HOW LONG SHOULD A REEL BE? UNDER 3 MINUTES ON INSTAGRAM, LONGER ON TIKTOK

Summary from the TLDR Marketing newsletter

Video length barely matters on Instagram until the 3-minute mark, where recommendations to new audiences stop. Reels from 10 seconds to 3 minutes all perform within 2% of each creator's median, while longer ones fall to 0.91x. TikTok rewards length instead, with 3-to-10-minute videos earning 1.22x and beating the same creator's 10-to-19-second clips for 68% of creators.