Instagram: Photo and Video-sharing Social Network

What started off as a picture sharing platform almost 10 years ago, quickly became a staple for all businesses to build their social media following and establish themselves as a go-to brand. 

Who could’ve imagined that Instagram would become such a huge success, since adding video-sharing Instagram has continued to evolve into a social platform which is more widely used now for business purposes. Apart from this, we entered the age of influencers and marketers.

So let’s get started with the dissection of Instagram and how to use video in marketing strategies.

How effective is video marketing on Instagram?

Let us begin by asking, what’s the first thing you see when you launch the Instagram App? Stories.

Subsequently, as you scroll down you find recent friend posts, memes, and posts from some of your favorite brands. What started off as just a photo-sharing application quickly adopted video as emerging competitor Vine was making itself felt on the social media world.

It’s important to note that now Tik-Tok is having the same implications on Instagram as Vine once did.

Nowadays, people don’t just see Instagram as a place to share cool photos or videos. People use it as an outlet to connect with their favorite brands being able to create unique and fresh content while getting featured on pages, stores, and more.

The Current Problem for Businesses on Instagram

Apart from everyday users, businesses have recently been struggling to gain traction with their audience due to lack of context, and creativity.

One of the biggest mistakes that we often see is that businesses don’t engage with their audience. Additionally, they don’t reply to comments, they don’t like their audience pages or posts, nor do they respond to tagged posts.

To add to this there’s still nearly 72% of business pages who don’t use video in their marketing. It’s important to note, businesses who use video in marketing see higher engagement. Did you know that 50% of people on Instagram prefer video?

That being said, the answer to all video marketing needs on Instagram, give your audience what they want.

What Kind of Content Should I Use for My Business on Instagram?

For instance, you can educate your audience on your services and products, or you can motivate them to buy into your services and products. Lastly, you can simply entertain them as a brand, finding out what works best for you is part of what it takes to stand out from your competition with the use of creative videos.

In addition to educating and motivating, from a technical standpoint you should start using stories to your advantage. Videos on stories and polls help you understand your audience.

In feed, videos are a must and if you’re not using IGTV already, you should start NOW.

Of course, IGTV is new but, Instagram is gearing up for its second life looking to go head to head with YouTube. Right now on IGTV if you have less than 10 Thousand followers you can publish a 10-minute video.

Therefore this will give you plenty of time and room for you to find newer and more refreshing ways to connect with your audience.

Some of our recommended actions for videos on Instagram are:

• Add a Call-To-Action
• Add 24 Hashtags or Less
• Geotag Your Location
• Reshare Your Feed Videos On Stories
• Write Unique and Engaging Captions That Inspire People To Comment
• Choose a Catchy Thumbnail That Inspires Curiosity

Finally, following these steps, you’ll be more likely to see new success with your video marketing efforts on Instagram. However, we ask that you take everything with a grain of salt.

Instagram much like Facebook is becoming a pay to play space so be sure to implement an Advertising Budget for you to constantly generate some brand awareness.

Does Twitter Help Video Marketing?

Absolutely! The reason why twitter is so good for video is that you can follow up on your video creating a thread inciting a conversation to start with your following. 

We bet you didn’t know that the life-span of a tweet is about 18 minutes. In addition to a tweet short life-span, twitter requires consistency.

The best way to master twitter is simple, average 2 tweets per hour, and make sure the tweets are consistent with your thoughts and your brand.

Moreover,

The best tips we can provide you for video marketing on twitter are the following:

• Create Gifs from Your Videos
• Create Short Snippets
• Add Call-To-Actions
• Tag Accounts You Want To Be Noticed By
• Link Your Full YouTube Videos On Your Threads

Nonetheless, it’s important to maintain an omnichannel presence across all available social platforms. With this in mind, we didn’t want to leave behind the up and coming LinkedIn.

Especially, in the world of content and video in marketing. Recently, LinkedIn has risen as one of the most efficient social media platforms for Business-to-Business (B2B) content.

Taking Advantage of LinkedIn’s Organic Reach

Without a doubt, when you create value-adding content especially on LinkedIn, you’ll find that your content can reach 100s if not 1000s of people from a single post.

Now, what’s the best type of content to create and share on LinkedIn?

• Educational: Teach people about your job and your brand
• Entertaining: Entertain people with products and services that your brand offers
• Sales: Use your content as a way to sell your services and products

In addition to LinkedIn’s organic reach, LinkedIn has created and enabled features that allow users to embed videos into written articles as well as you’re able to create captions and title tags directly from the platform making it super easy to use and fast to create. So our recommendation here at Mark Jacobs Productions is to create content on LinkedIn constantly.