It’s no secret that creating unique content on social media is one of the best ways to market yourself or your business.

With over a billion active users, Instagram has become a one-stop-shop for brands to pull in followers and promote themselves. But there is a right and wrong way to use Instagram, and if you’re using it wrong, you might as well not use it at all.

If you’re looking for a marketing strategy, look no further. This guide will help you understand how to use IGTV to market your brand or business—and get results.

1. How to Use IGTV for Marketing

One of Instagram’s most prominent features to share content is IGTV. This allows users to upload video content that’s between 1-15 minutes. If you aren’t using this feature as part of your marketing strategy, you miss out on a great opportunity.

This powerful marketing platform is not hard to figure out. However, correctly doing it will yield much better results. This is how to use IGTV for marketing success.

2. Creating Content for IGTV

The video content on this Instagram should complement the images you’re posting on your account. Find a way to relate this content or expand on the content you’ve previously posted.

This video content should warrant being longer than one minute. You don’t want viewers to feel like they’ve wasted their time watching a six-minute video that could get the same information across in fifteen seconds.

When creating your video content, you want to keep the user experience in mind. Many people browse the app with the sound off, so you need to optimize your video for silent viewing. This means the video should make sense with the sound either on or off.

With viewers scrolling quickly, you need to get their attention in the first 15 seconds. That’s about how long it takes for people to decide to watch the rest of the video or not. Hook the viewer into watching more by putting the essential information in those first 15 seconds.

It’s also essential to think about accessibility when creating your content. For example, if there is a lot of speaking, you should close caption your video so that those with hearing impairments can access the content.

3. IGTV Content Ideas

Behind the scenes: Viewers love to see the process that leads to a finished product. This can work for any brand, business, or individual. If you have a small business selling products, show how you package your products for shipping. If you’re an artist, show how you organize your studio space.

Host a Q&A: Have your followers send in questions and answer them on IGTV. Direct interactions will allow you to show exciting parts of your business, provide viewers with information, and get user interaction, all of which will boost your brand.

Create tutorials or process videos: People love watching things being made; whether you include the steps is up to you. If you have the best recipes, film a video of you making that. If you do woodwork, show how you created your latest project.

Start a series: Consistent content creation is one of the most critical aspects of finding social media success. Creating a series allows this to be natural and high quality. It will give viewers something to look forward to watching.

4. Marketing on IGTV

As with any content creation, you’ll want to market it. Expecting people to find your content just because it’s out there is not a good strategy. Cross-promoting your video on other platforms can drive traffic to IGTV.

IGTV offers some built-in options for cross-promoting. You can share one-minute previews to your Instagram feed and profile or share IGTB videos to a connected Facebook page. You tell your followers on Instagram stories that you’ve posted a new IGTV that will drive traffic.

You may want to consider sharing your IGTV video to Twitter or your email newsletter off of the Instagram platform.
Hashtags, on Instagram, are king. On each IGTV video, you’ll want to use hashtags that are relevant to the content you’re posting or to your brand. This how you can get non-followers to discover your content. You can buy likes, it will help you to promote your brand.

Users who are searching for a specific hashtag will have your video appear on that hashtag’s page. It also helps the algorithm know what kind of content you post. Using hashtags, the algorithm may show your content to users interested in your type of content but might not have sought out a specific hashtag.

5. IGTV Video Details

It’s important to remember to create content that’s specific for IGTV. Uploading a video that has not been optimized for IGTV’s proportions will work, but it will not be the high-quality content that garners a lot of traffic.

The best way to ensure quality and optimized content is to know Instagram’s horizontal dimensions and verticle dimensions for IGTV videos. It’s also important to know all the spec information for IGTV videos to create high-quality content.

Here is the video spec information for IGTV videos:

  • File format: MP4
  • Video length: Minimum 1 minute
  • Max video length: 15 minutes if you’re uploading on mobile; 60 minutes if you’re uploading from the web
  • Aspect Ratios: Verticle aspect ratio: 9:16; Horizontal aspect ratio: 16:9
  • Minimum frame rate: 30 frames per second
  • Minimum resolution: 720 pixels
  • Maximum file size: Videos less than 10 minutes: 650MB; Videos up to 60 minutes: 3.6GB
  • Cover photo size: 420px by 654px (a 1:1.55 ratio)

6. Final Thoughts on IGTV

Instagram has become a necessity for a brand’s marketing strategy. Utilizing Instagram’s user base, brands and businesses can use its features as a marketing technique. Using these features correctly is imperative for marketing success.

Learning how to use IGTV is one of the best moves that a brand or business can make for their marketing strategy. What content are you creating for social media?

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