Instagram's new feature - IGTV

We’ve all seen and used Instagram’s new app IGTV, but it all has us wondering: what does it have in store for creators and should companies start using it in their marketing strategy? Well, it depends!

It depends because although Instagram stories has 300 million daily users, we can't measure how successful IGTV will be. It can either have a massive audience wanting to watch creators upload videos or it just may just die down.

Here are a few reasons why you should use IGTV in a Marketing Strategy

• Instagram has an incredible audience of one billion active users, so the potential of reach is huge – The main target audience of users are ‘Millenials’  which sets it aside from Facebook or YouTube.
• People who have a large following already can expect their followers to be interested in IGTV content that’s been put out, especially if they’re already engaged in simple 60 second videos. They are also saved permanently and do not disappear after 24 hours, unlike Stories.
• Content creators are able to produce longer content - meaning content creators no longer have to to split their video across multiple Story entries.
• IGTV has a lot more detailed analytics, which will give you a better insight and can help you as a company understand more about how effective a video is.

Taking the risk

It’s worth investigating IGTV Insights to help you understand the effectiveness of the content you’re putting out and seeing if there is a reach before adding IGTV into your marketing strategy.

The ‘Engagement’ section gives you basic stats such as views, likes and comments. It’s important to understand that a ‘view’ is only considered when someone has watched at least three seconds of your video and so unfortunately it doesn’t tell you whether they have watched all of it. On the other hand. the ‘Audience retention’ section is where IGTV insights are shown in more detail. Firstly, it shows you the average percentage watched. Even more useful is the audience retention graph - this shows how viewers drop off as the video progresses; it can be really useful to help you understand if there is a particular point where people’s attention is diverted and drops off. If only a small percentage of people watch the end of your video, you may want to shorten future videos.

Having to consider all your options; First, the success of Instagram Stories, there’s a good chance that IGTV will take off. There is an interesting gap in the market, and its vertical format gives it a clear point of difference. However, you may want to stick to YouTube if you have a well-established channel rather than taking on IGTV to publish content. It’s up to you.

Have you tried IGTV yet? We would love for you to tell us about your experiences and tips to be discussed on our next blog post. Tweet us @eCareersLtd

Call us on +44 (0) 20 3198 7700 to speak to one of our Career Consultants today, to discuss your career goals or get started.