Instagram passed 1 billion customers remaining yr, and the milestone marked large adjustments for the platform. Chief among them become the introduction of Instagram TV (IGTV), a long-shape video content material provider available as a standalone app and a segment of the conventional Instagram app.
But what possibilities does IGTV provide brands? The platform doesn’t yet help paid advertising. However, that doesn’t mean brands are left out within the bloodless.
Here’s what you need to recognize approximately IGTV: what it’s miles, how it works, and how to increase a successful content material advertising and marketing strategy for it.
What Is IGTV?
Like YouTube, IGTV lets customers browse specific channels of video content material. Videos can be up to an hour in duration and begin playing once you open the app. But IGTV has a cell-first method to content material. All movies are viewed in complete-display, vertical format.
A Bold Move For Instagram
Encroaching on YouTube’s dominance of the long-shape video layout is an unstable move, but one that might result in a big ROI.
Influencers and types have been chomping on the bit to convert video-glad portions in their subscriber base into Instagram followers. IGTV essentially closes the space among video and imagery, placing Instagram in a top function to gain the rewards.
What IGTV Means For Brands Right Now
Unlike YouTube, IGTV doesn’t currently function in paid commercials. However, there have been whispers in recent months about future implementation.
Several main advertising executives have stated that Instagram is putting out feelers approximately potentially shopping for advertising areas on IGTV. Instagram stated that it has become exploring methods to help creators, but it hasn’t outlined specifics.
While there may be currently no way to push paid commercials through the platform, now’s nonetheless a perfect time for manufacturers to test out IGTV. Start with these IGTV exceptional practices:
Prioritize Engaging Content
Content marketing is powerful while your logo creates and shares enticing, applicable fabric. Instead, this content should not explicitly promote your emblem but stimulate hobby in your emblem’s products or services.
On IGTV, specific advertisements are not going to cut it. You best have a few seconds to show the fee of your content. How will you seize their attention? What will make them fascinated, curious, or entertained enough to hold looking?
Know Your Audience
If you don’t use them already, now is the time to installation target market personas. Design fictional characters to symbolize special segments of your audience, real statistics, and marketplace research. Once you’ve got your target audience personas locked down, you may locate it loads less complicated to increase content material with their desires, wishes, and dreams in mind.
Know the Platform
First, Instagram and IGTV are social platforms, so users anticipate a social aspect to content. Instagram has a particular set of social norms. You can’t manage to pay to maintain your customers at arm’s period on IGTV; your efforts must be non-public and personable.
Second, your standard ad layout might not fly on IGTV. Users anticipate the content on their feeds to be relevant to them, so you can not just upload a TV ad to IGTV and call it an afternoon. Your video content must talk particularly about your target audience personas.
And ultimately, you should embrace the energy of the influencer subculture. Instagram thrives on it, and your logo can be sensible to get on board.
Know The Format
IGTV has some of the specifications you want to preserve in mind while developing for the platform. Videos should be:
- 15 seconds to 60 minutes lengthy
- No bigger than 3.6 GB
- .MP4 file type
- 9:16 ratio
All films need to also consist of a standard video thumbnail and a swipe-up call to action.
6 Ways Your Brand Can Use IGTV
Content marketing requires attempt and perseverance. However, its benefits are nicely worth it. Here are some ways you could leverage content advertising on IGTV:
1. Repurpose Existing Videos
IGTV is the proper possibility to reuse your present popular video content material. Edit live stream recordings or remodel horizontal motion pictures you have posted on Facebook or YouTube to fulfill IGTV’s vertical format.
2. Post Exclusive Content
Build a committed audience to your IGTV channel by sharing content material that isn’t to be had everywhere else. Exclusive content material will be behind-the-scenes movies that display product improvement, office tours, or enterprise occasions.
These motion pictures are surprisingly smooth to produce as they require minimum editing. In some instances, the rawer the content material, the greater actuality it feels in your audience.
