In this solo tutorial, DIY video expert Sheryl Plouffe explains the mechanics of Instagram Stories and offers data‑driven recommendations for optimal story length aimed at small‑business owners, coaches, and entrepreneurs. She describes how each story is composed of short "snippets"—images lasting about 3 seconds and videos up to 10 seconds—and notes a pronounced viewer drop‑off after the ninth snippet, indicating waning attention. Drawing on her experience with television and online video, she argues that the ideal attention span for a story is roughly one to one‑and‑a‑half minutes, which translates to 6–9 video snippets. She positions this duration as a sweet spot for maintaining audience engagement and achieving a good return on time investment. Throughout, she encourages viewers to keep stories engaging, invites feedback on personal experiences, and promotes her free webinars and training resources for entrepreneurs who want to create video content without scripts or teleprompters.
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Hey everybody, Sheryl Plouffe here, and today we're talking Instagram. Yes, Instagram Stories in particular. I'm a DIY video expert for small business owners and entrepreneurs, and video is a real big component of Instagram Stories and one of the most exciting features that Instagram's come out with for its platform. So what I want to show you is a few things that I've noticed, and my battery's running low here and I'm reflecting and mirroring my phone so that you can see it. But a couple of things that I wanted to show you as I click on my Instagram story. This all began 11 hours ago. Most of this is video. There are a few areas where I've included some images as well. But what I've noticed is at the very top, see the little dashed bars that are going across? An image lasts about 3 seconds, but a video can go as long as 10 seconds. I'm gonna call each of those little dashes a snippet. Those snippets altogether comprise the Instagram story. Now what I've noticed is that the numbers— and of course you would expect the numbers to drop off because these snippets are being uploaded as the day goes on— but there's at one point a pretty significant drop, and to me that's an indication of where people are losing interest and their attention span is decreased, and that's around the 9 number. So after about 9 snippets, the number does start to drop off significantly. Another thing to consider, and this comes really by tapping into my experience on television, is that the attention span for people to watch, you know, material like this or video, what have you, a little story, is about a minute. You know, if we talk about YouTube videos, for example, people's attention spans are so low that we often say, especially in TV, we should try to keep it down to a minute. So in my opinion, the ideal sweet spot, the ideal length for an Instagram story, should you be using this platform as a way to build your audience, to continue to engage with people, if you're trying to build a business or build your audience, if you're in business, that kind of thing. An entrepreneur, a coach, a consultant, what have you, and you want to invest your time in Instagram to do that, I think that keeping your Instagram story up to date is a great ROI, return of investment of your time. So if you aim for something between 1 and 1.5 minutes long, to me, that's the sweet spot. That's the ideal length. So what that will translate to is if we consider that each of the segments or snippets is 10 seconds long, And I'm just talking about video here specifically. So 6 of those little snippets would be a minute and 9 of those little snippets would be a minute 30. So anywhere from 6 to 9 snippets for a duration of 1 to 1.5 minutes is the, in my opinion, the ideal sweet spot for keeping your Instagram story updated. So I hope that helps. Again, it's not a hard and fast rule by any means. In fact, I'd love to know what your opinion is, what's been your experience with Instagram Stories. Have you found that a different length works better for you? Again, we have to keep in mind that the content needs to be engaging, it has to be entertaining, it has to be all of that. But if we wanted to kind of give a ballpark figure of what would really work, in my opinion, it's that minute to minute and a half sweet spot. That's the ideal length for your Instagram Stories. So I hope that's helpful. My name is Sheryl Plouffe. You can visit me and my blog at SherylPlouffe.com. Or if you want to check out some of my free webinars, you can actually see the website right there, videofasttrack.com. I've got some free webinar masterclasses there that you can take advantage of if you're a coach, consultant, small business owner, entrepreneur, network marketer, real estate agent. I feel like the list could go on. If you're interested in building your audience with video without having to write scripts, without having to read from a teleprompter, and without having to memorize lines, then I've got the training for you. So I'll see you on videofasttrack.com or on my blog at CherylPlouffe.com. Hope you have a great day. Hope you're gonna get on to Instagram and keep updating your Instagram stories because this is one of the most exciting updates that Instagram has come out with. And I think it's a great, great way to continue to engage with your audience and to keep them interested in who you are and what you do. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
