Looking to make the most out of video to promote your brand? There’s more ways to use video marketing these days than ever – no Youtube channel required! And Instagram video, in particular, can seriously help you hit your marketing goals.
Video is quickly becoming the preferred type of content for users to enjoy. It’s no wonder why Instagram quickly began adding in ways for users to create it on their platform!
So far, there are three ways to create videos on Instagram: video feed posts, Instagram Stories, and the latest addition: IGTV.
THREE WHOLE WAYS to use video on Instagram, with each type helping to accomplish different marketing goals!
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You heard that right: Instagram video can help you reach your marketing goals.
Why?
Video content helps you build authentic relationships with your audience – and a lot of your audience is on Instagram!
How does that work?
Whether you’re showing your audience the behind-the-scenes action for creating your course, explaining the back story behind your newest blog post, or just showcasing your less-than-convenient emotions, there is an Instagram video type that works perfectly for your content.
Pssst… need a refresher on size and dimension requirements for each type of Instagram video? Find them here! )
Just as your marketing goals are varied, so are Instagram video strategies.
In this article, we’re going to dig into exactly what those Instagram video strategies are, and how you can use them to crush your marketing goals.
Prefer to watch and listen? Cameron Gray breaks down all the main points of this post in the following video!
But before we dig into each of these strategies, arm yourself with the tools to make posting your videos and tracking results even easier! How? With Tailwind’ for Instagram’s all-in-one scheduling tool!
Marketing Goal 1: Authentically Connect with your Audience
Instagram Video Strategy: Create real connections with Instagram Stories.
Instagram Stories, with their bite-sized, quickly-disappearing format (they disappear after 24 hours), are made to be in the moment.
They’re a stark contrast from the typical heavily-curated, super-polished feed posts. Stories tend to feature raw, up-to-date video that adds real depth to your Instagram account.
They’re also a way to showcase your actual workflow & stay in touch with your audience every day without spending an extra hour editing, filtering, and finding the right hashtags. (Of course, our Hashtag Finder tool and saved Hashtag Lists feature save you valuable time here!)
Since Instagram introduced the Stories feature, the average amount of time people spend on the platform increased by 28 minutes! This makes incorporating Stories into your Instagram video strategy a must if you’re interested in increasing your watch time.
The realness of Instagram Stories makes your brand human and relatable for your audience. After all, a gorgeous vista of a jungle spa in Bali filtered to perfection is just (unfortunately), unrelatable to most of us.
To recap:
Instagram Stories create authentic connections with your audience, because your followers can see the humanity and imperfection behind you, the face behind your brand.
Marketing Goal 2: Build Brand Trust
Instagram Video Strategy: Narrate your brand with Instagram Stories.
Building brand trust takes authentic audience connections to a whole ‘nother level; the brand level. It’s one thing to help your audience see and connect with you – a person. And it’s another thing entirely to help an audience see and connect with a brand or a business.
Human nature to connect with other people comes natural, but to connect to a brand? That takes some serious communication skills.
Besides increasing sales and creating more value for your audience, building brand trust significantly deepens your audience connections. This creates loyalty and genuine enthusiasm for your products, services and campaigns!
So, how do you unlock brand trust?
People start to trust brands once they understand the people behind them. You can begin deepening that understanding by explaining your thoughts, feelings, happenings, and workflow. Instagram Stories is a great place to do this!
Even beyond that initial understanding, however, is a unique space where your audience forms a very real connection to your products, services, & overall mission. That’s what you want to goal to reach!
Use Instagram Stories to bridge that gap for your followers. Explain your brand mission, what you stand for and how your products and services further that mission.
Finally, the other part of the brand trust equation is truly understanding your audiences’ wants & needs, relating to them, and speaking to how your brand helps meet those wants & needs.
Want to read a fun example? Our post on scheduling videos to Instagram contains has a few strategies on how to get to know your audience better, plus a case study on how Taco Bell responded to their audience’s needs. (By petitioning for a taco emoji, of course!)
To recap:
Use Instagram Stories to build brand trust by narrating your everyday work. Link it all back to how you’re furthering the mission, delivering on your promises, and cultivating your vision.
Marketing Goal 3: Increase your Public Speaking Skillset
Instagram Video Strategy: Utilize IGTV’s long-form video to gain confidence on camera.
When IGTV was first launched, (way back in the good ol’ days of 2018), it filled a gap that other Instagram video types couldn’t: long-form video.
With videos of up to 10 minutes long & 650 MB sizes, (or 60 minutes & 3.6 GB if you’re super popular), IGTV successfully breached the realms of long-form video that was believed to only exist in YoutubeLand.
Want a full breakdown on IGTV and how to use it? Read our blog post all about using IGTV for marketing!
Long-form video gives more – you guessed it – time in front of the camera. And the more time spent in front of the camera, the more time spent getting comfortable with it.
Less than excited about getting on camera for minutes at a time? It happens to the best of us! (I, for one, notice a ridiculous uptick in subtle nervous energy after even just a couple of weeks of not being in front of the camera.)
However, the more comfortable you are on video, the more relatable you can make your brand or business, and the mission behind it!
To recap:
Utilize long-form video in IGTV to create built-in media training that can help you skyrocket your public speech abilities for any kind of press: interviews, conferences, and even Ted Talks.
Marketing Goal 4: Showcase Your In-Depth Expertise
Instagram Video Strategy: Go deeper into the details with IGTV.
IGTV’s long-form video has another advantage: helping you delve further into details that the bite-sized videos of Stories and regular feed posts just don’t leave time for!
And keeping your videos short and just linking out to one of your blog posts when things get meaty doesn’t always do the trick – especially if you’re establishing yourself as a thought leader, or educating your followers!
And videos are one of the most effective ways to communicate your message and educate viewers. In fact, viewers actually retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text.
While many audience members are just skimmers, hopping around from one person’s point of view to the next, some audience members want more.
Simply put, they want more explanation, more entertainment, more instruction, more ideas, and more inspiration. And you have a unique opportunity to give them exactly what they want. The best part is, you don’t have to move them off the platform to do it! IGTV can deliver all of your gems of knowledge in one video, no Youtube login required.
To recap:
Make use of IGTV to showcase your expertise and dig deeper into the details of a process, a tutorial, a Q & A, or anything that warrants a 60 second + explanation.
Marketing Goal 5: Go Beyond Pretty Pictures
Instagram Video Strategy: Swap out pretty pictures for Video Feed Posts to showcase uncurated personality.
Showcasing not just your personality, but your brand’s personality, does absolute wonders for your business. Pretty pictures showcase your brand, but well thought-out video feed posts, build up and reinforce the rapport with your followers.
But how does video build more rapport than plain ol’ images? To get super technical for a moment, it all comes down to frame rates.
Frame rates are just how often a stationary picture is shown in video, with the average being between 24 – 30 frames per second. So look at it this way: a stationary picture is only 1 frame, while a 30 second video is actually 900 frames. That’s 900 more opportunities to grab attention and build rapport.
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Another fun term to know in video is compression, which is essentially just the act of reducing the video size. Since video files can get pretty large, social media platforms like Instagram (and Facebook), automatically compress your videos you upload to take up less space on their expensive servers.
Sometimes this process can result in a fuzziness or blurred effect in your video.
So how do you beat this? You upload your video inside certain parameters, you will not lose that sharp, high-resolution quality. Find out all of the video size requirements on Instagram here!
To recap:
Switch up your feed approach from just simple photo images to using video in your feed posts. This will help you showcase uncurated personality in a way that builds essential rapport with your audience.
Marketing Goal 6: Utilize the Fastest Growing Form of Content
Instagram Video Strategy: Upgrade your video strategy game with Video Feed Posts.
Video has emerged as the clear front-runner when it comes to how people consume content these days. There’s downright staggering statistics on video out right now to back this up.
And making video content is not just a boat that you need to catch – it’s the entire Panama Canal, opening up entire worlds that our ancient ancestors (A.K.A. Gen X ), could never dream of accessing. Don’t take the long way to give your audience the connection that they desire – cut right to it with video post!
To recap:
Get ahead of the content curve by producing tons of easily digestible content in the form of video feed posts.
In Conclusion
We spotlighted six different marketing goals, that you, as a marketer for your brand/business, would love to crush on the daily:
- Authentically Connecting with your Audience
- Building Brand Trust
- Increasing your Public Speaking Skillset
- Showcasing Your In-Depth Expertise
- Going Beyond Pretty Pictures
- Utilizing the Fastest Growing Form of Content
And we connected those six marketing goals, with the three different types of Instagram video:
- Instagram Stories
- IGTV
- Video Feed Posts
And then we outlined SIX exceptionally useful video strategies to accomplish those six marketing goals by using those three Instagram video types (I love numbers!):
- Create real connections with Instagram Stories
- Narrate your brand with Instagram Stories
- Utilize IGTV’s long-form video to gain confidence on camera
- Go deeper into the details with IGTV
- Swap out pretty pictures for Video Feed Posts to showcase uncurated personality
- Upgrade your video strategy game with Video Feed Posts
If any of the above summary is boggling your brain – don’t worry! Practice makes perfect. Tackle one goal and each strategy at a time until you feel comfortable using Instagram video regularly in your marketing strategy..
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In fact, video content, like all social media content plays an integral role in your sales & marketing funnels. And before you let the term ‘funnels’ intimidate you, just know that a funnel is only the visual representation of an audience member’s journey from discovering your brand to becoming a paying customer.
We have only recently delved further into the user/customer experience, so sales & marketing funnels are fairly new terms. As a result, you’ll find many different definitions on the Wild Wild Web. But there’s three main stages to any funnel, no matter which way you slice it – attracting, nurturing, and converting.
Sales and Marketing Funnels Structure:
Video content serves best as not only an ideal form of attracting your audience, but it’s a downright brilliant way to nurture your audience.
Start rolling out more high-quality video content with Instagram Stories, video feed posts, and IGTV, and start crushing more marketing goals!
And remember – scheduling videos on Instagram can be so much easier by using Tailwind for Instagram. You can also find the best hashtags, plan your grid, and track your results all inside our tool! Sign up for a free trial of Tailwind for Instagram to try it for yourself – no credit card required!
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