Sharing IGTV Video Previews on Instagram Feed: Part 1

Sharing IGTV Video Previews on Instagram Feed: Part 1

IGTV is a highly useful tool for Instagram brands, but, unfortunately, it is underestimated, yet. Perhaps that’s the reason that Instagram has made it possible to post 1-minute previews of IGTV videos right in Instagram feeds. This is definitely a straight-forward update addressed to raise the popularity and use of IGTV. However, there are some details you need to be aware of before you start using this feature. And InstaBF, a premier Instagram and IGTV provider, will point them out right now.

 

 

IGTV Previews on Your Insta Profile

 

What do you think, what made it difficult to garner engagement and views from your IGTV videos? These videos lived only in IGTV channels and users had to login to their IGTV channels to watch them. Previously, one had to use captions on ordinary posts and link videos to Stories so that followers get actively directed to IGTV. All this was tiresome for users and they simply didn’t go for IGTV videos. According to Instagram, these new IGTV previews in feeds make it easier to discover the latest video content from our beloved follows. However, once you share a preview video to your Instagram feed, you will have your IGTV videos live in your profile grid, stored in the small IGTV icon in the top right corner of the videos. Accordingly, you will have to review your Instagram feed, its look and style, as well as the cover photo you use in your IGTV channel, video posting times and many other aspects. Instagram and IGTV joined will bring you more opportunities yet imply many efforts, too.

 

 

Is It Worth Sharing IGTV Videos to Your Gram Feed?

 

So, now when you understand how this new feature works, the biggest question is whether it’s worth sharing your IGTV videos on your regular feed or not. This mainly depends on such important factors as your video marketing strategy and the way your videos look in your Insta grid. Anyway, remember that you invested time, efforts and perhaps money in creating Instagram vertical videos, hence why shouldn’t you use all the chances of promoting them?! Once you post a preview of your IGTV video on Instagram, viewers will have to tap the “Keep Watching” button to go on watching the full variant as the current one on Insta will last only one minute. This button will automatically direct viewers to your IGTV channel and they won’t have to do any other steps to reach that particular videos.

 

 

How You Can Share IGTV Videos to Insta Feed

 

Sharing a preview of an IGTV video is a highly easy thing. If you find it will bring you a real chance to promote videos. However, there is only one chance of sharing it on Instagram. If you miss tapping the share button while posting the video on IGTV, you won’t be able to return to it later. For this, just follow all the regular steps you do when posting a video on IGTV, and on the final stage move the slider “Post a Preview” to green. After this, the preview of that video will appear in all your followers’ feed while the cover image will pop up in your IG profile’s grid. Remember that an IGTV video should be longer than 1 minute so that you can add its preview in your Instagram profile.

Videos as a Means of Instagram Advertisements

Videos as a Means of Instagram Advertisements

Most probably you are already aware of the great impact that Instagram content may have on the promotion of your business. And if a few years ago we could tell for sure that visual content scored most views, today the tendency seems to have changed significantly. As attention spans get shorter, consumers primarily search for video content. Hence, the latter gets from 10% to 30% more views as compared with written text and visual graphics.

As the surveys made by Hubspot show, people watch videos approximately 90 minutes each day. This way they can retain around 95% of the promotional message displayed in the videos. As compared with the 10% of information consumers retain from textual advertisements, this number really strikes the mind! So, social media platforms today give business owners great opportunities to promote their brands through video content. For instance, since Instagram announced about releasing videos as content formats, their significance has increased tremendously.

So, as you can see, today we shall address to the matter of maximizing Instagram advertising efforts using video content. Here, at the industry-leading Instagram and IGTV provider InstaBF, we are going to refer to Instagram video ads formats that you can use depending on the industry you are in.

Yet, before we pass to them, there is a couple of practices to bear in mind irrespective of the video advertisement format you pick up:

 

  • Use exceptionally the highest-resolution videos. Instagram is widely-known particularly for its high-quality visuals and if your content doesn’t match the quality standards of this social media, it won’t be a success. By all means avoid choppy, slow and pixelated videos.
  • Count on the goal of your marketing campaign and choose the right CTA. Before you start recording a video, make sure it’s going to meet the criteria you set beforehand. Is your purpose to increase your brand awareness or raise your engagement? Note that for every ad format you use there is a precise CTA. Hence, be aware when choosing the advertisement format not to confuse your audience.

 

Instagram Feed Ads

The first and most traditional video advertisement format is posting videos directly in the feed just like you do with photo ads. Appearing alongside with other organic posts, such type of video ads appear more authentic. Surely, there is a “Sponsored” label at the top of these ads, yet that doesn’t prevent the videos from blending to other posts.

The only thing to be aware here is that Instagram feed ads can be as long as maximum 60 seconds. And there isn’t any guarantee your followers will view it to the end. Be sure the first 10 seconds are the most impactful.

 

Instagram Story Ads

 

Most businesses interact with their consumers through Instagram Stories. This video ads format allows experimenting with visuals and sounds, using videos in a vertical format or even full screen. Instagram Stories are really amazing for brand promotion, and perhaps the only drawback here is that they live no longer than 24 hours. Anyway, don’t get disappointed by this fact, as every day, around 400 million Instagram accounts use Stories and about one-third of them are posted by brands.

 

IGTV

 

It was only a month ago when Instagram rolled out IGTV and stroke the social media industry. People seem to have got interested in IGTV greatly and losing the opportunity to post your business’ video advertisements would be a mistake. Instagram TV allows posting as long videos as up to 60 minutes for large and verified accounts, while smaller ones can post videos up to 10 minutes long.

IGTV Marketing: How to Get More Views and Increase Engagement of Your Account

IGTV Marketing: How to Get More Views and Increase Engagement of Your Account

Previously, we have discussed the opportunities of IGTV for business and described a few general practices of video content making that were tested and approved by hundreds of marketers over the years of the Web 2.0 existence. In this article, we will dive deeper into the abyss of video marketing to spot the pitfalls, riffs, and bottlenecks of promoting a brand with video content.

To begin with, one should better understand what IGTV actually is and what changes may occur to the policy of the platform as it will help you to work out the proper strategy. The first and the most important thing to understand is that this functionality is brand new, so there is not too much content and this allows the early birds to get more views and become popular comparatively easy and with fewer investments.

Another highly probable change that may be introduced soon after the IGTV app gains the sufficient audience is the ads inserted in the video by the platform with additional monetization for content makers (the feature is quite familiar to any vlogger who uses YouTube). This second probable change may be a good tool for cross-channel engagement at least at the beginning as the ads pricing should be much more attractive in comparison with the existing competitors.

Still, the main goal for the early adopter of IGTV is to get as many views and likes from the very start as possible as it will be the source of income both in terms of sales conversion and of channel monetization in future.

So, here are a few thoughts that may lay the foundations for the breakthrough.

 

Know Your Target Audience

 

 

It is easier than it sounds. All in all, Instagram is a perfect all-around platform for reaching almost any desirable customer group: it is popular both with digital natives and older generations, so the demographics are extremely favorable for any experiments. More than 70% of the social network users have an Instagram account and, what’s more important, 82% of Instagram users check it on an everyday basis. And, judging by the statistics of the platform, it is continuously growing over the last 3 years gradually increasing its share on the market.

So, in this case, you will never be in a hit-and-miss situation with IGTV.

 

Thoughtful Video Production

With the rise of Instagram and the peak of the smartphone era, videos become more and more influential in term of decision-making. But don’t ignore the fact that your video must capture attention and push the trigger within the first 16 seconds, so keep it in mind while planning the content production. Your videos should be eye-catching and mind-blowing at the same time.

Currently, the vertical format is still to be adopted and, as we mentioned before, a larger part of conservative and more professional video creators will remain the YouTube adherents. But we have strong reasons to believe that very soon pros of video content creators are likely to turn their gaze upon the vertical format of IGTV due to significantly lower competition. And surely they will be able to offer a number of options for those marketers who wouldn’t like to limit themselves only to raw videos shot with consumer-level smartphone cameras.

 

E-Commerce Redirection

 

No need to mention that social networks are becoming integrated with online shops and, in fact, are gradually turning into huge marketplaces with adding more and more functionality that allows businesses to fulfill the full cycle of sales within the platform. Instagram is not an exception and this trend will evoke more fundamental changes in future. The latest improvements connected with shoppable tags, the rumored introduction of proprietary payment system are the sure signs of the advancing revolution.

As for IGTV, it allows redirection from the video title right to the store webpage (previously this function was available only for the bio page on Instagram) and it is a tremendous conversion tool that should be praised by all the SMM managers of the world.

So, if your brand is offering a catalog of products it will be wise to organize your products in albums and run your IGTV channel within this context to be fully armed by the massive advent of e-commerce functionality on Instagram.

 

Buying IGTV Views

Now it is obvious to any marketing specialist that purchasing views and likes both for Instagram posts and for IGTV videos is only a part of a promotional strategy and no one will deny that it should be used by a skillful and knowledgeable specialist. However, some people regard buying likes, views, and comments as an extravagant and unnecessary activity which is surely a completely erroneous point of view.

In case, with IGTV the importance of purchasing likes and views and using the snowball effect we have already mentioned in one of our previous articles as the platform’s user base is still evolving and now it’s high time to make a leap to the summit. And InstaBF is ready to help you with it, check out our IGTV Likes, IGTV Views and IGTV Comments!

IGTV for Business: How to Promote Your Brand Creatively

IGTV for Business: How to Promote Your Brand Creatively

Earlier on we have discussed the opportunities of IGTV for beauty bloggers and influencers. In this article, we are going to highlight a few examples of how one can use the brand-new functionality for business promotion, so this article will probably be useful to SMM professionals.

It is not a secret that video content nowadays is getting more and more popular (as we have mentioned in  one of our previous article, it will take 78% of the world’s Internet traffic by 2021), and surely the advertisement potential of the existing platforms cannot be overrated. There are a few conventional “genres” of promotional videos existing on the web right now. It is highly possible that IGTV bloggers will introduce more of them, but we are sure that the well-tested techniques currently used by SMM professionals will find the proper place in the toolkit of an IGTV promoter.

 

Probable IGTV Use Cases for Business

 

 

Product Reviews

 

If you are promoting a physical product (clothes/gadgets) or anything allowing a flamboyant demonstration in action, it will be a crime not to show it in the video. For example, one of the minor clothing brands made a beautiful video compilation of the photos from their account. Surely, it’s not extremely creative and, in fact, it’s using re-purposed content, but it may be a good idea of how can one handle the task in a quick and pragmatic way to get some views immediately.

 

Tutorials and Instructional Videos

 

The latest marketing trends are closely connected with providing not only the product demonstration and informing the customer of the strong points of your brand. Nowadays the marketing should be as interactive as possible: one should demonstrate as many use cases as possible; instant client support is becoming a part of SMM. That’s why it is a very good idea to post some videos with explanations, share some knowledge in your field and answer some negative comments to make the work of your sales department easier. In other words, it is a new way to show how you care about your clients, no one will argue about the importance of this objective. Keeping it in mind will bring you tons of likes and the business reputation one can only dream of.

 

Communication with your clients

 

Actually, this type of videos is an organic extension of the previous one. And IGTV seems to be ideal for that type of content. You can record some season greetings, announce contests, answer some questions and interview the company’s management or employees (for example, one of the brands producing eyewear posted an interview with a graphic design professional utilizing their glasses for her artistic purposes). This will certainly create a positive image and help you to establish your company as a trustworthy brand. And do not forget to comment on the followers’ replies.

 

Re-use the content from other sources

 

It’s always a good idea to use some videos from expos and other events you take part in. For example, major fashion companies make use of the footage from their latest shows. It’s always a wise idea to keep your followers informed and let them know that the company is constantly developing. Keeping the number of views growing is one of the primary tasks for an SMM pro.

These are only a few ideas on how to use the standard types of videos for your brand promotion. One should also pay attention to more deep sides of the customers’ psychology and one of the central notions, in this case, is the virality of the video.

 

Viral Marketing and Other Ways of Getting Likes

 

Grotesque, weird and bizarre videos have turned into an integral element of the media sphere since the Internet became capable of video streaming. Like an earworm song, these videos generate hype waves and the most difficult thing is to understand how to make them work for your business.

The first component of success is the opportunities for fast video sharing provided by the platform. And in this sense, IGTV is a huge step forward. Now your video may go viral really fast.

For example, one of the digital video content distributors published a 1-hour video featuring a famous actor just eating a burger.  Sounds strange, doesn’t it? But the video got about 700,000 views!

To make your video viral, you need to draw inspiration from somewhere. We advice reading some 20th-century books (such as “Ulysses”) or taking a look at the pieces of avant-garde art.

And, surely, it will be a good idea to simulate and stimulate the activity of your followers. In this case, InstaBF is always a good choice. Buy IGTV LikesIGTV Views and IGTV Comments to use them as a secret weapon!

 

Beauty and Fashion Influencers on Instagram’s IGTV

Beauty and Fashion Influencers on Instagram’s IGTV

In our previous article IGTV: New Opportunities for Instagram Bloggers  we briefly outlined the probable prospects of IGTV for various user groups. In this article, we will focus on the opinions of the significant part of the Instagram audience – beauty and fashion bloggers. No other social network except Instagram can boast such a high number of beauty and fashion influencers, so the introduction of the new long video format will definitely stimulate their activity in the IGTV app.

 

IGTV vs YouTube: Beauty Vloggers Benefit from Both

 

According to the leading marketing specialists, the number of beauty bloggers on Instagram is 5 times higher than on YouTube, so it seems logical that the beauty bloggers who have never used videos in their blogging will definitely utilize the opportunities of IGTV  as it allows them to work with the base of followers they have already accumulated on Instagram. This surely means that they will have a much better start conditions meaning they will earn more likes and views at the initial stage which is crucial for further promotion.

Still, even experienced and popular YouTubers may find IGTV useful as well – It may become a good source of new followers for their main channels. As we have already mentioned, there is also an opportunity to diversify their channels due to differences in video formats defining the probable differences of content: YouTube channels will be targeted at more mature and pickier audience watching professionally produced videos on horizontal desktop and TV screens while IGTV will have the channels for younger users and broadcast less technically sophisticated content mostly for mobile devices.

Anyway, all the bloggers who will be active on both platforms will surely benefit from it, but if you are thinking of just starting a vlog, it would be wiser to start it on IGTV as it is more socially oriented and likes and followers earned there will provide better conversion in future.

 

Beauty Bloggers’ Thoughts on IGTV

 

Surely, the probable user cases may eventually change for both platforms, but currently one can practically judge by the statements of top beauty influencers who have already expressed their opinions about IGTV.

For example, some world-famous beauty influencers having around 800,000 followers on Instagram are among those bloggers who are going to use both platforms for specific purposes. Particularly, they share their experience of using IGTV for short skincare tutorials that were quite successful with her followers. The bloggers are going to produce different types of content for both channels.

Popular makeup artists with more than 100,000 followers, have disclosed their plans of using the IGTV videos instead of live streams in which they demonstrate exclusive makeup techniques to their followers. The makeup pros also noted that it is much more convenient to answer the comments than to use the live chat during the stream, so IGTV seems to be quite promising to them.

As for the differences between vertical and horizontal video, many content makers having up to 1,000,000 followers on Instagram and even more subscribers on YouTube say that they prefer vertical format for their beauty videos while many of their followers still like the horizontal one. Still, no one can deny that YouTube is less mobile friendly and one of the first IGTV tutorials earned more than 100,000 views, which proves a huge potential of the new service by Instagram.

Whether you are an experienced beauty blogger or a newbie, you will certainly find it useful to ignite the people’s interest in your post and use the snowball effect for growing your followers’ base. InstaBF is ready to provide professional and highly reliable results – IGTV Likes, IGTV Views and IGTV Comments are at your disposal to develop your image and become even more successful.

Our next article  will be dedicated to the detailed prospects of IGTV for business and brand promotion.

Stay tuned!