Let’s pause for a minute to think about all the videos your potential customers are watching!
Try to grasp this. Long format video has become an important way for marketers to showcase their products and services and reach new potential customers.
Let’s look at how marketers and content creators can use IGTV for better audience reach and engagement but, first, let’s understand a few things.
What Exactly is IGTV?
If you’re new to the vertical video format, don’t worry, we have got you covered. Launched in June 2018, IGTV or Instagram TV is a platform and feature for vertical, long format videos best suited for smartphone users. Longer than a story, and better than a video post — IGTV videos are being widely adopted by brands, businesses, and influencers to create new, interesting content that dials up audience engagement and activity levels.
The feature allows content creators and a helpful video maker (for French language) as well as for the English language, German language, etc., to connect with a worldwide audience. They can upload a regular series and share it with the Instagram community. It’s TV — but on Instagram and is smartphone friendly.
IGTV stands out from other forms of vertical videos (read; Facebook and YouTube) because it’s created for an audience who likes to watch videos on their smartphones. The IGTV platform seamlessly integrates vertical video featurettes and aesthetics that increases engagement and viewership by almost eighty percent. With Instagram pushing more video content combined with the ease of viewing for smartphone users, people stay and watch IGTV videos longer, making it a ready-made platform for marketers and content creators to leverage.
How do You Use IGTV?
Before you even begin uploading your first IGTV video, you need to have an Instagram account. If you or your brand already have an Instagram account, then you are all set. All you need to do now is upload the video using your Instagram home page. There are several ways you can do it.
Step 1 – Click on the + button at the bottom of your home screen.
Step 2 – Select your video that is 60 seconds or longer and click on next.
Step 3 – If your selected video is 60-seconds or longer, Instagram, by default, will ask you to share a short clip or as an IGTV video. Select “Long Video,” i.e., IGTV video can then click on continue.
Step 4 – The significant thing about IGTV videos is that you can choose the video’s cover image from either your gallery (you should create a stunning one or select one of its frames as the cover image). This is what viewers will see on your page. Click next.
Step 5 – The last step is to fill out the title and description for your IGTV video. Instagram also offers an option to post a Preview of the video to viewers in the newsfeed, and also you can make it visible on Facebook if you have your Facebook account linked. Select Finish. Hurrah! Your first IGTV video has been uploaded!
Now that we know how to make your first IGTV video let’s address the most crucial question.
How can Marketers Use IGTV?
The goal of IGTV is to keep your viewers engaged in a space where they’re used to being highly distracted and constantly judged for something or the other. The goal of IGTV videos is to pull your viewers closer to make them attentively listen to what is that you’re trying to say. Some ways you can do that are:
Talking Heads Format for Content
Talking heads are a great way to ensure that your viewers are listening to someone. Talking heads have been around for a while, but not much for vertical format videos per se. The opportunity lies to anyone who seizes it. Talking heads by nature and framing can be filmed in a way so you can crop into a vertical format or used as B-roll footage to create appealing content for some other media. The idea is to do away with the static “talking head” that has been around for a long time and is seriously getting boring.
Create an IGTV Series
If you’re looking to grow your business and offer your products and service to more customers, content marketing using IGTV can prove to be a significant change. IGTV has a host of options, and one of the eye-grabbing features is the ability to create a series. A series is like a ‘playlist’ where people can watch a specific category of content. You can think of creating an IGTV series for “Best Marketing Tips,” “Best Social Media Hacks,” etc. Use one episode of each series to cover various topics and parallelly add value and call-to-action for your customers.
Stream LIVE Content
Instagram marketing has created a host of opportunities for marketers, content creators, influencers, and brands to reach more people outside their usual community. With Incorporating IGTV in your strategy, you can hope to push that envelope even further. The pandemic has pushed people to their homes, and so as a marketer, you need to go where your viewer is. LIVE streamed content automatically gets converted to IGTV videos when the stream has concluded. This is a smart and great opportunity to allow viewers to “attend” virtually. Take a sneak peek for your products and service. LIVE stream contents are practically everywhere, and viewers appreciate it, in return giving you more content to engage with them.
Use Links in Your IGTV Descriptions
One of the major drawbacks of Instagram posts or stories (if you don’t have 10k followers) is that you can’t post links – to your website, page, or product webpage that are clickable. But IGTV flipped that on its head. IGTV videos allow you to insert clickable links to those that can redirect any viewers to that website or webpage you want them to go to. So use links in your IGTV videos and level up your Instagram marketing strategy.
Why should IGTV Matter to You as a Marketer?
Marketers, by definition, are offering products and services to your customers right where they are. As customers evolve into viewers, the more time they spend watching videos, the more it is for you as a marketer to be present. IGTV videos previously lived on a different app, which made it impossible to raise engagement and views. Now, the seamless integration of IGTV into Instagram apps offers newer ways to reach people. So it opens a wide door for marketers to increase viewership, connect with your audience, and provide more value.
- IGTV videos help your cross-promote content: As a marketer, what’s better than a single video benign cross promoted to different platforms? That’s like a dream come true, and IGTV offers precisely that. You can place preview links to your IGTV video for your stories and share up to one-minute previews on your feed and profile. IGTV videos can be cross-promoted to Facebook pages, groups, and other social media channels like Twitter and YouTube.
- Best suited for longer content and silent viewing: Several people watch videos while commuting or doing some other activity. In that case, they can often switch off the sound but still keep on watching the video. It can optimize IGTV for such silent viewers by adding subtitles and captions. For marketers, optimize IGTV for longer videos. Make longer format content like talk shows, tutorials, walkthroughs, and Q/A sessions to increase your engagement and sales.
- Relevant hashtags make it easier for people to find you: You can insert hashtags to your IGTV video descriptions and combine that with people who follow such trending or niche hashtags – you get a bunch of potential audiences who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to find you.
Conclusion
IGTV has emerged as a unique and strong platform for marketers. With a few simple tools and the right techniques, you can easily tap into the market and make a profit.
