IGTV has been somewhat overlooked since it launched back in 2018. Instagram are starting to push it more this year by introducing ads, enabling creators to monetise their videos and allowing Instagram Lives to be saved to IGTV. So how does IGTV work and how can small businesses use it to improve their social presence and make sales?

What is IGTV?

Essentially it’s just long form video on Instagram. Whereas the Instagram feed allows videos of up to 1 minute, on IGTV you can share much longer videos, much like you would on YouTube. Although when it started out it was vertical video only, you can now also share landscape video making re-purposing video content from other platforms much easier.

While IGTV does have a standalone app, it’s also baked into the Instagram app. On profiles you can tap the IGTV logo to view videos rather than grid posts and you can share videos to your Stories as you would any other post (currently IGTV videos shared to stories do not cross post to Facebook.)

Is it worth your time?

I vote yes. We all know video is popular and is a great way to connect with your audience and longer form videos perform well on other platforms; Facebook recommends a minimum of 3 minutes for videos, for example. It’s also a way to avoid posting longer videos using the carousel function; many of us have got round Instagram’s 60 second limit by cutting longer videos into 1 minute sections and sharing as a carousel grid post. Wahey for no more faffing like that!

You can use hashtags for IGTV just like you would on Instagram proper so you have a great opportunity to have your video content discovered. Additionally IGTV videos are included in the explore feed and previews can be shared to your grid.

In big news, URLs in video descriptions are clickable! That means that IGTV gives you an opportunity to link to places without needing to send people to your bio link. This is a real game changer for Instagram and a great reason to consider creating longer form video content on the platform.

Accessibility note: you currently need to burn in subtitles for IGTV videos as you cannot upload caption files.

As an aside; pre-recorded videos are a great option for people who don’t love going live but want to dip their toe in the video waters.

What to post

Of course this will depend on your business and audience but here’s some ideas

Devilishly Handsome Productions have shared some more ideas for Instagram video marketing over on their blog.

The IGTV basics tl;dr*

While it’s not set to overtake YouTube just yet, Instagram is such a popular platform that I think IGTV needs to be a part of your Insta-plan right now. With huge viewership on Stories and ever increasing app usage, it just makes sense to share any video content you create on the platform, even if you don’t have the resources to create content specifically for it.

Starting out on Instagram or looking to take the platform more seriously? Start sowing your social seeds with my free 5 day Instagram challenge. We start on Monday 6th July and I’d love you to be there.

*tl;dr = too long; didn’t read. The key information from the post.