Last June, Instagram just launched its new addition to their long list of features – the IGTV.
IGTV is Instagram’s long-video format platform that allows creators to upload up to one hour of video on their “channel” (as they call it). Currently, this is only available to select creators – those who have IG accounts with a huge following (Selena Gomez, Kim K, Kevin Hart, and Lele Pons to name a few).
Both creators and audience can access IGTV by tapping on the orange TV button in the app, or download a stand-alone IGTV app.
Once you click the button, it will instantly play content from people you follow or what the algorithm thinks that you would like based on the accounts you follow and your view behavior.
Anything is now possible with Instagram with this TV feature. And while it is still a young one, it would be best to prepare to dive into the bigger picture and plan out on how you can maximize IGTV for your brand.
Start Small
Start with small bits of content for your page. Of course, because that’s what Instagram is currently allowing.
You can take on simple yet informative and enjoyable content for your page per episode. A good 3-5 minutes of video would suffice.
The thing about starting small is investing only a little (or none at all) just to test the tide. This is the best stage to experiment on content, aesthetic, presentation, and overall appeal of your channel.
Diversify Your Content
Right now, those who are not identified as content creators by IGTV can only create at most five minutes of video – and that’s already good enough.
With a five-minute window, you can think of a lot of many topics to talk about. In the end, it might sound disorganized and even redundant.
You can avoid this by sitting down and planning things out. What type of content should you do? What topics? You can also create a little survey from your viewers every episode to know what they’d like to see.
And soon, when they would already allow everyone to upload an hour’s worth of video, you can create different segments per episode. Yep, just like a variety show on TV!
Think of Ads
Right now, IGTV is still ad-free. But according to their press blog, there might be ads coming in the future to help creators monetize their content.
With this in mind, you plan out of a move forward towards creating ads.
If you have any brand influencers, it’s better if you channel your content through them. After all, they are the ones with the followers. The only thing that they might think about is some companies might want to come in and invest for ads which is a conflict of interest to yours. So how do you solve this?
You go both ways.
Your brand influencer is just one channel – and that might be enough. But if you have the budget to create ads and let it appear in most or similar channels, the higher exposure you can get. Of course, all these would depend on your marketing goals, budget, and more research on where your audience are more inclined to watch.
