A lot of us saw a new section on our Instagram account on 20th June – IGTV. Yes, Instagram now has a TV channel for us to get involved with, understand, manage and maintain. But is this a good addition to – let’s face it – the high number of social channels as business owners we’re running and managing?
For me, I think yes. Now I am a bit of a lover of Instagram and feel more at home there than any of the other social media channels but also, if you’ve read my other blog posts about video, you know I’m not a huge fan of filming myself so the letters TV somewhat filled me with dread.
On first look, this is basically Instagram’s You Tube offering but on closer inspection it offers so much more than You Tube. The huge USP that IGTV has is that it allows users to post videos for longer than 60 seconds which on the one hand seems a bit odd in the fast, furious and disposable content world we live in but when you look at You Tube and Facebook Live’s successes using longer video you can understand why Instagram wanted a bit of the action.
The idea behind it is for users to achieve a higher engagement rate, attract more followers and allow more in-depth and develop a pool of content specifically for your brand. As business owners, this makes pretty good sense.
If used cleverly, this could be a great addition to our brand message. On IGTV you can film up to an hour’s content – that’s a long time. So for example, you could host a weekly show on IGTV about our brand. No more having to upload to You Tube and share on social, you can upload straight to IGTV and store your weekly shows there. You could make a series, cement your authority in the market place, have guests on, talk in depth about a certain topic and have a whole hour of engagement time with your target audiences – all in vertical. There is the option to bring podcasts to life here and see them taking place in the flesh all very easily thanks to a great user-friendly set up and navigation.
In only 3 weeks since its launch, brands such as BBC, ITV and Sky alongside and magazines such as Vice, The Economist, Vogue, Fact Magazine, NME, Esquire and Exposed Magazine have all started heavily using IGTV as a platform to connect to its younger audience (IGTV aims for a sweet spot of 18-29) and offer them a more immersive brand and storytelling experience.
Like it or loath it, you have to admit that IGTV is a pretty savvy addition to the brand offering and, if used wisely, could hugely benefit all of our engagement on the Instagram platform. For me, I still dread recording myself but I’ve tasked myself to give it a go – so please hold me to it if I don’t!
I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences of IGTV so please do comment below and let’s maybe start supporting each other on this brand new platform.
