We’re pretty excited by IGTV here at Mattr. Last week we asked the question: would the introduction of IGTV compel YouTube to up its game–to be more competitive in the quest to retain creators and maybe attract them from Instagram? We’ll find out soon enough, I suppose. But in the meantime brands and influencers are sniffing and poking this newly discovered species, trying to figure out just how best to leverage IGTV for upcoming campaigns. Guess what? It’s ready now!
How It’s Different From YouTube
Instagram designed IGTV to take the fight right to YouTube. They have thousands of Instagrammers with large audiences who have yet to make that jump to YouTube. Now they don’t have to grow on a new platform. And with their initial rules, Instagram is aiming for compelling, fresh content. For example, a creator can only upload video content that’s already been shot, opting not to allow videos to be created spontaneously and shared directly from the app. Although a pretty low wall for users to step over, this presumably will lead to higher quality videos with at least some post process review.
Further, you’re able to upload videos directly via Instagram’s desktop site from your computer. (You still can’t upload photos from your computer though). And their goal to attract larger creators is furthered by allowing videos of up to one hour–as long as the creator has a big enough following. What’s that bar, you ask? Although it was reported to be 10,000 followers there apparently are cases of users with over 10,000 still constrained to ten minutes. And last, according to Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s CEO, their insistence on portrait orientation was to enable original content rather than re-posting YouTube videos.
This is actually good news for brands this fall and winter. All these rules work in the brand’s favor for influencer campaigns planned in the near term. Now you just need to learn a solid approach for how to integrate IGTV into your next campaign.
A Taste for Conversions
You’ve read how we’re at the End of the Impression Era for influencer campaigns; brands have had the sweet taste of quantifiable engagement and are now aching for the umami: conversion. To note: every campaign we’ve run for brands this year has included a conversion link. And because we’ve seen overall conversion results of just under 5% with some outliers at 39%, eyebrows are raising higher than the temperature in Austin. It gets better. It sounds obvious, but the longer the link stays in the profile, the higher number of conversions you’ll receive. For example, on a recent campaign of ours we saw average conversion jump from 7% to 13% when the link stayed in the influencer profile for longer than an average of 20 days. The excitement is tempered, however, because a live liink for more than 24 hours is currently a one-off in the influencer world.
To ensure the link stays in place you’ll need to work it through your provider, and probably pay up for it. So how can you keep the clicks rolling in? This is where IGTV can help, at least for now.
Optimize Your Campaign With All Three
With the addition of IGTV, Instagram has punched that extra hole in your cute new suede belt for the holidays, extending your impressions, conversion, and engagement beltline. We see engagement taper off from image and short video posts over 70% after just 12 hours and diminish to effectively zero after 48 hours. And always a concern – will Instagram decide your influencers’ posts should be featured in their audiences’ feed? But the legacy of posts still rates high.
Adding Stories, constrained to a life of 24 hours, provides more value than you think. Stories can be more prominently visible than posts for that 24 hours, can be a lot more fun and informative, and do not seem to suffer from the dreaded “Algorithmia”. But IGTV? Depending on how prolific the people you follow are on IGTV, videos can hang near the front of the carousel for days – sometimes weeks. And because you can add hashtags, comments (including non-hyperlinked URLs) and tags, it’s like having a 10 to 60 minute well-edited video post that stays in front of your consumer for days instead of hours. It’s as close to bottomless mimosas as you’ll get at the Instagram brunch. But you better hurry because time is not on your side. As with each new feature from a provider like Instagram adoption will be slow at first then, as people figure out how to use IGTV, that carousel will fill up, effectively shortening the shelf life.
An integrated, comprehensive campaign consisting of posts, stories, and videos will extend the awareness and conversion of your campaign. As we at Mattr roll out these kinds of campaigns for our clients in the fall and winter, we’ll keep you apprised of metametrics so you can plan accordingly for next year.
About MATTR
MATTR is the only full-service influencer marketing provider with detailed audience insights from PersonaMesh™. We go beyond demographics into psychographics such as values and interests so that your influencer campaigns align with your campaign targets.