Social media has seen marketers and businesses take over a whole new domain that wasn’t available to them just a few years ago – the Digital Market. Tons of brand campaigns today are rolled out through social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, with their databases reaching the 1 billion profile mark, and are still growing. As required with any form of marketing, a strong strategy can often help elevate a brand when faced with fierce competition.
But are social media marketing strategies the same as regular strategies?
Let’s focus on Instagram.
Exploding in popularity as of late, it seems like there is no stopping the current king of social media. Creating the right Instagram marketing strategy could put any brand on the digital map; a good Instagram strategy has the potential to reach out to millions at once.
Welcoming the trend of Instagram video marketing
True, Instagram began as an app that worked best for posting photos. However, the emergence of video marketing compelled decision makers at the silicon valley-based company to revisit and revitalize their video publishing features and tools.
Today, videos and photos share an almost equal weight on Instagram, and this has had a dramatic effect on brands’ ability to create solid video strategies tailored to a young, lucrative demo.
Before we go on to talk about how brands can use effective Instagram video strategies to boost their presence and campaigns, let’s answer some basic questions regarding videos on Instagram:
1. How long can Instagram videos be?
Not so long ago, the maximum Instagram video length was only 15 seconds long. However, a recent update allows users to upload videos that can be up to 1 minute long.
And let’s not forget about IGTV! An IGTV video can be anywhere between 15 seconds to 10 minutes long, and accounts that are verified (blue tick), or have a significant number of followers can also get the option to post videos that are an hour long.
“Instagram story videos can be 15 seconds long, but there isn’t a limit on how many stories can be uploaded.”
2. How do you post videos on Instagram?
To post a video on your feed, you can click on the “+” icon, and either use your device’s camera to record a video or choose from your gallery.
Before uploading, you have several video editing options that Instagram offers: Trimming, cropping, adding filters, muting audio, and so on.
Next, you can add a caption, the necessary hashtags, tag other accounts if needed, add location, and even share the video to your other linked social media pages while you upload to Instagram simultaneously.
Click on “post” and your video will be uploaded in a few seconds.
3. How does IGTV work?
Since IGTV is still a relatively new feature on Instagram, let’s understand how you can use it.
When you click on your profile, you’ll find a small icon below your profile picture which looks like a TV. This is where your followers can view all the videos that you upload on it. It’s similar to having a YouTube channel, but it’s built into Instagram.
You can click on the “+” sign when you open this tab and upload new videos. You can also add descriptions to these videos.
IGTV videos need to be oriented in portrait mode, and not landscape, to be optimally viewed by people. And so far, the maximum video length limit for accounts in 10 minutes for regular accounts, and 60 minutes for verified ones or those with a large following.
Instagram Video strategies that will blow up your profile
Whether you’re a brand or an individual who’s looking to increase your page traffic and also your potential reach on Instagram; here’s how you can use excellent video marketing hacks to make it happen:
1. Push the envelope
There are two things you really need to focus on:
Being different and delivering the right message. By the right message, we mean the intended message of your campaign and video. Videos can definitely give a lot more content and information to viewers than just photos, and that’s a fact you need to bank on.
“So, while you make your videos comprehensible, you also need to work on making your content stand out from the crowd.”
Remember, there are thousands of other brand pages that are probably trying to create stellar video marketing strategies too. So, what exactly helps your content stand out from theirs? Creativity, out-of-the-box ideas, catchy audio, and video – all of these contribute to making content difficult to forget, and appealing at the same time.
2. Track responses, make changes
What type of video content seems to be working well with your list of followers? Funny, informative, visually stunning, or all of the above? Depending on the niche that your brand belongs to, your videos need to fit right in and camouflage with the rest of your brand marketing efforts.
One way to assess what content holds up well with your followers is to experiment a little and upload different types of videos. Over a span of time, it should be fairly easy for you to track the response to each video, thanks to the “insights” that Instagram tools provide. The more engagement and number of views a video can draw for your brand, the more you should focus on creating the same type of content. But you need to take care to not appear monotonous because people can tire of it quickly.
“Posting is not enough. You need to need to be proactive with assessing the performance of your video content for future alterations so your strategies are more successful.”
3. Create a separate strategy for stories
Instagram stories have become one of the most used and loved features on Instagram, with over 500 million stories being posted daily on the app. This means that half the number of Instagram accounts are active on stories every single day. This presents a great opportunity for brands to tap into the feature and also stay in touch with their followers every day.
So, you can start creating videos specially curated for stories, optimized as per the orientation, resolution, and of course, the duration of 15 seconds. You can even create a series of videos, turn it into a campaign, and stay consistent with your posting. And since stories have several additional features like stickers, filters, and GIFs, to name a few, you can make the most of them to enhance the appeal of your videos.
