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Short for Instagram TV, IGTV is a long-form video that lasts longer than Instagram Story videos. Since its launch in June 2018, IGTV became a game-changer for brands to amplify their content creation with videos.

If you haven’t had the chance to try IGTV for your business, there are few key things to take note:

• Unlike Instagram Stories, these videos can run up to 10 minutes but for larger and verified accounts, videos can run up to 1 hour.
• These videos remain on your channel forever - unless you delete it.
• Instagram and IGTV are two separate apps, so it can be used alone or complementary addition to Instagram.
• Functionality - You can implement Swipe Up call-to-actions in the videos you create.

Designed to give users a TV experience on both desktop and mobile, IGTV gives brands the opportunity to share educational and entertaining content with their audience. But how can IGTV be used to promote business? Here are 5 ways to leverage your video content and help grow your brand:

#1: Repurpose Your Old Videos

Breathe life into your old videos by repurposing it for IGTV. Even the videos you have previously posted on your other social media pages can also be reused. There’s no better place to draw inspiration for IGTV than your very own blog posts! Your blog posts about tips and how-tos are perfect sources for creating educational IGTV for your channel.

#2: Share Authentic and Exclusive Video Content

Audiences crave authenticity. In fact, people love to view videos that are raw and unedited. What are some examples of these kinds of videos?

• Behind-the-scenes videos that show your back-of-the-house operations.
• Live coverage of your business events and promotions such as social gatherings, trade shows, and other business engagements worth sharing.
• Office tours, interviews, Q and As, or simple storytelling of your brand.

These are perfect examples of authentic videos that you can create exclusively for your brand. Of course, to establish a meaningful connection with your audience, you need to be posting these on a regular basis and your content needs to add value.

#3: Showcase Your Products with Tutorial Videos

Tutorial and how-to videos are helpful in showcasing the product features to the audience while highlighting its selling point. If you have new products to offer, tease your audience with a preview and feature snippets of the product and its benefits.

It doesn’t matter what kind of product or services you offer – the possibilities are endless with IGTV. Anyone can get creative with their video content as long as it’s beneficial for the brand and your viewers. If your business caters to cooking wares, you can do a live cooking demo. If you’re in the recruitment industry, doing live how-tos can help you bring out your brand’s potential.

#4: Develop your Community with Recurring Shows

IGTV offers a TV experience for the viewers so take advantage of this opportunity. How? Dedicate exclusive video content for a show, a segment or a series and schedule it on a regular basis so your viewers have something to look forward to from your channel. It could be a weekly segment about you talking with influential personalities within your industry or something else that will leave your viewers wanting more.

#5: Invite your Customers to Build Social Proof

This may take some real guts but nothing is more believable to customers than your own customers showing proof of their loyalty to your products. Communicate with some of your most loyal customers and invite them to be featured in your IGTV. Aside from building social proof, you’re also taking your relationship with them into a deeper level; something that’s really valuable to them.

IGTV doesn’t produce results overnight, so it needs a well-thought approach with the best IGTV practices. What are those?

• Test how your audience responds to your videos and see what engages them more. It has been known that shorter videos are more preferable for engagement but it couldn’t be true in all cases. IGTV lets you experiment and get creative so you can find what ticks your viewers. To help you with this, you can access Insights by opening the video and tapping on View Insights.

• Cross-promote your IGTV video. Maximise your IGTV power by cross-promoting it via Instagram stories. Create a new IG Story and tap the link icon to include the IGTV link. Then choose IGTV video on the next screen and add a direct link to your video. Aside from IG Story, you can also promote your IGTV through Twitter and Facebook.

• Upload vertical videos. IGTV is designed for vertical videos, so be sure to create your content in a vertical fashion. Your horizontal videos can still be edited to fit in the format, but with an application fee using some formatting tools.

• Optimise for SEO. Make sure you add an engaging title to your video to catch substantial attention and consider using relevant keywords in your descriptions. Hashtags should be present as well since it’s for Instagram use. IGTV is still a fairly new platform and algorithms are still unclear so stick with the basic SEO practices.

IGTV indeed is an opportunity to help your business grow and attract a following on your Instagram channel. While YouTube and Instagram Stories are still more popular, the channel isn’t as saturated and may give you an advantage before everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

With patience, consistency, and implementation of best practices, IGTV has the potential to push your business upwards to meet your goals.

Elephant in the Boardroom specialises in helping businesses increase their digital reach. Find out more about our effective marketing tactics to help your brand grow in different social media channels. Visit our website www.elephantintheboardroom.com.au to learn more about our services.

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