3 Tips for Using Videos on Instagram

Instagram entered the social market at a perfect time. It was a time when people were fed up with the unimportant excess on Facebook, but were still searching for the perfect platform to share every detail of their day. Enter Instagram. Only two months after this online mobile, photo-sharing and now, video-sharing social media service launched, Instagram already had one million subscribers. Fast-forward two years, Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion dollars. Today Instagram is the #1 photo sharing social media platform. It’s home to 130 million active monthly users, and over 1 billion photos and videos are liked each and every day. With this amount of social proof, of course, there are opportunities for businesses to interact with their audience. Let’s talk about best practices your business can take to harness the power of videos on Instagram.

All you get is 15 seconds

Videos on Instagram are meant to be short, sweet and poppy. In the app, you’re able to upload the video of your choice and select which area of the video you’d like to be played. Be strategic with this and only select the most powerful 15 seconds. Bonus Tip: Try Instagram’s new app called Hyperlapse. It speeds up a lengthy video and compiles it into only 15 seconds.

#Hashtags

Many people hate the use of hashtags, thinking they are used and abused. In all honestly, they are. Many people use the most generic, popular hashtags often not hiding the fact that they are trying to get more likes. This approach will bring a lot of spammy content to your page. That’s not what we’re going for here. The key with hashtags is to be consistent. If you do decide to implement hashtags, try your best to use them mindfully on every post. Choose 4 or 5 main keywords associated with your video and use those hashtags. Once you’ve tagged your video with the hashtags, click through each hashtag and be active within them. This will organically direct traffic back to your Instagram feed. Bonus Tip: Don’t include your hashtags directly in your sentences like #this. A best practice is to finish your caption and include your handful of hashtags at the end.

Mindful Thumbnails

Instagram’s video to use auto-play if the user stops scrolling on your video, but if the user keeps scrolling through, all they will see is a still image from your video. This still image needs to be eye-catching and intriguing to get the user to stop scrolling and watch your video. Be mindful of this when choosing your thumbnail. Instagram is Digital Brew’s social media platform of choice. It is incredibly visual and a fun way to get the conversation going. Once you get your Instagram up and running, be sure to connect with us @digitalbrew. Have any questions? Ask us on Twitter —> @Digitalbrew_co