Looking for ways to boost your Instagram video engagement and get more from your Instagram?
Whether you’re after higher engagement on your account, more followers or even more traffic to your site, don’t count Instagram video out as a major driver for #AllOfTheAbove.
Why? A recent study from Mention found that Instagram video posts get more engagement than photo AND carousel posts.
On top of that, as Instagram hides likes on your posts, users will naturally shift towards other metrics to judge your account. This experiment doesn’t look to be going away anytime soon, so now is the time to evaluate other avenues of more visible engagement metrics on Instagram.
One of those ways is by publishing good video content! Need some help getting started? Here’s a list of 5 Instagram video ideas for engagement (with examples!)
People are always on the lookout for helpful tips and hacks to make their lives easier. Sharing Instagram videos that offer solutions to your follower’s most pressing problems will get you more engagement!
Stumped on good topics? Put yourself in your follower’s shoes for a minute.
Think about what they come to Instagram for and what daily obstacles they might be tackling. Then brainstorm some tips that might make those obstacles easier.
Boom! There’s your video. Depending on the topic, you can create long-form IGTV videos for more deep dives.
Or you can create short-and-sweet tidbits to post directly on your Instagram feed (the ideal video length is 26 seconds.)
An example of a quality how-to video is this one from Califia Farms.
They’re best known for their range of non-dairy products.
Califia Farms knows their audience will be interested in dairy-free and health-conscious recipes.
In this video, they create a quick recipe for Overnight Pumpkin Oats.
They also offer the full recipe through their Instagram link in bio, lifting traffic to their website!
You can easily create similar videos with tools like InVideo. This app has templates for both feed posts and Stories. Just upload your video and modify the text overlay included in the template.
Don’t have enough video footage? Use their library of video clips!
Long videos can either be published as an IGTV post or as a Carousel Story post.
Also, you can add more than 10 slides (which is something you can’t do with regular Instagram carousel/slideshow posts).
An example of a lengthy video that was divided up and posted as several slides in a story is this one from Bon Appetit.
They added the Story to their Instagram Highlights. This ensures that it will continually get more views since it won’t disappear after 24 hours!
Plus, they included a swipe up link to their website in one of the frames. Smart!
Another category of videos that generate a lot of engagement are entertaining videos.
People love watching funny content! You should jump at the chance to make content for entertainment purposes whether you’re a small business or an influencer.
For example, you can take a look at this IGTV video from Wistia, a video hosting company.
They went around counting how many chairs are in the office and they made it really fun!
This is also a great way to show some behind the scene footage at your office. It can help your followers form a stronger connection with your employees and your company as a whole.
Grab a good camera to record your how-to and entertaining videos. You can always record with your smartphone, but using a proper camera and recording a top-quality video will give you an edge.
Also, use some relevant hashtags in your Instagram captions as they can boost engagement. You can use Tailwind’s hashtag finder to find and add these hashtags in a snap!
Aren’t comfortable being in front of the camera quite yet? You can still create Instagram videos without showing your face!
Instead, experiment with quote videos!
Quotes are very popular on Instagram. They can generate quality engagement and you can find quotes for any niche.
You can create simple videos where the text appears as overlay on a background photo like in this video from Lululemon.
If you check out Lululemon’s Instagram profile, you’ll find most of them contain inspiration and motivational quotes.
There are numerous tools available to make something like this. My favorite is Screencast-O-Matic’s video editor. Heres how:
The amount of engagement you generate from your quote video will depend on how well your audience relates to it.
You can also use this information to create simple informative content like this one from Supergoop!
In this video, they define a term their audience will be interested in.
Running out of Instagram video ideas? Try publishing user-generated content!
Examples of this are:
Instagram videos like this help drive up social proof and entice more customers to buy your products and services, too!
A company that does this on a regular basis is Wacom. Here’s one of their videos showing some of the wonderful things you can do with a Wacom tablet.
When people watch videos like these, they will be interested in purchasing a Wacom tablet too.
To find user-generated content you can use a tool like Awario.
All you need to do is type in your brand or product name into their search field and it will find all captions with those keywords.
You can then DM the creator for a publishing request. If they are fine with it, you can publish the video!
You can alternatively ask all customers who want their videos to be featured on your site to add a branded hashtag to the video caption.
This will make it easy to find and add user-generated Instagram videos!
Another high-engagement Instagram video idea?
Create videos that are direct advertisements of your product in action. Like this video from Argos!
As you can see the video focuses on informing you about the product.
There’s also a call to action at the end.
When you view it on a mobile device you will notice that they tagged a product in the video (as you can tag products in videos too)!
And when you click on it you are taken right to the product page. This can increase both sales and traffic.
And you don’t have to always try to sell your products directly.
You can also create informative videos that indirectly promote products like in the first example (from Califia Farms).
In that video, Califia Farms shared a recipe, but their products are an integral part of making it!
These five Instagram video ideas are a great jumping-off point to help you generate more engagement, followers and traffic!
Experiment with one (or all of them) depending on your experience, budget and what you think your target audience will react to most.
Once you’ve created a few videos to experiment with on Instagram, upload them to Tailwind’s Instagram video publisher and schedule them at the best times.
With our tool, you can also easily find the best and most relevant hashtags, format your Instagram captions and see how your video thumbnail looks in your feed before you post!
The best part? Our 30-post trial is absolutely free – no credit card required. Grab yours today!
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