Welcome to Part I of Edition No. 16 of my weekly newsletter, providing practical analysis in the world of digital content strategy.
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Contents
I. Tip: 3 Keys to Instagram’s New Feed
II. Analysis: I’m Not Crazy About YouTube’s ‘Most Replayed’ Feature
Tip: 3 Keys to Instagram’s New Feed
If Instagram hasn’t already updated you to the TikTok-inspired fully immersive feed, it will soon.
And just because you don’t have it yet doesn’t mean your clients/readers/followers don’t.
The name of the game is “vertical.” This is largely driven by the overwhelming focus on Reels.
There are three primary things you need to know:
Non-vertical photos will not occupy the whole screen*
Neither will non-vertical videos*
There are certain instances where someone will tap on your profile and be taken to your Reels tab instead of your all-posts tab, so keep those vertical videos coming to make a good first impression
*Rotating your phone won’t make a horizontal photo/video larger, either
Look at each of these items in more detail by clicking through to the following Instagram post:
Did you find this tip useful? Share it to help spread the word.
Analysis: I’m Not Crazy About YouTube’s ‘Most Replayed’ Feature (But I Guess it Has its Merits)
I suppose we humans can no longer be bothered to watch (or read, for that matter) entire pieces of content. Just look at one of YouTube’s latest features: video markers that allow you to skip to the “most replayed” parts of videos1.
This is the fast-foodification of online consumption. Give me something quick or I’ll find someone who will! It’s not as if people weren’t already skipping through videos, but do we really have to facilitate it, allowing users to ignore entire swaths of content that take hours to make?
Also, won’t this turn into something of a self-fulfilling prophecy? The most re-watched parts of a video will just become watched even more, while the parts that didn’t ride the early wave of this new data point will be lost to many users.
Also See: Watchbait Me Now (YouTube’s battle against video clickbait)
When I was growing up, the only videos we had were on TV, and you had to watch shows with commercial breaks that lasted minutes, not seconds, and unless you had the VCR recording, you better pay attention because if you didn’t hear what Ross said to Rachel you’re going to have to wait until later to find out and I swear if you ask me while the show is still on I’m going to shush you so loud that you’ll wish you had stayed in your room playing Crash Bandicoot!
There are two things that bother me about this feature: 1) The idea of training our attention spans to be even shorter than they’re already becoming, thanks to our phones. 2) The lost art of consuming an entire piece of content to appreciate the storytelling that went into its creation.
As frustrating as that is, I think there are certain types of videos that will most be affected by this change, but others still that will receive a lesser, if not insignificant, blow.
Consider the following (made-up-but-still-realistic) video titles:
This is How Amber Heard Blew it On the Witness Stand
Tom Brady Completes Another Amazing Comeback
Imagine those videos were each 5-10 minutes long. There’s an implied payoff in the title of each one, and it’s probably the only part of the video that will interest a majority of viewers.
You don’t need to hear all the background leading up to the blown response. You just want to see what Amber Heard supposedly did wrong.
You don’t care how Tom Brady’s team got down 20 points, you just want to see the moment they took the lead.
These videos are “plotless” and their attractiveness depends largely on a single moment.
I can see long interviews, speeches and press conferences being treated the same way.
But what about the types of videos that will probably survive this supposed skip-ahead blow?
Cut Your Grocery Spending by 80% with a Garden Like Mine
Grandma’s Homemade Tomato Soup Recipe
If you have never grown a garden before, and Rob from Kentucky promises an amazing harvest you can grow in your backyard if you follow his process, there’s not really any point in skipping to the most re-watched part of the video. If you want to learn how to garden with no prior experience, you’ll need to pay careful attention to each step.
Or perhaps you want to make tomato soup from the vegetables you planted. You aren’t going to skip to the end of the recipe video, because you need the whole recipe.
Of course, there may be a part of the video that was difficult to understand, and you do rewatch it. But that will be incidental, contributing to the overall “most-rewatched” metric. You won’t, however, have skipped to that point because it’s the most re-watched part of the video, even if it is.
How should this affect your video strategy?
If what you do falls into the latter pair of examples, I don’t foresee many problems.
But if you tend to work in the former set, here are a few things to consider (most of which can be applied beyond YouTube):
Is everything you upload in your video essential?
Can you break your video into multiple parts?
Are you using chapter markers on your videos, which will also help users more easily navigate your content?
Is there something that resonates with users in the most re-watched parts of your videos, and perhaps you should create more content like it?
Are users rewatching a particular part of your video because the sound quality is low or something wasn’t explained well?
No matter which of the two groups you find yourself in – and it may be a mix – I will continue to beat the drum that is the staple of this newsletter:
Don’t build your content around the platforms and their features. Create high-quality, original content, adapt it to those platforms (like making vertical-first videos for Reels and TikToks), and people will find it, consume it and share it.
What do you like or dislike about this new feature? Let me know in the comments.
See you Friday for a practical analysis of the latest news in the world of of digital content strategy.
Based on replays