Of all of the social media networks, Instagram is the only one that’s truly listening to the navigation of its users. It’s currently the most engaging and popular social channel. So when Instagram debuted its stand-alone app for long-form video, IGTV, there was a lot of fanfare and excitement around it. While initial buzz quickly fizzled due to issues with the interface and navigation, Instagram TV (IGTV) remains a highly viable product and potentially offers a huge opportunity for marketers and creators.
In this article, you’ll discover insights from new research that shows what types of businesses use IGTV, how marketers are reaching IGTV viewers in the Instagram feed, and more.
Why IGTV?
Instagram launched IGTV in June 2018 as a way to compete directly with YouTube. IGTV allows users to upload their own videos and watch videos from 60 seconds to 1 hour in length directly on the platform.
According to the 2019 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, marketers have taken note. More than 50% of marketers are producing videos on YouTube and Facebook, 38% are using Instagram Stories, and 26% are using native Instagram videos like IGTV.
1. Businesses Can Benefit by Partnering With Influential Personalities: Many of the B2C brands that are seeing results with IGTV videos are partnering with influential personalities. Influencer marketing can be a great way to increase brand awareness and reach, especially for small businesses without large marketing budgets.
If you’re interested in developing a partnership, make sure there’s a natural connection between your brand and the influencer. If your brand is based on a Southern college football town and sells football tailgate gear, look for influencers who are college football fans and live in the South, as opposed to influencers who post about all college sports and live in Maine.
Remember that follower count isn’t everything. If one influencer has 1 million followers and a 2% engagement rate and another has 150,000 followers and a 20% engagement rate, the influencer with 150,000 followers will likely net better results.
2. IGTV Preview Videos Boost Full IGTV Video Views: With consumer and brand adoption of IGTV slower than expected, Instagram has responded by introducing several new features since February 2019. This includes IGTV preview videos, support for landscape video, and increased UX and search features that make the content display more like Snapchat’s Discover page. While it’s still early days, these features seem to be working and luring more brands, online creators, and influencers to try IGTV out. Businesses that are utilizing these features have seen promising results.
This is especially true for brands using the new preview videos. In fact, brands that use IGTV preview videos have seen views increase by more than 300%. Sephora went from getting 60,000–80,000 views on their videos to over 1 million nearly overnight after they started showing 60-second IGTV preview videos in their feed.
3. Crispier videos make for better engagement: Make sure your videos are 15 seconds long or more, but not longer than 10 minutes. Depending on your product and message, a 3- to 4-minute video is typically a good length to aim for. And consider that your audience probably has a 1-minute attention span, so be completely clear at the start about what you’re doing. Another option is to create a video series and break it up into smaller parts.
4. Video is the future: As per a recent survey, there’s an 80% year-on-year increase in the time people spend watching on Instagram. Video has become the most preferred form of content engagement. There’s a 2x increase in the number of viewers who are more likely to tell others about a video ad versus an image ad. So, video is the way to go.
After going through all the pros and cons of IGTV, we’re sure you might have decided on whether you should have an account on Instagram TV or not. Good luck:)