4 Simple Tips to Generate More Instagram Video Content for Your Brand
Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app.
Wait … say what?
Yep. You read that right. Adam Mosseri the head of Instagram, announced that the platform – used by more than a billion people around the globe – no longer wants to be thought of as “the square photo-sharing app.”
Instead, Mosseri said that Instagram plans to leverage video and become a general “entertainment” app after seeing the success of competitors like TikTok and YouTube.
Instagram has had full-screen video features (like IGTV, Reels, and Stories) for some time…but how exactly they plan to be more like their TikTok-and-YouTube-counterparts? Time will tell. For social media marketers who have been focusing on photography to generate engagement and impressions on Instagram, this was some rather Earth-rattling news.
Video content is going to soon become more valuable – and perhaps more impactful – for Instagram. That could be a great thing. But it also presents a challenge for many brands and agencies, since videos can be more time-consuming and costly to produce than still photos.
At Plan B, we believe that this doesn’t have to be the case. Below are 4 Simple Tips to generate more video content for your brand’s Instagram channel:
- Slice and dice – Has your brand previously produced longer-form videos? Take a look at those and consider if they could be edited into a series of shorter videos – like 15-30 second TikTok-optimized bites – to multiply your content.
- Embrace UGC – User-generated content (UGC) is already a popular source of content for many Instagram feeds, with brands reposting photos and videos that they’ve been tagged in by followers. As video becomes a bigger part of Instagram, it’s a safe bet that more users will create videos involving brands and their products. Tap into it by searching your brand’s tagged videos and relevant hashtags.
- Keep it simple –Social video content doesn’t have to be slickly produced. Some of the most popular online videos are on smartphones with minimal editing. Depending on your company, consider shooting simple behind-the-scenes videos, amusing snippets of people interacting with your products, and brief first-person testimonials. Authenticity doesn’t have to be complicated.
- Make your work work harder –Does your brand already have a TikTok account or a YouTube channel? If you haven’t already been using that same video content on Instagram, be sure to do so. The same goes for repurposing Instagram videos for TikTok and YouTube, which are rolling new longer-form and shorter-form video capabilities of their own.
So, fire up the video cameras! We hope these tips help you navigate the new video-sharing-app world, and get those reels turning.
