14 September 2015. The image-centric social network Instagram has introduced three major changes to its ad platform in order to attract advertisers. It has expanded its ad platform to 30 new countries, including India, South Korea and Mexico, and has announced that it will be available worldwide from the end of the month. Small-to-medium sized businesses will also be able to use the Instagram ad platform, which was only previously available to large businesses. It has also extended the maximum length of a video ad from 15 seconds to 30 seconds, and introduced landscape rectangular capabilities. Previously, video ads had to be square. The introduction of longer, horizontal video means that advertisers can now use the same ads for TV and Instagram, reducing video production costs for advertisers. It has also improved its calls-to-action options, which now allow advertisers to link to an external site outside of Instagram.
