What is the Optimal Instagram Story Length

Stories on Instagram have proven to be a useful, high-reach channel. With so many people posting stories on Instagram, naturally there are many questions about the ideal Instagram story length. While some might not think much about how long should an Instagram Story be, it is actually an important component of optimizing your Stories for your target audience. This is because you want to make sure you are getting people to consume your content without them leaving a video before it is finished. There are many different factors that go into the reach of an Instagram Story as well as getting people to watch your video all the way through. These factors can include finding the best times to post, using the right hashtags, and following best practices to increase engagement rates. However, the ideal story length is one of the important factors that you should keep in mind.

There are many different things to consider when thinking about the ideal Instagram story length. For instance, if you publish many Instagram Stories per day, they will be grouped and shown one after the other? Does the grouping of Stories have an influence on the reach? And when do followers become annoyed with a Story’s length? Luckily, Fanpage Karma has reviewed 5 million Instagram Stories and has come to some to interesting insights regarding the ideal Instagram Story length. In this article, we will highlight 3 key findings we uncovered during our study.

How Long can Instagram Stories Be?

Before talking about the ideal length of a story, we should first give some background information about how long can stories be on Instagram. This is because some might not be aware that there are limits to how long an Instagram story can be. In reality, there is a 60-second length limit for an Instagram Story. It is also important to note that 24 hours after being posted, your Stories will no long appear in the Feed.

You should keep in mind that answering the question of how long can stories be on Instagram is much different than determining how long should an Instagram story be. 60 seconds may not seem like a very long time. However, in the social media world, 60 seconds for a piece of content is rather long. It is, therefore, crucial that you determine how much of that 60 seconds you should use and what you need to pay attention to when optimizing your Instagram story length.

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Instagram Story Length: 3 Key Findings

Let’s now talk about the ideal Instagram story video length. We analyzed millions of Stories and looked at how the length of a Story correlated with metrics such as reach as well as bounce rates. Below, we will highlight 3 key findings from our study that can help you decide how long your Instagram Story should be.

Finding 1: Longer Stories reach more followers than shorter ones

The most interesting finding relates to how the length of the story correlates with the reach of the entire story. We should note that only the reach of the very first frame was compared because from this point the users decide themselves whether they exit or stay. In reality, they have very little control over the first frame, which is presented to them by the Instagram algorithm.

Our finding was that, aside from very large profiles, a story with many frames reaches more users than one with fewer frames. The start of a story is seen by more users if it has more frames. This is an interesting effect, since the user has no influence on it.

A chart showing the reach of a Story according to its length.

Finding 2: Bounce Rates Drop as the Story Goes On

As we already pointed out, Stories have a lifespan of 24 hours. If an Instagram profile posts multiple Stories per day, they are grouped and played in sequence, starting with the oldest story. This results in a large story of several frames. In these cases, the Stories are no longer individual pieces of content, but a part of a group. We found that this has implications for their reach and user behavior.

As the following graphic illustrates, single Stories consisting of only one frame are not common and mostly used by profiles with relatively few followers. We found that even with profiles of 1,000 or more followers, 62% of the Stories comprise more than one frame.

A table showing the Stories that have several frames.

To pinpoint the impact of the length of a story, it was important to ensure that the users had to see all frames at once. Otherwise, the frames could not be too far apart in time, as this would mean that some users could only see the first or the last part of these Stories. To exclude these instances, only the Stories whose single frames were published within 10 minutes were examined for the detailed analysis. The results are meaningful and can be easily applied to Stories of all types and lengths.

On Instagram, the user always has the option to swipe away the complete group of Stories (the so-called Exit). Like the sword of Damocles, this danger is an imminent threat to the reach of every single frame: once driven away, the user will no longer see the frames at the end of the story and their content will never reach them. On average, about 5% of Stories are swiped away. Upon first glance, this seems to be an acceptable value. However, this is the overall average of the exit rates of all individual frames.

Upon further study, there is actually an interesting finding here: the exit rate is the highest in the first frame of a story. 8% of the users decide here that they do not want to continue watching. In the second frame, the exit rate drops to 3%. Indeed, this rate further declines the longer the user views the Story. At first, the results seem counterintuitive. You might have thought that with every additional frame, the exit rate increases, but exactly the opposite is the case. The users who are not interested in the content of the story leave it early, leaving only those who really care about the story.

A graph showing the drop off of viewers the longer a Story goes.

However, the decrease in the exit rate per frame should not hide the fact that longer Stories continuously lose followers. After only five frames, only 80% of the users who were reached at the beginning of the story are still watching. After 20 frames, there are only 56% remaining.

On a positive note, one could also say that having more than half of the users watch a story with more than 20 frames is a good thing. Depending on what you want to achieve, this could also be beneficial. However, one thing is clear. Anyone who wants to deliver an important message via a story has to put this message at the very beginning.

In conclusion, the Story length on Instagram has a statistically relevant impact on the behavior of users and the reach. In reality, most users decide in the first few frames of a story whether they will continue to watch. Our study showed that the exit rate of users decreases with every frame. As we pointed out, we found that, at the end of a story of 20 frames, 56% of the users are still there. It is also important to note that single-frame Stories are rare and more likely to be found on profiles with relatively small follower count. Moreover, videos are more suitable for short Stories and pictures for longer ones.

Finding 3: The Type of Story Makes a Difference

A Story can comprise individual pictures or videos, and we have an interesting insight about the different way you can organize your Stories. Especially at the beginning, videos are swiped away much less commonly. On the one hand, the behavior of viewers changes the longer that a Story is. As the number of frames increases, users tend to linger if the Stories are comprised of images, making it easier to understand. On the other hand, pictures are only 5 seconds long, whereas videos are 15 seconds long.

A Story with five frames comprising pictures is 25 seconds long, while the same story with videos takes 1:15 minutes, which is an eternity on social media. In this case, the user may be ready to pay a little more attention to a video at the beginning because, in contrast to the picture, something exciting could happen later on.

A chart that shows the bounce rate for Stories with pictures only, videos only, or a mix of both.

Takeaways

Stories can be a great way to share content, even if it is on the longer side. As we showed in this study, the length of an Instagram Stories per day has no negative impact on how many users are reached with the story. In fact, in many situations, there is a positive correlation between Story length and reach.

Nevertheless, one must be aware of a viewers’ behavior and, at times, limited attention span when watching a video. For this reason, Stories should always start with the most important or compelling content snippets in order to get your point across and, hopefully, keep them engaged throughout the video. Below, are some of the important overall points that you should keep in mind regarding Instagram Stories:

Longer Stories reach more followers than shorter ones
Most users decide in the first few frames of a story whether they will continue to watch
The exit rate of users decreases with every frame
At the end of a story of 20 frames, 56% of the users are still there
Single-frame Stories are rare and more likely to be found on smaller profiles
Videos are more suitable for short Stories and pictures for longer ones

With these points in mind, here are some recommendations that you can consider when creating Instagram Stories:

Create longer Stories
Put the strongest, funniest, and most important frame at the beginning
Start with a video

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Conclusion

As we covered in this article, the maximum length of an Instagram story is 60 seconds. However, there are many important things to pay attention to when deciding the ideal length of your Instagram Story. First, longer Stories typically have greater reach. Second, and regardless of length, the most engaging part of your story should be at the beginning since the bounce rates increase as your Story goes along. This is why we recommend having your main argument, important point, or engaging hook at the beginning of your video.

The length of your Instagram Stories is just one of many ways you can optimize your content. In fact, you should also try to find the ideal times to post, the optimal hashtags to use, and the type of content formats that are the best performing. If you are looking to gain deeper content insights for your social media activities, you can try Fanpage Karma’s free 14-day trial. This all-in-one social media tool offers powerful benchmarking and analytical insights and also includes research, publishing, and community management features.

Fanpage Karma also offers a free weekly webinar that focuses on how using a social media tool can help you improve your overall performance.