to view the entire video. The entire I I don't know how long this was. This was probably 7 minutes long or something like that. So long story short. Okay?
Your stories are basically viewed by your fans. The people who are most interested in your content who engage the most of all of your followers on Instagram. The people who engage the most with your content will likely see your stories because your profile picture will pop up at the top and they'll see your story. If people don't engage with your stuff and they're following you, they're probably not gonna see your story. It just doesn't pop up for them.
However, the long term benefit of stories is you can turn them into highlights that will always stay on your instant at the top of your Instagram profile. So I hope this is helpful. So what I what I use it for, so just to summarize here. I use video posts. In other words, reels if it's under 15 minutes.
Most of my videos are under 15 minutes that I upload into Instagram. And it's usually a good idea for Instagram the shorter, the shorter, the better, basically. Okay? YouTube, you can go long. Facebook, you can go long.
Instagram and LinkedIn and TikTok, of course, should be kept as short as possible. So I I upload shorter videos there. Long story short, I use regular videos on Instagram up to about 7 minutes, 8 minutes long, sometimes 9 minutes just as a way to communicate a message real quick, some kind of content. And then stories, what do I use stories for? I use stories to promote my services and courses because stories are only seen by your biggest fans.
Your your followers who are not your biggest fans will not see your stories. It's just they have to scroll way too long before they see it. It's just too many other stories. So again, I think stories are great to communicate with your biggest fans some kind of promotion. Or announcement or just behind the scenes.
People fans love that too. Some kind of behind the scenes, something about your per private life or some other You can also use it to test ideas because your biggest fans are gonna see it. So test ideas. Like, oh, I'm thinking about this. Just testing content, whereas your your regular posts, which are seen by more of your followers, are if you're going to have a stage 1 and stage 2, then stories is good for stage 1 content and for promotions.
Right? And they disappear after 24 hours. So it's less less of a pressure. Right? So I hope this is helpful.
And again, I have an entire Instagram course. You can take that to get all the strategies and details and q and a and all that stuff there. So but I hope this helps to clarify this common commonly confusing idea on Instagram and hopefully you can be more inspired now to continue creating there. Thanks.

Stories = up to 60 seconds, and you can keep adding to it, but fans will have each segment available for only 24 hours, then you can add to Highlight for others to see it anytime in the future. You can also add clickable Link to a Story that you can’t to other video formats. 

  • I use it to promote courses and other important links.
  • It’s more experimental, and good for quick things that you know will disappear after 24h.
  • You can more easily See my IG Course for more info.  

Reels = Any video that is 15 minutes or shorter is now called a Reel.

Posts = includes Reels, but not Stories. And you can upload a video of up to 60 minutes.

For in-depth discussion about all this, go to my Instagram Course.

Last updated 20 Oct 2023.