Instagram has changed seriously for the year of 2017. Having launched Stories, it did not just enable new ways to publish posts and advertising but also became competitive enough with Snapchat. Everybody has almost forgotten about Periscope, which made a great fuss because Live broadcasting is now available on Instagram - even together with other users. The new post-ranking algorithm has changed managing Instagram accounts for good: fake users and Likes have become almost useless and accounts with real followers have started appearing on top. The possibility of searching posts users are interested in has given them a chance to find relevant content. However, the most important change of 2017 is the increase of video content because of Vine app shut down: most of the Viners just “moved” to Instagram. Of course, it has been possible to upload videos of length up to 60 seconds since 2016. Now Viners, musicians and other guys who have cameras make one-minute videos while users spend 80% of their time watching them on Instagram.
Videos have become more popular than photos
If you use Search, Instagram will show posts which are the most interesting to you based on your activity on the network. Almost half of all posts shown are videos and, of course, unobtrusive requests to watch the most popular Live broadcasts in the world or in your city:
Instagram is already not only an app for taking selfies and uploading sweet kitten pictures but quite a serious platform with more than 800 million users all over the world. 58 of 100 most profit-making companies in the world have accounts on Instagram and take it very seriously. Pages on social networks have become not only front doors of companies but also an online showcase and an active platform for communication with clients.
According to Brand Networks research, for the year 2016 alone video advertising became twice as much popular: where previously it had accounted for 30% of all advertising, the figure was already 65% by the beginning of 2017. Some popular accounts’ percentage of video content, as, for example, Nike’s, is about 80% of all publications. Adidas, another sports brand, also makes high-quality content, and there are also more video posts than photo ones.
Taking into account the fact that Facebook feed has mainly been showing video publications for quite long, we can suppose that the same changes will happen to Instagram as well. Thant’s why you should think of uploading more videos to your account if you haven’t started doing it yet.
A perfect Instagram video
It seems like to be trendy you can start posting videos mindlessly. Nevertheless, it is not this simple. Your videos must grab audience’s attention in the first few seconds and be visually appealing to get a better reach. A nice-looking but monotonous video will most likely not be watched to the end that’s why you should add action to your video content.
About 85% of users start watching videos with the sound off – this fact comes from Facebook statistics, which also can be applied to Instagram. Thus, add subtitles to your videos so that they can be watched comfortably with the sound off.
How to use Instagram videos
Publish announces containing video fragments in Stories: having viewed a mini-teaser, people will want to watch the video to the end.
Broadcast Live regularly: this way you can communicate with your followers and clients personally and hold unique activities and competitions. Show how you work, show your office and the inside of your business – people love details – they make the Byer and the brand closer giving a chance to see the backstage and strengthening brand confidence.
One more useful instrument is promotional advertising on Instagram. If you develop a proper targeting strategy and spend lots of money on it, your video may very likely become a viral and highly publicized one.
Dry Statistics
35% of Instagram users publish hundreds of millions of videos daily: Instagram Stories have become 3 times as popular as Snapchat posts.
On Instagram video advertising is commented twice as often as photo advertising, it proves that video content’s reach is a lot more than photo content’s. This trend is going to be on top for quite a while.
Video advertising in Stories and on feed helped many brands augment their recognition considerably (for example, the movie ‘La La Land’).
To be short, if you haven’t held a video camera in your hands yet and cannot edit videos, it’s time to learn how to do it because videos are conquering Instagram and other social networks rapidly. Of course, your first videos may look far from perfection, but if you practice regularly, you can get excellent results in a matter of days/weeks/months.
Smartphone, camera, action!
