What is IGTV – Is it for Small Businesses?

What is IGTV?

IGTV, a platform owned by Instagram, is a standalone vertical video application made for smartphones. Its intent is for business purposes to feature longer videos to bring audiences closer to their favorite brands. In many ways, it is comparable to YouTube with uploading feature videos that users can subscribe to, as well as related channels. The software also offers a seamless integration between Instagram and IGTV to remove hassle of video uploads to be viewed on both platforms.

Video lengths can be up to 10 minutes or up to 60 minutes if you are verified or a larger account. The videos will be placed on your channel, which is essentially the company’s profile.

What benefits are there from using IGTV?

Storytelling.

There are many avenues that your company could take with this benefit. Different areas of storytelling can be divided into the following:

• Education of products and services offered
• Entertainment and engagement pieces
• Community building

All of the above avenues will directly help your brand convert engagement to sales. With the capability of videos being up to 10 minutes, you are allowing for the possibilities of building stronger connections with your audience and potential customers as you create and showcase the creativity of your business, along with your service or product.

Videos are not limited to the type of content, length or format. Which means the different types of social video marketing can be utilized on this platform as well. However, with that in mind, the videos need to tie in to certain campaigns, area of focus (product launch, etc.) to be effective for your viewers. Always linking back and confirming that the videos are adhering to your brand identity is a key component in successful and coherent stories.

Content creation for the audience already curated by Instagram is a main focus, but do not neglect those that may find you through friends, suggestions, or accidentally. Placing the videos in to your content calendar will be a great tactic as you build your marketing strategy as a whole.

Leverage and expand your community.

The IGTV app instantly starts to play content when the application is opened. So subscribers will automatically be able to view the new content your business has created. Also, since IGTV is built by Instagram, you are potentially engaging many of the 800M people part of Instagram community. The viewing audience can be people who are seeing your video because it is trending or by a suggested channel based upon their current interests.

By using the relevant keywords and hashtags for your videos, the possibility of a larger network will build to see your videos and increase your subscribers. IGTV has valuable content discovery tools that allow users to watch trending videos based upon interests and current brands/people they follow.

I already use other platforms. Do I need IGTV?

IGTV may seem like just another platform that creates more work for your company. That could be true and in that case, it may not be suited for your brand.

Facebook Live is a great way to interact with your audience, but has one major downfall – it’s live! Mistakes happen and that’s why there is the editing room. Certain formats work well for Facebook live, but not all.

Facebook and Instagram Stories allow for edited or live videos, but are short lived and disappear after 24 hours. The challenge there is how to effectively convey your message before it disappears. Same goes for Snapchat.

Video marketing is on the rise. Cisco has projected more than 80% of all Internet traffic will be video based by 2021. Engagement keeps consumers zoomed in on your brand longer and create the experience that consumers are looking for before and during their purchase.

Smaller businesses are not out of luck because they can’t produce as many videos as larger companies – there is no direct link between company size and number of videos published. Why? Because smaller companies have less red tape and can alter strategy when necessary to create the needed content. However, you must factor in your budget and resources before rolling out new video marketing plans to compliment larger initiatives.

The biggest challenge will be for companies to unify their Instagram strategy with the features of IGTV. There will and should be crossover pending what content is being used, but how can your brand’s IGTV strategy distinguish itself and become a valuable part of your social media marketing? Experimenting with length and format on IGTV should be part of your early strategy. Marketing is always a moving target, as to what will best resonate with a given audience.

Colleen Eakins Design can help strategize what design components will be needed in your video along with a storyboard to guide you in producing the best content for social media marketing.