Why Add IGTV strategy to your Marketing?

IGTV strategy is game-changing for the platform. The fairly new addition to Instagram has transformed the platform from a photo-sharing space to video-sharing one. With such a huge transition, marketers are still learning.

IGTV Strategy: What Is IGTV?

One frustrating aspect about Instagram Stories has been the limited video length of 15 seconds. IG users have had to be creative about how to get across complete stories by either uploading a series of images or using video splicer tools and uploading a bunch of 15-second video segments.

IGTV Strategy : Top 10 Tips to Your Instagram jump-start

Now with IGTV, users can share videos in long-form, up to one hour for some users, in a vertical format. Also vertical video is better suited to mobile platforms, where consumers spend most of their time in today’s social media climate.

IGTV videos take up the entire screen and are accessible on the Instagram mobile and desktop versions, and the new IGTV app.

IGTV: The New Television?

Users can navigate IGTV like television, suitable during an era where television consumption has been reduced by 40% among 18 to 29-year-olds.

Anyone can create and share videos with their followers, and though there’s currently a ten-minute restriction, Instagram intends to introduce no time limit as things progress.

Though at this stage the average user is capped at 10 minutes, with a 15-second minimum length, those with larger followings can test the creation of hour-long videos.

Why Add IGTV strategy to your Marketing ?

1. Boosts visibility of products and services

Instagram has long been established as being one of the most popular and effective social media platforms for businesses. With its support for long-form content through IGTV, this offers more opportunities to generate additional user traffic and therefore boosting the visibility of your products and services. Studies have also shown that online video viewership is steadily increasing, with a projected number surpassing 236 million in 2020 — this means that IGTV can go a long way in helping businesses extend their social media and video marketing effort and reach.

2. IGTV strategy helps you to educate and entertain audiences

Studies have shown that tutorial and demonstration videos are among the most popular types of video content, and marketers can leverage this with IGTV’s support for long-form content. Also IGTV allows you to better market your products by creating videos showcasing how to use them, how these can be incorporated to their lives, and how these products made a difference to some of your happy customers. You can also post explainer videos to introduce your business, to launch new products, or share the story of your brand.

3. Generates more opportunities for engagement and conversions

Video in marketing have long been considered the king of engagement and is also seen as an effective means to boost conversions. Without the usual 60 second time restriction, businesses have more room for creativity in showcasing their products and their brand on IGTV. So it will definitely increase your Instagram engagement. Also the more creative and compelling the content, the better chances of generating engagement through likes, comments, and shares. Additionally, IGTV allows you to include clickable links in the description of your video, where you can direct your audiences to your landing pages.

4. IGTV Provides more opportunities for community building

For years, short videos of an average length of 2 minutes have been considered as the ideal video length. However, trends have recently changed, and there have been an increase in interest for long-form videos. Videos that are more than a minute long provide you more opportunities to build relationships and connections with your community. IGTV grants you the flexibility to create content that addresses your audience’s challenges, their interests, and more.

Some videos that will work great for IGTV include:

tutorials
unboxing of your products
product demos
office tours
behind-the-scenes
educational videos and so much more.

Top 10 Tips to Your IGTV Strategy:

1. Be Where Your Audience Is

Instagram is booming! There are more than 500 million daily active users on Instagram worldwide – 400 million of which, use Instagram Stories every day. Both men and women use Instagram equally, and the most active age ranges are 18-34 and 35-44. Numbers are on your side when it comes to investing resources in Instagram – and what better way to engage your audiences than by testing out an innovative format like IGTV?

2. Change you IGTV strategy

Though it’s tempting to spend time lighting and setting up one particular area for an IGTV video shoot, make sure there are a variety of locations available to create visual interest for the audience. This tip isn’t just for Instagram IGTV content – it can be applied to all of your videos. With so much competition on social media, it’s important that you come up with fresh new visuals to keep your audiences engaged. If you’re using the same tired backdrop, your audience is likely to just scroll past.

3. Build a Niche Audience With Exclusive Content

Sharing exclusive content with viewers will help you build a dedicated audience for your IGTV channel. Giving your audience regular doses of appealing insider content can help viewers develop an emotional connection to your business.

The Instagram content you share could be behind-the-scenes videos that show product development, production, and distribution. Anyway the best thing is that these videos don’t require extra editing. People love to view authentic content.

4. Prepare Videos for Muted Viewing

Whether someone is in a busy room or prefers not to listen, your videos should be made for them, too. Create videos that pique the interest of your whole audience, which includes people with sound on and those who always mute.

You can do this best by keeping videos visual-heavy. Tell the story with actions to supplement the audio.

5. Add Hashtags to Video Descriptions in IGTV strategy

Instagram Hashtags are an essential way of getting your videos (and brand) found. By adding them to your video descriptions, you reach beyond your existing audience. Therefore this can include people who might not know your brand and could potentially show interest in your products or services. At a minimum, they might choose to follow your account and participate in future video comments.

Some of the best ways of applying hashtags to your IGTV video strategy are:

Use hashtags that describe your brand and offerings.
Keep them specific and relevant for your brand to maintain a good reputation and reach.
Do not ignore industry trends and related successful hashtags.
Monitor your industry and competitors to find the best hashtags.
Make sure your videos and hashtags match to prevent confusion or misunderstanding.
Take care in how many hashtags you use with each video (too few and too many both have consequences).

Add captions for viewers to follow along while watching the video. Describe the contents thoroughly in the video description. You can appeal to both audiences without annoying either of them when you choose tactics with those viewers in mind

6. Pay Attention to Cover Photos in IGTV matter

Instagram IGTV allows you to choose cover images for your video. The photo you select will appear in the Instagram Feed when you publish a video and can be the deciding factor that determines if a user will click or scroll past. If you don’t take the time to choose an engaging photo, Instagram’s algorithm will choose one for you. And as you can imagine, what they choose at random may not be what your video is actually about.

7. Tease Your IGTV Episodes

Adding on to the previous tip, you can promote within Instagram itself as well. For example, a day or a few hours before your IGTV segment goes live you can: create an Instagram Story teasing your new video, publish a post to your feed, and even go live to discuss the new content. The algorithm can be tricky to predict, so it’s best to take it into your own hands and promote where possible.

8. Deliver Tutorial Videos to Highlight Product Features

Many businesses use IGTV to integrate their products with instructional content like webinars, how-to’s, and tutorial videos. Educational videos are always a good way to introduce your products. They don’t have an expiration date (unless you frequently update your product).

Above all to take your videos content to the next level, teach followers something new about your business and allow them to follow what you’re doing in real time. No matter what you’re offering—makeup tutorials, cooking demonstrations, fitness classes, or home repairs—the feature-length tutorial format allows you to build a library of evergreen video content.

9. Always Measure Your Results of IGTV strategy

Like all social media content, it’s crucial that you measure your results. Luckily, Instagram offers in-app analytics to help you measure the views and demographics of the people who watch your IGTV content. however keep tabs on all of your videos and monitor if there are any drastic changes over time. But don’t be afraid to play around with posting times, promotion techniques, and topics to find a formula that works for your organization.

10. Subtitles, Subtitles, Subtitles

IGTV allows you to add subtitles to your video which is important for a few reasons. Therefore, some of your viewers or followers might be deaf or hard-of-hearing. It’s important to ensure that you make your media as accessible as possible for everyone. Secondly, 85 percent of people watch videos on Facebook or Instagram with the sound off. With the vast majority of people consuming content on mute, you’d be missing out on tons of views! More and more people are consuming content on-the-go, so always be sure to make your content user-friendly.

The Future of IGTV?

Though we don’t know what’s around the corner, what we do know is the platform will continue to evolve. It’s important you can evolve with it, or avoid becoming extinct.

As a result one trend we can be certain of is the rise of vertical video, an appealing format which has transcended social media feeds.