Best course of action for a Instagram story video ad

Ask questions & share learnings here
,
1

I have a video that is 59 seconds. Would you suggest splitting it up into possibly 3 shorter videos in hopes of telling a progressive story?

The Instagram advice in the playbooks is good but pretty general overall. I was hoping for some additional help.

Thanks for considering!
Wayne

2 Likes
2

Hi Wayne,

It depends a little bit on the content of each one and the purpose. A bit more context would help us get a much better answer for you?

  • What is the objective of the video?
  • What is the content? is it instructional, informative, an oppinion?
  • Who is it for?
1 Like
3

Informative content inviting multiple avatars to a holiday event.
I’d see the objective would be awareness and possibly clicking through to the landing page.

2 Likes
4

Hey Wayne,

Thanks for the context helps a lot.

I don’t think chopping a video is necessarily a bad idea. If each segment is then by itself useful and has clear value and a call to action.

Helpful resources

Whilst these playbooks talk about TikTok and different lengths of video some of the strategic steps in there may give you ideas on how to edit or chop the video.

at CXL we use PAS framework for a lot of our content. Problem, Agitation, Solution and add a CTA.

Maybe you can augment the video with text, overlays or something to get to a value video edit. Using a tool like Canva makes that very easy.

Its quite difficult to make a concrete assessment without seeing the actual video.

If you prefer feel free to DM me or post it here and we can get some advice?

2 Likes
5

Hi Hesh,

Here’s the video chopped up into parts. I’ve been looking through the Instagram stories advertising option and could benefit from detailed advice (in addition to every playbook I’ve already looked at on that topic).
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1t7U5iNZcyA8nhYWJwNA-Hxwykybu5Oq5?usp=share_link
Thanks for considering,

Wayne

2 Likes
6

Our biggest draw (A audience) in previous years has come from families with young children.
Our B audience would be singles who are looking for a community to connect with.
Our C audience would be seniors evaluating life perspective.

2 Likes
7

Thanks for supplying these @wlaschmidt

@tania Do you think we can track someone down with Instagram experience to help out wayne?

1 Like
8

Hey @wlaschmidt,

Thank you @hesh_fekry for the tag. I know someone who can help. :slight_smile:

Our playbooks are an amazing resource to getting things done to industry standard. Glad you’ve found them a great help, and your questions help us provide more actionable playbooks to the community.

I’ve done a great deal of Instagram video ads and have an advanced proficiency in Japanese. I can offer the exact tips you’re looking for for this video and any others for your intended audience. :slight_smile:

Here’s my advice after reading the context you’ve provided and watching your attached videos.

First: The full video is great.

  • Content: The content directly targets audience A
  • Content details: Has added text throughout the video that reinforces 1 main CTA for this Christmas event
  • Details about main CTA: Full details are included at the very end of the video
  • The ad CTA being the event website or a specific signup form for it are ideal.

Second: Splitting this video into parts A thru D.

Splitting the full video into parts is not enough to tell a progressive story, no matter how purposeful the cuts are. The glaring issues I see:

  • Content: Parts A thru D feel incomplete. Why?
    • The positive points from the full video are missing for each part.
    • Each part is a different duration, some much shorter than others. The resulting parts A thru D feel rushed and make your ad’s purpose unclear.

Third: What I’d try to improve, if splitting the video (A thru D).

  • Determine what the main story and purpose each part describes. Reuse clips and edit with that in mind. You can use the PAS format Hesh mentioned to do this consistently.
  • Try adding the content details & details about main CTA from the full video into each split ad. The full details for this ad should be present in each segment. Assume a person will likely only see one part, unless the next ad is pushed to them again.
  • Try to use similar audio, keep the video length the same, and aim for consistency in each part. Reusing clips will only help you. I opt for 20 seconds for shorter ads.

Splitting a video into a progressive story across a handful of short ads is a great idea. But what I’ve pointed out should tell you how you can do it effectively.

Bonus: About audiences B and C.

This video very clearly targets your biggest draw (audience A). Families with young children. To make the same ad and content format work for your other audiences, I’d get similar content made with them in mind.

If audience B or C does not see themselves in your ad like audience A does, they won’t feel as strong a draw. Are these audiences a potential big draw? If so, it’s worth investing the time into making content with the same pacing and format as your current ad.

Let me know if this helps you. :slight_smile: I’ll be sure to share more, or tag more resources if you need it. Feel free to ask more follow-up questions, I’ll be happy to answer.

Thank you so much for your question,
Tania

1 Like
9

@tania
Thanks so much for your advice and input Tania!
How would you best promote a 20 second video on Instagram that compresses parts A thru D (without losing the positive points) targeting Audience A?

2 Likes
10

Hey @wlaschmidt,

Happy to help. :slight_smile:

To reduce the 59 sec video to 20 seconds, I’d think of the video as 3 segments to help cut fluff. Something like:

  • A - Intro scene(s)
  • B - Show narrator / speaking person
  • C - Ending scene(s)

With these segments, I’d overlay the narration audio over the singers. Something like this:

  • A - Intro scenes, start right away with Singer 1.
  • B - Reduce volume of singer 1 transitioning into singer 2, Start narration audio. Show narrator.
  • C - Ending scenes, transition into Singer 2.

That’s how I would reduce time. This reframe can also make it easier to repurpose or make content that can be both a full video or separate segmented ads.

After you have that down, you can worry about platform positioning and audience target. The content already targets audience A well, just need to experiment with different content length + style.

Hope this helps :pray:

11

Thanks Tania! That’s quite helpful.

If you simply boost a post that has been getting a good response in terms of likes and shares, will you see more than just views?

I’m trying to follow the 2 step awareness to conversion process and we got a good amount of likes/shares but I don’t see them carrying over to the conversion ads.

Any thoughts?

1 Like
12

17179593008317
171795930083171522×1076 222 KB

@tania
I really appreciate all of your help! I have one final request regarding paid ads.

I’m looking for a very clear way to create an Instagram story with these 3 panels. The artist will be finishing them soon and I was hoping to make a great ad on Instagram and FB. Any suggestions for how to do this? Stories? something else?

2 Likes
13

Hey @wlaschmidt,

See your final request regarding paid ads. Before answering that, let me answer your first question:

Boosting a post usually guarantee views, rarely engagement from Instagram’s side. If you haven’t, I’d try using the Meta Ads platform to create your campaigns for engagement-focused ads since you’ll have more options to target folks who will actually do more than view.

When you see posts getting a good organic response, try and repost or replicate it as a new post at a different time. I have reposted well-received posts evening of the same day, or the same time a week later. You can see if a certain time, certain copy gets you the good response.

Question for you: Do you know if folks are liking and sharing, then visiting your website without clicking any link in a given ad or your IG bio link? I’d double-check that to be sure.

Onto your final request as of right now :slight_smile:

  • I would absolutely push this as a story ad along with an IG reel. Reminds me a lot of webtoon and similar app comic ads I’ve seen.
  • Work with the artist and make simple 2d animations that emphasize movement / focus of each page to what you want the viewer to focus on. Here’s an example of what I mean.
  • For other platforms, you may want to work with the artist for a landscape version as well. Reason being, sometimes landscape over portrait (or vice versa) work better for platforms like FB.

If you need any more specific advice on the content, let me know. Happy to help. This comic was definitely a great idea for the ads you want, and audiences you want to target. :beers:

1 Like