Instagram is reportedly offering select creators $50,000 to $500,000 to post long videos, a sign it wants to take on YouTube for sit-down viewing.
Instagram is paying some creators big money to post long videos. According to people familiar with the deals, offers start at $50,000, and some have reached $500,000. The goal is to fill a new video section called Features with the kind of content people usually watch on YouTube. Business Insider first reported the story.
Features is a new part of the Instagram app for horizontal, widescreen videos. They can run as long as a feature film, up to 90 minutes. It brings back IGTV, a long-video product Instagram launched in 2018 and shut down in 2022. Instagram announced the overhaul of its video formats on Monday.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed the funding. The company is paying some creators directly to support them, the spokesperson said, but the details of those deals are confidential.
Instagram is known for short clips. Reels, its answer to TikTok, drives time spent and revenue across Meta's apps. But YouTube is still the main place people go to sit down and watch longer videos, and Instagram wants a piece of that.
This is not the first time Meta has paid creators. Last year it paid creators thousands of dollars to post short videos while TikTok faced a possible ban. In 2021, it funded long episodic shows for IGTV.
Creators with long videos are the obvious winners. Talent manager Reza Izad called the deals an exciting opportunity. He said new features that apps promote tend to get algorithmic preference, meaning the app shows them to more people. Long-form is also scarcer than short-form, he said. For viewers and businesses, that could mean more long videos on Instagram and another place to reach customers.
Most creators are not getting these checks. YouTube pays eligible creators a share of the ad money their videos earn through its Partner Program, and that long-term income is a big reason creators stay. Instagram has not said how everyone else will get paid for Features. Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote on X on Wednesday that the company is exploring multiple options to help long-form creators get paid.
Expect more long videos on Instagram soon, but how regular creators will earn money from them is still an open question.
Running a laptop with the lid closed at your desk has small perks and small risks, and a few settings and a stand can cover most of them.
Read more: Laptop lid open or closed at your desk? Mostly a style choiceNetflix's top plan is now $26.99 a month, while its 2007 streaming only worked on a Windows PC with Internet Explorer. Here is what each plan gets you.
Read more: Netflix now costs up to $26.99 a month, and in 2007 it only ran on one kind of PCThe IRS says it first contacts people by mail and never calls to demand instant payment, so a rushed message claiming to be the IRS is a warning sign.
Read more: IRS Lists How to Spot Tax Scams and Protect Your Information
