Social Chain, a UK-based social media marketing agency, has launched the ‘first’ video studio dedicated entirely to producing content in the 9:16 vertical format.

The studio, called ‘Nine:Sixteen’, is aimed at adapting traditional methods of storytelling for modern audiences – and the way they tend to consume their content – by dedicating a team to the production and creative behind vertical content.

“One of our key values is to always be ever-changing, we dedicate a lot of our resource and focus to innovation in order to achieve this,” said Jason Fisher, group director of video at Social Chain. “Finding new ways to tap into social platforms and adapt our content services to match audience consumption is essential, and as such we have always been a big believer in vertical content.”

One of Nine:Sixteen’s early partners is Sky Bet. The betting firm, which has been owned by The Stars Group since last year, worked with the Social Chain studio to create a vertical content campaign made entirely of video which could only be accessed through the brand’s Instagram stories. Sky Bet’s followers are said to have increased 900 per cent in the first five months of running the campaign and drove traffic directly to its site.

“With the help of Social Chain, we created Six of the Best, a weekly Instagram Story,” said Nigel Hockin, media manager at Sky Betting and Gaming. “Due to the engagement Instagram Stories gets, we can reach a much higher percentage of our followers organically than we can on other social channels creating an efficient way to message existing customers. Users are also becoming much more receptive to swiping up through stories enabling us to also drive traffic directly to site.”