Instagram Video: Have you heard the news?
If you’re a fan of Instagram video or trying to keep in front of your audience on the platform you used to be restricted to only 15s of video for Instagram Stories or 60s as a post. Welcome to a whole new world! Rolling out over the next few weeks the platform is going head-to-head with YouTube for the hearts and minds of users by introducing video up to 60 minutes, yes MINUTES (max file size 3.8Gb).IGTV is set to roll out globally before July 2018.
What does this mean for marketers and business people building and promoting their brands? It means you can now engage with the Insta audience using effective long-format content. Think How-To, Product Reviews, Demonstrations and Influencer marketing.
Match the content to the audience
Studies show that viewers in the hyper-desirable 16-24 demographic gravitate to YouTube for exactly these kinds of videos, to engage, discover, be entertained and connect with their favourite YouTube stars. This is the audience Instagram wants to capture and so do you if you have a large following (or want to build one). Certainly keep the short format videos for quick sharp hits of disposable content, the kind that doesn’t have a shelf-life. But for the evergreen videos, you can now produce them or start uploading them to your own dedicated IGTV channel. For more on what your brand needs to know, read this Hootsuite post.
How this will evolve
Why should you care about this? Initial policies from Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram is that the video feature of IGTV won’t include ads, but that it’s likely to in future. These will work similar to YouTube and represent a potential source of revenue. Something to consider if you can work with an Influencer to broaden the reach of your content.
So now that the world of Instagram is opening up to longer-format video, what will you do to capture and entertain your followers in a new way? We’ve got more than a dozen types of videos you should be making to entertain, engage and inform your audience. Contact us to explore they can connect you and deepen the relationship.