Head of Content. Building Media Companies. Prev @AuVodka
Chronically online
Joined July 2009
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Instagram is reportedly offering select creators up to $500,000 to post long-form videos on its new Features product, according to Business Insider.
Interesting move from Instagram.
But until they offer something comparable to YouTube’s revenue sharing, I can’t see creators prioritising Instagram for long-form content.
Still, a big step towards competing with YouTube!
Instagram just announced ‘Features’, and this could be a big deal for creators.
They’re testing long-form videos up to 90 minutes, with the ability to link Reels directly to the full video.
The interesting part isn’t the video length.
It’s that creators could use Reels to attract new viewers and turn them into long-form viewers without ever leaving Instagram.
My biggest question is monetisation.
Until Instagram offers something comparable to YouTube’s ad revenue sharing, I’m not convinced creators will prioritise it over YouTube.
Still, a really interesting move from Instagram. Excited to see how creators use it!
A Hollywood-backed company acquired a YouTube channel with over 5 million subscribers.
But the subscriber count isn't the most interesting part.
The channel is Dr. Insanity, a true crime brand that had generated over 1.3 billion views when it was acquired in July.
The buyer, Wonderloom Media, is backed by a firm that co-owns the CSI franchise.
And what caught my attention was why they wanted it.
They highlighted three things:
A loyal audience
Proven storytelling
Room to expand
They're not just looking at how many views a channel generates.
They're looking at whether it can become a much bigger media business.
I think that's an important distinction for anyone building YouTube channels.
Poppi's most-liked Instagram post ever was for a drink that didn't even exist.
They created a fake 'Amaya Papaya' flavour while Love Island was airing. It got over 250k likes, with 90% of its reach coming from non-followers.
12 weeks later, they launched a real limited-edition flavour with Amaya.
I think this is a really interesting example of how brands can use organic content to gauge audience interest before investing in an actual product.
Deel bought a TikTok page with 120k followers for just $20k.
The page had already generated over 100M views posting workplace humour. The agency behind the deal vetted over 25 accounts before choosing this one.
I think this is a really interesting approach for brands, but I'd want to know how much of that audience actually stays engaged after the rebrand.
Really interesting finding from Reuters' 2026 Digital News Report.
52% of 18 to 24 year olds now say social media, video platforms or AI chatbots are their main way of getting news.
I think there's a big opportunity for creators to become the go-to source for information in their niche.
Whether that's finance, AI, fitness or gaming.
If I was building a page around one of these, I'd be testing content that explains what's happening, why it matters and what people should know.
Rather than just reposting information everyone has already seen.
Interesting finding from Metricool's 2026 research.
Instagram Reels averaged nearly 30% fewer views than TikTok videos.
But Instagram carousels averaged 4.7x more views than TikTok carousels.
If I was managing content across both platforms, I'd be testing the same ideas in different formats rather than just reposting everything exactly the same way.
One thing I'd be testing more on Instagram is different hooks using Trial Reels.
For example, if I was running a finance page, I'd take the same video and test 3 different openings. A bold claim, a question and a personal story.
After 24 hours, I'd compare watch time and shares relative to views to see which performs best with non-followers.
I'd then use those results to decide what to test next, rather than just guessing what might work.
Something I've noticed on X is how well relatable complaint posts perform.
Perfect example here. Nearly 2M views from someone complaining about everything annoying about going to concerts.
I think part of what makes these posts work is that people don't just relate to them, they want to jump in with their own experiences too.
Apparently concert venues are having a hard time getting Millennials to fill the seats. Well, hello. Millennial here. I think I can help.
DEAR CONCERT VENUES:
🎟️ Just tell me what the ticket costs. I do not want to select a $79 ticket and discover at checkout that it is actually $146 because of a facility fee, service fee, processing fee, and a fee for having successfully paid the other fees.
📱 Stop making ticket buying a military operation. I should not need three apps, a verified fan code, a presale password from a credit card I don’t own, and 11:00 AM availability on a Tuesday to buy two seats.
💺 Assigned seats. We did our time standing shoulder-to-shoulder at shows in 2008. Some of us have mortgages now. Some of us have sciatica.
🕖 Start earlier. A 7 PM show is not embarrassing. In fact, I would like to formally recognize whoever invented the 7 PM show.
⏰ And tell us the actual times. “Doors at 7” is not useful information if the opener starts at 8:15 and the person I came to see appears at 10:07.
🚗 Parking instructions written for a normal person. Tell me which garage to use, what it costs, and whether I will spend 55 minutes trying to leave it afterward. I am willing to pay $20 for certainty.
🍺 I will buy your $14 beer. I have accepted this. But if I miss three songs waiting for it, you have broken the social contract.
🚽 Enough bathrooms. We are in our 30s and 40s. Half of us have had children. This is now infrastructure.
🔉 It can still be loud. We are Millennials, not the Greatest Generation. But some of us are bringing earplugs now and we are no longer ashamed of it.
DEAR ARTISTS:
⏰ Please go on roughly when you said you would. We have babysitters. The babysitter has an end time. This is now a logistics problem involving several adults.
🎤 Play the songs from 2004–2014. You know which ones. We know which ones. Nobody needs to pretend otherwise.
🎶 Play some new stuff. Absolutely. We support your continued artistic development. But there is a point in the evening when you need to play the song that was on our iPod Nano while we drove to high school.
📵 You can tell us to put our phones away. We secretly want someone to make us do this anyway.
🪑 An intermission would not offend us. We can use the bathroom, answer the babysitter, check whether the dog has destroyed anything, and look at Zillow for eight minutes.
And please understand: Millennials still like concerts.
We have disposable income now. We are nostalgic. We will absolutely spend irresponsible amounts of money to hear a band we first discovered on LimeWire.
But we also have jobs, children, dogs, mortgages, lower-back problems, and a very clear memory of when concert tickets cost $35.
You want Millennials back?
Make it easy to buy the ticket. Tell us when the show actually starts. Give us somewhere to sit. Play the song from 2007.
We’ll be there.
We just need to be home by 11.
vidIQ analysed 38.2 MILLION YouTube videos.
The results are pretty insane.
The top 1% generated 54.1% of all first-week views.
The bottom 50% generated just 0.5%.
This is exactly why I spend so much time studying outliers.
Understanding WHY something worked is far more interesting to me than blindly publishing more content.
Being really good at something isn’t enough anymore.
Bit unfair, but true.
You can be insanely talented and still get ignored because nobody knows you exist.
Meanwhile someone who can explain what they know publicly, build an audience and distribute their ideas has opportunities finding them.
I don’t even think “personal branding” is the best way to describe it anymore.
It’s distribution.
If you’re good at something, learning how to get your ideas in front of people is becoming part of the skill.
One thing people massively underestimate about posting online:
You have no idea which post is going to create an opportunity you could never have planned for.
Most will do absolutely nothing.
Then one gets seen by the right person.
A client follows you.
A founder DMs you.
Someone offers you a job.
You meet someone you end up building with.
That’s why obsessing over every individual post is a bit pointless.
Every time you publish, you’re basically increasing your surface area for luck.
Trying to grow on 5 platforms at once sounds smart until you realise they’re basically 5 different games.
Different hooks.
Different formats.
Different audiences.
Different reasons people share.
I’d rather get stupidly good at one first.
Learn exactly what works.
Build an audience.
Then take that knowledge + distribution elsewhere.
Being average everywhere sounds diversified.
Most of the time it’s just exhausting.
AI is making it insanely easy to be average.
Average designs.
Average scripts.
Average ideas.
Average videos.
You can now make more “decent” content in a day than most teams could make in a week.
Which is exactly why taste is becoming so valuable.
Knowing:
• this idea is boring
• this hook is weak
• this visual is confusing
• this one is actually worth making
AI can give you 100 options.
Someone still has to know which 3 are good.
Pretty genius, we’ll definitely be seeing more of this.
The key is planning the thumbnail + hook together before you even shoot.
Write the hook first, then ask: “what frame from this would make the best thumbnail?”
If you can make that transition feel seamless, the click flows straight into the video.
You probably don’t need more content ideas.
You’ve already got loads.
The problem is you’re posting the average ones.
If you’ve got 50 ideas, stop asking “which do I want to post?”
Ask “which gives someone the strongest reason to click?”
Better filtering > brainstorming.
I used to run Au's social media.
They just sold for £300m.
Most followed vodka brand in the world.
Here's what we did that big brands wouldn't 🧵👇
US drinks giant completes purchase of viral Au Vodka brand for £300m bbc.in/4h5Jyux
Au didn't outspend the big brands. They just moved faster.
Huge credit to Charlie and Jackson. That's how a vodka brand from Swansea sold for £300m.
If you're building a brand, get attention first. Sales come after.
I help brands do what Au did: build attention through content.
Follow @Joshsocials for more breakdowns like this.